Ask, Seek, Knock

Introduction:

Shortly after Dallas Seminary was founded in 1924, it came to the point of bankruptcy. All the creditors were going to foreclose at noon on a particular day. That morning, the founders of the school met in the president’s office to pray that God would provide. In that prayer meeting was Harry Ironside. When it was his turn to pray, he prayed in his characteristically refreshing manner: “Lord, we know that the cattle on a thousand hills are thine. Please sell some of them and send us the money.”

While they were praying, a tall Texan came into the business office and said, “I just sold two carloads of cattle in Fort Worth. I’ve been trying to make a business deal go through and it won’t work, and I feel that God is compelling me to give this money to the Seminary. I don’t know if you need it or not, but here’s the check.”

A secretary took the check and, knowing something of the financial seriousness of the hour, went to the door of the prayer meeting and timidly tapped. When she finally got a response, Dr. Lewis Chafer took the check out of her hand, and it was for the exact amount of the debt. When he looked at the signature, he recognized the name of the cattle rancher. Turning to Dr. Ironside, he said, “Harry, God sold the cattle!”1018

Michael P. Green, 1500 Illustrations for Biblical Preaching (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2000), 274.

For the last couple of months we have been journeying through the Sermon on the Mount and after today we only have three Sundays left. Today we are going to be looking at Matthew chapter 7, verses 7-12 where Jesus talks about asking God and also how we respond to those around us. Let’s read together:

Matthew 7:7–12 ESV

“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. Or which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? If 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! “So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets.

PRAY

Just to put this passage in its proper context, I want to recap what has happened so far in chapter 7. In verses 1-2 Jesus covers how we are to respond to the the saved. In verses 3-5 He talks about our response to ourselves and in verse 6 He dealt with how we respond to the ungodly. He had been dealing with our relationships with other believers, then ourselves, then the ungodly, and now, here in verses 9-11 He addresses our response to the Lord. Wrapping up today’s passage is Jesus dealing with how we should respond to the world around us.

Lord willing, by the end of the message you will have a better understanding of how to respond to the Lord in prayer and handle yourselves in relation to your neighbors.

First, Jesus addresses our relationship to the Lord and tells his followers to Ask, Seek, and Knock.

I. Our relationship to the Lord

These verses are not meant to be the blank check that they may appear to be at first glance or that some well meaning Christians interpret them as. Hear me: this doesn’t mean that we just get anything we want and ask for. There’s no naming and claiming anything. You can’t manifest anything because you’re not God. I see so many people on social media and on different forms of media clinging to what they think are truths but have either been wrongly taught and applied or have simply become cliche phrases that might make them feel a little better or a moment but don’t really help anyone.

Many times I fear we become like the little boy saying his bedtime prayers with his mother: “Lord, bless Mommy and Daddy, and God, GIVE ME A NEW BICYCLE!!!”

His mother looked at him and said, “God’s not deaf, son.”

The boy replied, “I know, Mom, but Grandma’s in the next room, and she’s hard of hearing!”

The language connections to the other parts of the Sermon on the Mount and this passage suggest that Jesus promised that those who ask, seek, and knock will be invited to enter His kingdom.

These three commands, ask, seek, and knock, are in the present imperative, indicating that what Jesus is actually meaning here is to keep on asking, keep on seeking, and keep on knocking. It is to be a continual activity of asking, seeking, and knocking.

Sinclair Ferguson points out that this passage contains, “beggars logic.” It’s a broken and destitute person who can not help themselves going before the gates of the kingdom and continually knocking, asking God, and seeking the kingdom. And this person Jesus promises will be invited in. What an incredible promise!

So how do we ask, seek, and knock? What does this look like in the life of a follower of Christ?

Well, first:

When Jesus tells us to ask, it emphasizes our need for an authentic relationship with God. The fact that we can go straight before the throne of the creator of the universe… that we have access to Him is amazing. Because of Jesus’s sacrifice on the cross, in our place, for our sin, we can enter into the presence of God as Jesus’s righteousness. And we can seek God diligently. This isn’t a one time thing. It’s continual, as the wording of the command suggests.

The Greek word for seek indicates a looking for something or trying to find something. In short, we are looking for that which only God can reveal. We act as foolish beggars when we neglect to go to Him in prayer continually…when we neglect the spiritual discipline of prayer.

James 4:2 ESV

You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have, because you do not ask.

We should seek His will and be confident because we know that He, the Lord answers our prayers for His will. Look at verse 8. All who call on God as their Father get this promise.

So be confident in Him.

B. Be confident that he promises to reveal His will if we ask.

The one who seeks finds. God is still the one who allows for this action to take place and more than allows, He is the one who causes you to seek and find. He’s the guide, the map, and the treasure to be found.

Christians get weird sometimes when we start talking about the will of God. We treat God’s will like it’s some kind of cosmic hide and seek game like He’s hiding it for us and then just sort of trying to see if we can guess it like the old hot and cold game or button, button, who’s got the button. That’s not how any of this works. I don’t have time to go deeply into this point particularly but if you want to know more I highly, highly recommend Kevin DeYoung’s little book on God’s will called “Just Do Something.” Bethany and I read through it when we have a big decision to make because it helps remind us what our responsibly is in following God’s will. It also calls us out on some of this cosmic mysticism that Christians fall into. We want to make God’s will sound more mysterious and mystic than it is and we get all weird about it. And sometimes we go so far as to claim something is God’s will for us but there is ZERO backing for it in scripture. I’m gonna get in trouble now. People claim God told them something because then whether they know it or not, they’re basically saying you can’t argue with it because then you are going against God. I’ve seen people do this and I’ve seen it tear churches apart. This isn’t supposed to be a subjective guidance that has more to do with your feelings than the truth of the Word of God.

Illustration: Someone may tell a pastor, “God told me to leave this church.” Okay, let’s talk about that for a minute. What has got you thinking that? Let’s unpack that a little bit.

The thing is, generally they will have a hard time finding a place in scripture in its proper context that backs that up. Many times we find that people just get sideways with someone or something they don’t like that the church is doing and we jump ship on the church because of our own preferences and desires rather than instead seeking what God has said about church and being a part of a local church in His Word.

God more than likely didn’t tell you to leave your church. I’m even more sure that God didn’t tell you specifically to stay home and not be a part of a church. How can you say that pastor? I can say this confidently because it is God’s will for God’s children to be part of God’s church. It’s here in God’s revealed Word… the Bible.

Dean Inserra writes:

God has a wonderful plan for your life:

It is to be faithful to complete the saving and sanctifying work he began in you.

Philippians 1:6 ESV

And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.

Romans 8:30 ESV

And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified.

Don’t spend all of your time looking for a “better” plan. There is not one that is better than what the Lord has for you.

Ordinary faithfulness is a lofty life goal.

Okay, I need to move on. I’ll stay all day here if I’m not careful and there’s good stuff coming up.

Jesus sets up a comparison between earthly Fathers and our Heavenly Father.

C. A comparison of two fathers.

Two points that we need to understand about approaching God in prayer and why it’s such an important and privileged position to be in.

You are praying to your Heavenly Father if you are a Christ follower, a true Christian.

Romans 8:14–17 ESV

For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!” The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him.

Do you understand this? We go from being the enemies of God, at war with Him in our sin nature, to being adopted into the family of God and given the privilege of being able to go before Him and ask Him, seek Him, and knock on the gates of the Kingdom and be LET IN!

How does someone go from an enemy of God to being adopted into His family?

The scriptures tell us that every one of us is a sinner. Not only do we do sin but we have at our very nature a depravity and core sinfulness and that sin separates all of us from Holy God. God is just and so sin must face God’s wrath and judgement. So that puts all of us right in the bullseye of God’s wrath. And the Bible tells us that without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sin. So something had to die to pay for our sin. The blood of animals was not sufficient. WE needed a more perfect and once for all sacrifice. So God, who is just and also love sent His Son, Jesus the Christ, the promised one, God in the flesh. He lived on this earth with NO sin in Him. He was perfect and lived perfectly because we couldn’t be perfect. He willingly gave His life on a criminal’s cross in our place. He absorbed that wrath of God for our sin and died as our substitute. He died in your place. He took your whipping. He took your nails. He took the wrath of God due to you. And in return you get His righteousness. Three days later He came back to life. He rose from the dead. All the way dead to all the way alive. Hallelujah! And all of those who hear this message and trust in Jesus alone for salvation, repenting of their sin and believing this good news will have eternal life with Jesus in heaven. We get adopted into His family and then can go before Him in prayer and know that He hears and answers. Incredible. Oh that this would never become just programatic or old news for us!

2. Secondly, your heavenly Father is superior to every earthly father. Jesus set up this comparison.

Matthew 7:9–11 ESV

Or which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? If 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!

Jesus uses the tactic of a lesser to greater argument here. Bread back them may have been in a small loaf that resembled a stone and a serpent may have resembled a fish hence the use of them in this illustration.

The point is:

We see how earthly father’s treat their children and even though they are evil and mired in sin, they give good things to their children. How much more then can we know that God will do for His children.

And when He says, “to those who ask him”, it completes the thought from verse 7.

Finally, we come to verse 12 which turns to our responsibility toward the world as people of this whole person righteousness that Jesus has been teaching about in the Sermon on the Mount.

II. Our responsibility to the world

Verse 12 has come to be known over the years as the Golden Rule. It is not called this in scripture. I’m not going to go into the whole oral history of where the name golden rule came from but that’s how we are going to refer to it.

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.

This verse has an intimate connection with verses 7-11

In all actuality we can see a connection back with the whole of chapter 7 up to this point. Jesus has been teaching about judgement, correction, and now prayer before moving into this golden rule verse. But why? Well, just as we go to the Lord for wisdom in our judgement and correction and find Him faithful to to give us wisdom and guide us. So too, will we find him faithful to guide us and give us the strength to do what the principles of His Word call us to do. He enables us to live in accordance with His will.

Prayer puts us in a posture of humility. Remember that beggar’s logic I mentioned?

Ferguson expands on this:

“Only the person who sees that he is a beggar before the Lord, and has nothing to offer, but has discovered that he is the heir of the grace of God, will be sufficiently set free from self-centeredness of character to put others first, and to do to them, what he would appreciate receiving from them.”

A. The Golden Rule

This verse really epitomizes Jesus’s teaching of ethics in the Sermon on the Mount. It describes how we should be acting in relation tot he world around us, toward our neighbors.

We act out the Golden Rule as an act of gratitude and thankfulness and as an act of faith.

Positive instead of negative wording here...

There have been other teachers in history who have been credited with a teaching similar to this one but often they stated it in the negative, such as “don’t do to anyone, that which you don’t want them to do to you.” But Jesus uses the positive wording of actively doing to others what you would want them to do to you. This means that as believers in Jesus Christ we can’t get off the hook with inactivity, simply not doing bad things to people but we instead, must continually be doing the good to others that we would want them to do to us.

Believers should be consciously seeking the best interest of others.

Jesus knows our proclivity toward self-love, self-preservation, and seeking advantage for ourselves. Here He is turning that on its head and setting those instincts up as a guide for our treatment of others. He knows our desire to look after our own interests and now calls His followers to consciously be concerned for the interest of others.

I really like how Ligon Duncan illustrates this:

Apply this rule to your most difficult relationship. Think to yourself. What is your most difficult relationship in life? Do you have a wife, a husband, a parent, a child, who has hurt you to the point that you believe that it is beyond repair. And every time that they share yet another small hurt, the pain flows over you like a wave, and the hurt is so intense that you can hardly think straight. You find yourself snapping back in anger or withdrawing into isolation for protection. How is your instinct for looking out for the best interest of others in those circumstances? How about in relationships with people who are very, very different from you? You share nothing in common with them socially, economically, racially. How do you love them? How do you treat them? Does your heart go out for them as your Savior says, He wants your heart to go out to them. Do you treat them as your Savior has called upon you to treat them? Oh, my friends, a little reflection like that will show us that we have a long way to go in embracing this commandment practically.

Followers of Jesus should deal with those around us by God’s standard of righteousness and not our own.

What Jesus is calling us to is neighbor love. It can be seen in the last six of the Ten Commandments. Moses expounded it in his other writings as did the prophets. So our Lord is calling us, His children to treat others how we want to be treated and it’s based on the law of neighbor love.

Matthew 22:36–39 ESV

36 “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” 37 And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. 38 This is the great and first commandment. 39 And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.

Galatians 5:14 ESV

14 For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

Duncan calls the Golden Rule, the active form of the second great commandment. I like that. It’s the active form of the command. We should treat others as we would want to be treated because the way we would want to be treated is of course, how the law and prophets said people must be treated.

This is yet another reason why I preach the way I do. We need the whole council of God on every part of our lives.

There are guard rails on the Golden Rule and it’s the Law and Prophets. The love you are extending with the Golden Rule must not contradict the Bible in any way. The Golden Rule is not subjective. There is a road it rides down and it must stay within what the Bible says everywhere else in scripture. That means that my treatment of someone cannot include approving of something the Bible calls sin. I once heard a pastor say that guardrails on a highway through the mountains are there so that if something goes wonky with the car and you start to veer off the road the guardrails keep you from careening down the mountain into a fiery crash. So also, we have the guard rails of scripture for how we extend this neighbor love.

c. The Golden Rule is not the gospel.

The Golden Rule does not save.

You may have heard someone in your personal evangelism tell you they don’t go to church but they keep the golden rule and believe that will get them into heaven. They are dead wrong. Trying to love others with this neighbor love does not save. You can’t love someone else enough that you get admitted to heaven. You can’t.

We are not going to perform it perfectly this side of eternity. There was only one person who ever lived who was capable of keeping this rule perfectly. His name is Jesus. And He knows we are going to mess this up because of sin.

It shows us our need for the gospel. We need a perfect savior because we are marred by sin.

Conclusion: (Musicians)

Our tendency is to judge people in unfair ways and look only at outward appearances. But God is fully and wholeheartedly loving. He blesses and loves to bless those who look to Him. He is the blessing.

So reflect on God’s goodness. Reflect on His past and present provision for His children. Have confidence in the future provision that He has already made for you as His child. I want to leave you with the words of Psalm 103 to jumpstart our hearts in praise and thanksgiving for this glorious provision for those who have trusted Christ.

Psalm 103 ESV

Of David. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless his holy name! Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits, who forgives all your iniquity, who heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from the pit, who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy, who satisfies you with good so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s. The Lord works righteousness and justice for all who are oppressed. He made known his ways to Moses, his acts to the people of Israel. The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. He will not always chide, nor will he keep his anger forever. He does not deal with us according to our sins, nor repay us according to our iniquities. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him; as far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove our transgressions from us. As a father shows compassion to his children, so the Lord shows compassion to those who fear him. For he knows our frame; he remembers that we are dust. As for man, his days are like grass; he flourishes like a flower of the field; for the wind passes over it, and it is gone, and its place knows it no more. But the steadfast love of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting on those who fear him, and his righteousness to children’s children, to those who keep his covenant and remember to do his commandments. The Lord has established his throne in the heavens, and his kingdom rules over all. Bless the Lord, O you his angels, you mighty ones who do his word, obeying the voice of his word! Bless the Lord, all his hosts, his ministers, who do his will! Bless the Lord, all his works, in all places of his dominion. Bless the Lord, O my soul!

PRAY