What We Ask For (Matthew 7:7-14)
Sermon on the Mount • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
0 ratings
· 19 viewsNotes
Transcript
Sermon
Sermon
Key Passage
Key Passage
“Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.
For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.
“Which of you, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone?
Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake?
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!
So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.
“Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it.
But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.
VMP
VMP
Vision- We exist to reach the world for Jesus, one person at a time
Mission- We do this by creating Biblical disciples in relational environments
As we step into the month of September, we are emphasizing a core value of Connecting the Unconnected.
We believe that God gave the Gospel through Jesus Christ.
This is our means of salvation and meaning.
The Gospel changes us. The Gospel brings us into relationship with God but the Gospel gives us a mission to make disciples of the world around us
Jesus model of discipleship was always in the context of relationship
This is why we emphasize Life Groups at Real Life. We understand the value of preaching God’s Word every Sunday. But relational discipleship is what Jesus modeled for the Christian life.
Last week we talked about judgment.
As we follow Jesus as His disciple, He changes our hearts. Judgment is relational destruction. We are called to walk as redeemed people side by side toward Jesus.
This whole Sermon on the Mount has dual messages that parallel each other for us.
One message is about our surrender to Jesus Christ as King
Matthew communicates Jesus as King, Messiah, and God.
We will either surrender to the King and live as the King directs and be a part of His Kingdom
Or, we will reject the authority of the King and live as we want.
The second message is about how we live with others. Jesus gives us very clear instructions about how we are to live with others and the heart we are called to have.
It is the hope and desire of our church that we live lives that are surrendered to the King and obedient to the King so we can expand His Kingdom.
Introduction
Introduction
Last week, we covered two often misinterpreted (misused) passages in the Bible.
Judge not, lest you be judged
Don’t throw your pearls before swine
These are often stripped from their context and used to make the point, whether biblical or not, that a speaker wants to make.
Today, we have one more misused passage that I would like to bring clarity to.
We will cover the Ask, Seek, Knock passage that is abused by many TV preachers and prosperity preachers.
We will then look at a summary statement of the entire sermon.
Then we will begin to look at Jesus’ concluding warnings to finish the sermon.
These might sound like they are disconnected from each other, but Jesus connected them all.
It is my hope that we clearly understand what is being said and we can align our hearts with the heart of God.
Preaching
Preaching
“Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.
For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.
Here is the statement from Jesus.
Ask and it will be given
Seek and you will find
Knock and it will be opened to you.
In some people’s thinking, this becomes the Bible verse that communicates that all we need to do is ask God hard enough and He will be obligated to give us what we want.
People have preached on these topics and frankly abused them into prosperity thinking.
Ask God for money and if you seek Him hard enough, He will send you money.
Or the classic, “God will send you money, but first, you need to send your seed money to prove that you are sincere to me.”
Now, if you want to send me money, I’m not opposed to that. Just don’t expect God’s supernatural blessing to fill up your bank account because of that.
How do we interpret this passage?
We know God’s Word is truth. It is inspired by God and inerrant. God’s Word is our authority.
Like we’ve done so many times when we struggle to interpret a passage. Context.
As Jesus is giving us this verse, it has taken us months to get to this point. But for Jesus, this was all one sermon.
During this sermon, has Jesus given us any indicator of what we should ask God for? What we should seek God for? What we should knock on the gates of Heaven for?
The answer is, “Yes!”
Here is how this looks without context.
If we strip this out of the context of this passage, it appears that we can simply ask for anything, and God would be obligated to fulfill our wishes.
But within context, let’s look at what Jesus has directed us to in this sermon:
He has mentioned giving us reward, providing for us and listening to us.
Let’s dig a little deeper about what context Jesus is drawing from.
“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.
Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.
Should we ask for humility in our spirit before God?
If so, will He be faithful and give us the Kingdom?
Should we ask for righteousness?
If we do, will He give us His righteousness?
Should we ask for purity in heart?
If we do, we will see God.
I only chose a few of these, but all of them reflect something that we ought to seek from God.
And if we seek from God, these passages outline that God will be faithful.
“This, then, is how you should pray: “ ‘Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name,
your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us today our daily bread.
And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.
Again, we see that Jesus is modeling for us what we should ask God for.
We should ask that God would reveal His holiness in our lives
We should seek for God’s Kingdom to come
We should pray that God’s will would be done on this earth.
We should ask that God will provide our needs
We should ask for forgiveness of God as well as the heart and strength to forgive others.
You see, when your heart is seeking after God, where your treasure and heart are become what you ask God for.
We are not asking God to build up our kingdoms here
We ask God to build up His Kingdom here and store up our treasures in heaven where it will not be destroyed.
As we go into our text today, may we not strip this passage from its context. May we understand that God desires us, and desires our hearts. But He also desires that our hearts conform to His.
There are a few things I want us to consider as we ponder this passage:
Asking, seeking, and knocking are all on His terms
I want us to see this simple fact.
If I am asking, there is a reason. He is the one with the answer, authority and ability. I am not.
I ask of Him.
If I am seeking, I must leave where I am and go to Jesus. He is the one who will fulfill my need.
I must go to seek Him
If I am knocking, I must leave my front door and go to His front door.
I must knock on His door.
All of this is a recognition of my insufficiency, and His sufficiency.
It is my humility and His grace
It is my poverty and His mercy
This is the approach we have as we go to God.
This isn’t about us stepping into God’s realm claiming authority over His answers, authority and ability.
We go to God in pursuit of His will
This would look much different if it were about my will.
I would then pray to God, “God, I need you to come to me and ask me for my opinions of things.”
“I need you to come into my life and do what I want you to do.”
The arrogance of this kind of thinking is contrary to the nature of God and the heart of a disciple
who is following Jesus, not dragging Jesus around
who is being changed by Jesus, not convincing Jesus to change according to our desires
who is obedient to Jesus, not demanding obedience from Jesus.
This is a reminder of who we are and who God is
God is all-knowing. I am not.
God is all-powerful. I am not.
God is ever-present. I am not.
God can work all things out for good. I cannot.
I need to get to the place of life where I can surrender myself and what I think and trust God.
Ask, seek, knock is a humbling and empowering posture to be before God.
Bring our requests to Him
I don’t want us to find ourselves paralyzed by fear about approaching God.
We have things that bring us worry.
Christian preached two weeks ago about worry and how we cast our cares on Him.
This is easier for some people than others.
It doesn’t make it right to hold onto it, it’s just harder.
We are instructed to go to God with our requests.
Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.
And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
We are to approach God with prayer, petitions, and thanksgiving. This is how we present our requests to God.
We don’t present our demands. We don’t present our manipulations.
We tell God, “This is what I am asking.”
We pray, we give thanks, we make requests.
We must be consistent and persistent!
Jesus gave us examples of the need for our persistence in prayer and bringing our requests
However, this is not a tool to turn the heart of God to us.
Again, I go to the passage about David fasting and praying for his son.
His son died. Does that mean David did this wrong? No.
God had answered. David may not have understood why allowed this. David may not have agreed with it.
David noticed that his attendants were whispering among themselves, and he realized the child was dead. “Is the child dead?” he asked. “Yes,” they replied, “he is dead.”
Then David got up from the ground. After he had washed, put on lotions and changed his clothes, he went into the house of the Lord and worshiped. Then he went to his own house, and at his request they served him food, and he ate.
I can give other examples of God saying “yes” and God saying “no” to the requests of people
Persistence and consistence is not a tool to get God’s approval
We have God’s favor through Jesus Christ.
It is a heart that has only one option when life gets confusing.
My only option is God.
I don’t pray once and try option #2.
I don’t leave it to God and ignore it and walk away
God is option 1 and there is no option 2
We pray until God answers.
Yes- If yes, in gratitude we worship
No- if no, in gratitude we worship
Wait- if wait, we persist in going to Him in prayer.
I front-load this passage this way because it will be a formulaic method of prayer until we understand the next passages.
“Which of you, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone?
Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake?
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!
This passage shows us the heart of God as we approach Him with our requests.
There isn’t too much to interpret here. Jesus is very clear.
If your son asks for bread because he’s hungry, you won’t give him a rock and say “bon appetit”
If you child asks for some fish sticks, you won’t put a deadly snake on the table to harm them.
Then, Jesus gives the comparison of our understanding and His nature.
You are evil.
Don’t take offense at this. What Jesus is saying is that you are either holy or you are sinful.
All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God
Ever since Adam sinned in the Garden of Eden, all of us have a draw to sin. It is our sinful nature.
As good as we want to claim we are, the reality is that in comparison to a holy and perfect God, we are evil.
Jesus is saying, “you are sinful and you still give good things to your kids.”
How much more does a holy, good and perfect God do this.
In fact, I love that Jesus uses the analogy of a parent with a child.
In this picture, I believe we can see how God sees us and how we ought to see Him.
Even though we are sinful, we still love our kids.
He is perfect. How much greater is His love for us?
He says that a good father gives good gifts to his kids.
I think of my kids and how things have changed as they grew.
When my kids were small they only wanted what they thought they needed.
They wanted Twinkie cereal. They wanted steak for every meal. They wanted to eat doritos for breakfast.
Obviously, much of this we had to say no, and the resulting crying would happen.
As the kids have gotten older, they still ask for things, but they also are learning to have a relationship with me.
As a parent, which request would move your heart?
Dad, I need money for my car so I can go hang out with my friends.
I may say yes or I may say no depending on a ton of circumstances.
But if they say, “Dad, I want to spend time with you. I love you and I want to be with you and talk about life.”
I don’t care what the circumstances are. I would move heaven and earth to make that happen.
I believe this is what Jesus is saying here.
God the Father loves you. He loves you so much that He sent His son to die for you.
Your Father in Heaven wants you to ask Him for Him. For His heart. For His relationship.
God will pour out Himself to us.
My kids can still make requests of me. But, when my kids want to spend time with me, be with me, and value their time with me, it opens my heart to them.
I still need to do what is best for them in my wisdom and knowledge.
God will give Himself without limit.
But whatever were gains to me I now consider loss for the sake of Christ.
What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ
No gift is as “good” as knowing Jesus.
Think of this in light of the previous section.
All of the things that Jesus tells us to ask for, are things that lead us to His heart.
He wants us to see Him. He wants us to know Him.
We get so distracted on the things, issues, problems and worries of this world.
He wants us to approach Him like a child who isn’t trying to get something from his parent, but rather as a child who wants to spend time with their parent.
We can know the love of God and we can share the love of God with others.
This leads to our final point today:
So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.
In the NIV version of the Bible, you see this as a tag onto the last line of this thinking about our how our Father in Heaven gives good gifts.
But this verse isn’t about that.
I think it is better to look at this verse as something of a summary of this entire section of the sermon.
I say this because look at how it begins:
“So in everything”
Jesus is either saying “everything that I just said about giving fish and snakes to your kids”
Which doesn’t really seem to fit
Or Jesus is saying “everything” in reference to how He has commanded us to live with others through the duration of this sermon.
I think this fits much better.
Because as we look to the end of this sermon, we find that Jesus will end with FOUR EITHER-OR’s
Either wide gate or narrow gate
Either true prophet or false prophet
Either true disciple or false disciple
Either build on the rock or the sand
So, before assessing these things, Jesus sums up the “us and others” portion of the sermon.
The Golden Rule
Do to others as you would have them do to you
How do you want other people to treat you?
Grace? Mercy? Forgiveness? Giving the benefit of the doubt? Loving?
Then live in this way with other people
This sums up the law and the prophets
Jesus says that doing this is a summary of the law and the prophets
The teachers of the law and the Pharisees would often try to summarize the law and rank the rules ranking them from most to least important.
This is what was going on when the teacher of the law asked Jesus “what is the greatest commandment?”
Jesus says, “How you want to be treated is how you should treat others.”
Then Jesus went out and lived the perfect example of this.
Gospel presentation—- Call of Discipleship
Jesus Christ is God by nature.
He saw the sin of humanity. This was sin that was a rebellion against His created nature.
God had every right for justice and judgment, but in His love, He sent His son to pay the penalty for sin.
The entire Bible is the story of a loving God reaching down in to a rebellious humanity with a loving hand of salvation.
Jesus sacrificed, loved, forgave, endured, all for the glory of God and the good of me.
If this is what I needed, then this is the picture of what Jesus is asking me to give to others.
We ought not only look to our own needs, but we ought to look to Jesus as the example of the Golden Rule.
Jesus was laid in a tomb and resurrected from the dead three days later
Ascended and will return for His church.
Heaven and hell are real places of real existence
Here is the thing, if God wished to send us to hell and punish us, He never would have told us about it in advance.
The reason He tells us in advance is so we can respond to His grace and mercy.
His love and hope is for the salvation of His creation.
That includes you and I.
Conclusion
Conclusion
I want to sum the entire passage up for us today.
We need to know the love of God and respond to that love.
God is a relational God, not a transactional God.
He wants to know you and wants you to know Him.
We must ask for Him, seek after Him, knock to find Him.
When we do, we will find Him.
Only when we know God will we know His mercy and grace.
Our lives can be confusing and difficult.
But God asks us to cast our cares upon Him.
He is a good and loving Father.
As we grow to know Him, He asks us to show that love to the world around us, not so they will think we are good.
Rather, they will see that He is good.
Our passage today expresses two primary points of following Jesus
We must grow deeper in the Kingdom seeking out the heart of God.
We must expand the Kingdom to a lost and dying world.
It will only happen when God changes our heart.
Our hearts will be changed when we seek after Him and ask for what He tells us to ask for. More of Him.
Real Life in Action:
Head- Do I ask God for what I want or for what He wants?
Heart- Am I willing to surrender my will to God’s will, even if it costs me comfort, control, or personal desire?
Hands- Persist in prayer, seeking to know God in a deeper way.
