Go, Ask Your Father!

Today is a day set apart to honor mothers. Originally established in America by Ann Reeves Jarvis in 1868 to honor mothers who had lost sons on both sides of the Civil War, it has now expanded to an opportunity to honor all mothers as well as those who wish to be mothers. We observe this day in many ways.

According to History.com, “More phone calls are made on Mother’s Day than any other day of the year. These holiday chats with Mom often cause phone traffic to spike by as much as 37 percent.”

Jarvis’ daughter, Anna Jarvis, revived the day in the years surrounding the First World War. Her version of the day involved wearing a white carnation as a badge and visiting one’s mother or attending church services. But once Mother’s Day became a national holiday, it was not long before florists, card companies and other merchants capitalized on its popularity.

While Jarvis had initially worked with the floral industry to help raise Mother’s Day’s profile, by 1920 she had become disgusted with how the holiday had been commercialized. She outwardly denounced the transformation and urged people to stop buying Mother’s Day flowers, cards and candies.

Due in part to the changing role of motherhood, today the holiday has morphed from a day to go to church with mom into a day for Mom to take a break from her kids. I heard on the radio that Kraft is offering $50,000 of paid babysitting.

Well if you can’t get in on the Kraft promotion, perhaps you just need this gift from Hallmark.

What Hallmark thinks is a humorous novelty is actually good advice from the Scriptures. Many of us have been told by our mothers, “If you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all.” But how does that coincide with what we’ve been learning in the Sermon on the Mount? We’ve been told to season our world. We’ve been told to light our world. We’ve been told to non-judgmentally remove speck from the eyes of other AFTER removing our own obstacles. We will read today that we are supposed to intentionally do to others what we would want them to do to us.

But how do we obey these commands when they respond by attacking us or trampling on our values? Jesus tells us to…

Go, ASK Your Father (vv.7-8)

Matthew 7:7–8 (ESV) — “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. 8For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened.

Explanation

1. The word ask forms a convenient acrostic in English for the 3 commands.

a. In the languages that Jesus spoke and Matthew wrote “ask” (αἰτέω) is not a 3 letter word.

b. So, what connects these 3 verbs in meaning or intensity?

i. Some see an increasing urgency

Jesus’ disciples will pray (“ask”) with earnest sincerity (“seek”) and active, diligent pursuit of God’s way (“knock”).[i]

ii. Some see the “power of 3” as a rhetorical device, similar to acrostic as appears in English, or alliteration (as I use today) or rhyme (which is common in Southern Gospel preaching).

The three verbs function as synonyms, as do the three responses;…the saying simply uses the “rule of three” as a memorable means of communication[ii]

iii. I see synonyms based upon location.

Richard Glover suggests that a child, if his mother is near and visible, asks; if she is neither, he seeks; while if she is inaccessible in her room, he knocks.[iii]

2. Jesus is not promoting a random “golden ticket” or “Genie’s lamp” idea of prayer that some today label “the prosperity gospel”. The content of the earlier parts of this sermon indicate that He is talking about the daily needs of clothing and food from the last paragraph of chapter 6. He’s talking about the ability to be non-judgmental with others in vv.1-5. He’s talking about the ability to respond appropriately when we experience the harshness of v.6. He’s setting up for when we read v.12 and we say, “I can’t do that!”

3. Every commentary I read highlights the verbs as being a repeated action: i.e. keep on asking, keep on seeking, keep on knocking. Prayer is not a “one and done” but requires persistence.

a. Not because God is hesitant to give, but because when we want something bad enough to be persistent, we are more grateful when it happens.

b. The repeated persistence is complimented by the repeated certainty of “it will be given”, “you will find” and “it will be opened”

Illustration

Several years ago two speakers came to a Christian University to give a series of messages in chapel during a missions conference. The speakers were trying to help the students understand how to find God’s will for their lives. The first message had as its theme passage Psalm 46:10: “Cease striving and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations. I will be exalted in the earth” (nasb). The speaker entitled the message, “Let Go, and Let God.” The second message had as its theme passage Matthew 7:7: “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.” This speaker entitled the message, “Knocking Down Doors.”

The first message advocated letting go of the problem and turning it over to God. The focus was on letting God take control of their lives and then finding peace about what they wanted to do in their lives.

The second message advocated personal responsibility. The focus was on exercising faith as a means to discovering God’s will for their lives. The students were encouraged to go enlist godly advice, to explore possibilities, and to attempt various alternatives.

Many students were visibly confused by those seemingly contradictory messages. The speakers seemed to be telling them opposite things. Instead of living with one or the other, both principles can have crucial significance in the attempt to discover God’s will for us as individuals.

Balance. Some mentors advise to seek “balance”. I prefer to suggest that we live in the tension of the paradox.

The important point is that the opposing alternatives are not necessarily contradictory, but from the perspective of the observer they appear to be contradictory.

Application

· Ask your Father AND Do what He says.

1. Think sensibly! Don’t be carried away by emotional reactions to either extreme.

2. Be honestly open to both truths, regardless of past experience or background.

3. Hold those seemingly opposing truths at the same time. If they are both biblical, they will both have value and ultimately will reveal themselves as complementary, not contradictory.

4. Apply both sides of the issue to life at the same time. Since Scripture is a guide to life, both principles may be more easily lived out than fully comprehended.[iv]

Transition: The reason that repeated requests are met with repeated certainty is because…

Giving Expresses God’s Goodness (vv.9-11)

Matthew 7:9–11 (ESV) — Or which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? 10Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? 11If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!

Explanation

1. Aseity - One of the attributes that makes God God is that He exists in perfection totally apart from any created thing.

2. If God was totally perfect before earth was created, why did He do it? Because giving generously is part of His nature.

3. He didn’t create because He was lacking in fellowship. He didn’t create because He was lacking in praise. He didn’t create because He needed anything from us.

4. He created because creating a good earth and placing humanity in the center of that good garden are expressions of God’ generous giving.

5. This is why the Westminster Catechism says that the chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever. By “glorify”, this is not something that we do as much as it is something that we experience – we bask in the glory of who He is. God gives, we enjoy.

6. It is important to see that “evil” in v.11 is talking about our selfish nature. That same selfish nature that wants time away from the children that we love so much.

Illustration

1. The use of bread and fish was a daily staple of the diet of Jesus’ listeners.

2. The link between bread and stones is that a crusty roll may look like a stone, not that women baked bread that was hard as stones. In their economy bread would not last long enough to turn hard.

3. The link between fish and serpents may be harder to visualize if your idea of fish is like mine – a boneless filet of moist fish rolled in flour or cornmeal and fried to a crispy outside with a flaky inside.

4. Fish in these days was cleaned then smoked or cooked like a kabob over an open fire. The scales on the fish could be likened to the appearance of scales on a snake.

‎Fishing in the Sea of Galilee played an important role at the time of Jesus. Eighteen types of fish are home in the Sea of Galilee; ten of them are important for commercialization. At the top: The catfish is the biggest fish in Palestine. Since it does not have scales, Jews are not allowed to eat that fish (Lev 11:9; Deut 14:9). At the middle left: The biggest and most important edible fish is the tilapia, also called “St. Peter’s fish”. Bottom right: The long-headed barb (barbus longiceps) belongs to the species of carp. Bottom left: The Kishri (barbus canis) also belongs to the species of carps. Both fish are fish of prey that eat other fish, mainly small sardines. They were also appreciated as food fish.

Application

1. No good parent would harmfully deny or endanger a child, how much more will our heavenly Father never do such a thing!

Transition: The result of Going to a Generous, Good Father is that He gives us the strength and patience to live out the Golden Rule.

The Golden Rule Moderates our Interactions (v.12)

Matthew 7:12 (ESV) — “So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets.

Explanation

1. The “so” at the beginning of v.12 links it to the “good things” in v.11.

2. Yes, the good things include the bread and fish daily needs of the earlier verses, but it also goes back to v.6; vv. 1-5; and the kingdom/righteousness of v.33 as well as the daily needs.

3. The general idea of the Golden rule predates Jesus, but he gives it a twist that does not appear anywhere else.

a. Confucius, for example, is credited with having said, ‘Do not to others what you would not wish done to yourself;’ and the Stoics had an almost identical maxim. In the Old Testament Apocrypha we find: ‘Do not do to anyone what you yourself would hate[v]

b. A similar saying is attributed to the great rabbi roughly contemporary with Jesus, Hillel (teacher of Gamaliel, who was the teacher of the apostle Paul). The story for Hillel’s saying derives from the Babylonian Talmud (some three to four hundred years after Jesus and Hillel), but some trust it as an authentic remembrance of the historical Hillel:

On another occasion it happened that a certain heathen came before Shammai [Hillel’s more “conservative” rival teacher] and said to him, “Make me a proselyte on condition that you teach me the whole Torah while I stand on one foot.” Shammai drove him out with a builder’s cubit which was in his hand. When he went before Hillel, he made him a proselyte. He said to him, “What is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor. That is the whole Torah. The rest is commentary. Go and learn!”5[vi]

4. Jesus turned avoidance into action.

Illustration

Jesus took the common “what you don’t want, don’t do” (similar to “if you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all”) and he turned it to the positive—choose to pro-actively do for others what you would want them to do for you.

Transition: In this chapter Jesus has dismantled many of the excuses that he knew that we and his listeners would have to the command to not worry but to seek His kingdom and righteousness.

Conclusion:

Jesus has told us that the Heavenly Father knows our needs and meets our needs. In today’s text we have seen that His very nature is generous, that he is a good Father, and that giving in response to our asking, seeking, and knocking is perfectly aligned with who He is.

He gives what we need. He gives the ability to handle difficult people. But God’s generosity was never greater than when He gave His only-begotten Son as the payment for our sin.

I know that today is fraught with anxiety for many who agonize over the loss of a godly mother. I know today stirs many emotions for those whose dreams of motherhood took a hard turn.

I know there are some who would say, I asked God for a child, I sought medical advice and treatments, I knocked on every closed door and none of them opened.

To you who have or are currently enduring that pain, all I can say to you is keep asking and keep obeying. God knows what it’s like to sense separation as Christ left the Father’s presence in Heaven to come to this earth. God knows what it’s like to be heart-broken when He had to turn His back on Jesus as He bore our sin.

To all of us who are broken and hurting; in need of comfort or forgiveness, I only have 1 bit of advice—Go, Ask your Father!

[i] D. A. Carson, “Matthew,” in The Expositor’s Bible Commentary: Matthew, Mark, Luke, ed. Frank E. Gaebelein, vol. 8 (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 1984), 186.

[ii] R. T. France, The Gospel of Matthew, The New International Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publication Co., 2007), 280.

[iii] Richard Glover A teacher’s commentary on the Gospel of St Matthew by Richard Glover (Marshall, Morgan and Scott, 1956), 70. Quoted by John R. W. Stott and John R. W. Stott, The Message of the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7): Christian Counter-Culture, The Bible Speaks Today (Leicester; Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1985), 184.

[iv] Michael J. Wilkins, Matthew, The NIV Application Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 2004), 316–318.

[v] John R. W. Stott and John R. W. Stott, The Message of the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7): Christian Counter-Culture, The Bible Speaks Today (Leicester; Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1985), 190.

5 See b. Šabbat 31a. P. S. Alexander, “Jesus and the Golden Rule,” in Hillel and Jesus: Comparative Studies of Two Major Religious Leaders (ed. J. H. Charlesworth; Minneapolis: Fortress, 1997), 363–88 (here p. 366).

[vi] Scot McKnight, Sermon on the Mount, ed. Tremper Longman III and Scot McKnight, The Story of God Bible Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2013), 251.