Righteousness and Prosperity
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As always, it is an honor to stand before you today presenting the Word of God to the church.
I hope that everyone had been able to thaw out and stay dry over the last few days. It’s been quite some time since I remember seeing a snowfall quite like that. And Charlie, I’m glad you finally made it home after your 10 mile, 8 hour journey during the brunt of the snowfall. Such a snow storm like we saw this week can definitely pose challenges so I don’t want to make light of it, but at the same time, I have to say that there is something utterly beautiful about the snow. The way the reflection of the sun illuminates the entire house is just astounding. When you look out at the fresh snowfall and theres no tracks yet marring the smooth pearly ground, it is an incredible site. There is so much beauty in God’s creation and, for me at least, that is even magnified in the snow. Now, I know Malissa and Ron Hickey are happy to be in Florida right now avoiding this snow, but I think most of us will agree to the beauty of snowfall, even if we aren’t necessarily a fan of the cold and challenges that come with it.
The beauty of the snow is used in Scripture in a very special way.
“Come now, let us reason together, says the Lord:
though your sins are like scarlet,
they shall be as white as snow;
though they are red like crimson,
they shall become like wool.
Isaiah is being used by God to call Judah to repentance. He is saying that when they repent and obey the Lord their sins will be forgiven. Their sins are like scarlet. That is, they are like blood. They’ve been caught red handed and dead to rights. This points to how deep they are in iniquity. How guilty they are before the Lord. And then Isaiah says that they shall be as white as snow. That blood stained mess transforms to the radiant, pure scene I describe a minute ago. Utterly beautiful. Pure. When we are drawn to repentance we are made pure!
If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
Who is “He” who is faithful and just to forgive? Who is it that we are confessing our sins to and putting our faith in? Jesus Christ! The Lord! There is no salvation in any other name! Jesus is the only way any one is ever made clean! We don’t cleanse ourselves Christ and His perfect sacrifice does all the cleansing. It’s like as the Psalmist wrote:
Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean;
wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.
Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. It is the Lord that does all the saving. He does all the purging. And oh how beautiful it is when He washes you from the blood stains of sin and makes you white as snow. That is the absolute best thing that could ever happen to anyone. It’s my prayer that its happened to you! That you have been convicted of your sins. That’s the Holy Spirit exposing your need for the Savior. Then you recognize that Jesus is the Savior. He is Lord of all and the Lord of your life. You willfully live in submission to His command. There is nothing more freeing than living in submission to the Lord. Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be washed from the bloody stains of sin and be cleansed whiter than snow.
There is absolutely nothing greater that anyone could receive than the gift of salvation by the grace of God through faith in Jesus Christ and the filling of the Holy Spirit. Any other momentary need you may have pales in comparison to the eternal need of salvation.
Where am I going with this? Before we go any further this morning with our walk through the Greatest Sermon Ever Given, we have to be absolutely sure of what the gospel really is. The Gospel is the story of God’s redemption of man in accordance with His Will. It is Jesus Christ saving sinners through the shedding of His blood on the cross. It is Christ bringing men and women who were separated from God by their sin, back to the Father, all for His glory. It’s all about Him. Even our salvation is for His glory. It is a great gift that we receive so freely and willingly, but our salvation is about God receiving the glory.
For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen.
To God be the glory. This is absolutely essential to understand this morning because many people want to take the section of verses we are looking at today and twist them for their own glory. As we begin looking at these, please understand that the ultimate point to anything in this life is to give God the glory.
Pray for God to humble us and make us wise today.
If you would, open your Bibles to Matthew 7. We are picking up right where we left off last week. Jesus is preaching to His disciples. A great crowd has gathered all around. He has just rebuked casting self-righteous judgment on others while still calling His followers to use discernment in how they go about sharing with others about things that are Holy. With much prayer and contemplation there are going to be times when it is best to walk away from someone who is hostile to the gospel. Then we come to where we are picking things up this morning. Read with me starting in verse 7.
“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.
Now, this is where we must be very careful.
Someone could look at these verse and start wringing there hands and think, oh boy this is it! This is what I’ve been waiting for! If we were to isolate this verse from the context of everything else Jesus has said thus far in the Sermon on the Mount, it would seem that Jesus is giving anyone and everyone a blank check to get whatever we want. Prosperity here we come! Ask and it will be given to me! Well bring on the Bentley! I’ll even add a pretty please with sugar on top as I am asking! That means I have to get it, right!?
A cursory glance at this verse would seem to paint God as the cosmic genie who is just waiting to be asked before He can gratify our every whim. I’m sorry, but that is not One True God made known to us through Scripture. That would be what is referred to as the Prosperity Gospel. That can by a variety of names including the “health and wealth” gospel or the “name it and claim it” gospel. Those who preach this type message are able to gather a large following because everyone loves to be promised their desires! You may have heard of Creflo Dollar. This is what he wrote in one of his books:
“The Bible says that wealth is stored up for the righteous (Proverbs 13:22, New American Standard). However, it will remain stored up until you claim it. Therefore, claim it now! You possess the ability to seize and command wealth and riches to come to you (Deuteronomy 8:18). Exercise that power by speaking faith-filled words daily and taking practical steps to eradicate debt. Like God, you can speak spiritual blessings into existence (Romans 4:17). Remember, doubt keeps silent, but faith speaks!” (Creflo)
All the wealth is there and we just have to claim it In the gospel according to Creflo Dollar. But this distortion of Scripture fails to take into account the biblical stories of people like Job. Not to mention that our text this morning from Matthew is being first presented to Christ’s disciples. That would include the apostles of which 11 would die horrible deaths at the hands of men, including the one who would replace the betrayer Judas. They would be far from prosperous from the prospective of the culture.
So how do we reconcile this with a section of verses that seem to so plainly promote the name it and claim it gospel?
We must remember to look at the context.
First of all, who is Jesus talking to?
Well way back in the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount we are told that when Jesus saw the crowds He went up on the mountain. He sat down and then His disciples came to Him and He started teaching. After that everyone else would begin gathering throughout the message. This is a big clue that this entire discourse, this entire sermon is intended for those who are disciples of Jesus!
In contrast to how much of the way our culture treats the Sunday church, Jesus’ message was predominantly directed towards those who were already following Him! Could someone have heard the message and realized that Jesus was the Messiah, absolutely! Jesus’ message was about discipleship first. Through His teaching many would understand that He taught with an authority that other teachers did not. You see that at the end of chapter 7. But it is important to realize that there is a limited scope to what Jesus is saying.
All throughout this Sermon, Jesus uses familial imagery. God is called the Father in 8 different verses. Fellow believers are identified as brothers multiple times. Jesus is talking about those who are In the family of God. And the truth is that some have had theirs sins washed white as snow and in so have been adopted into the family of God. Others have not. Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved, but not everyone calls on the name of the Lord! I’ve spoken about this pretty often, but there is a binary reality when it comes to eternity. The saved and the lost. The children of God and the children of the devil.
Jesus is talking to the children of God in this discourse. That means that when He says ask and it will be given to you, that directive is given and applicable only to those who are redeemed. If you do not call Jesus Lord than this verse means nothing to you!
So that’s who Jesus is talking to. Now lets ask, what is He telling us to do?
Ask, seek, knock. These are progressively intense requests being expressed by the believer to God the Father. Here, Jesus is returning to the topic of prayer. These are intense prayers with successively more urgency, but prayers nonetheless. Now, it’s been some time since we looked at the first instance of Jesus’ teaching on prayer in the Sermon on the Mount, so let’s quickly revisit that section of Scripture.
Pray then like this:
“Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name.
Your kingdom come,
your will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread,
and forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.
This section of Scripture, commonly referred to as the Lord’s Prayer, is Jesus’ basic model for us to follow in our own prayers. It is important to know that when Jesus brings up the ideas of asking, seeking, and knocking, that these do not contradict His earlier teaching, rather they compliment it! That means that when we are asking, seeking, and knocking, we are still FIRST glorifying the Lord, lifting His name high, proclaiming Lord Your kingdom come Your will be done. We are still confessing and repenting of sin. We are still extending forgiveness and asking for His deliverance.
The name it and claim it gospel tells you that your will is the primary focus of prayer. It’s about having enough faith to be given what you want. But when we look at what Jesus actually taught, we see that our primary intention in everything, and especially here in prayer is glorifying and relying on the sovereignty of the Lord.
Now, the progression of ask, seek, knock also shows us that we are not to be passive when petitioning the Lord. We actively ask while also working and moving forward for His glory. One commenter wrote, “If we are asking the Lord to help us find a job, we should be looking for a job while waiting for His guidance and provision. If we are out of food, we should be trying to earn money and buy it as we can. If we want help in confronting a brother about a sin, we should be trying to find out all we can about him and his situation and what God’s Word says on the subject involved. It is not faith but presumption to ask the Lord to provide more when we are not faithfully using what He has already given.”
So Jesus is talking to His believers about fervent prayers. Now let’s ask, what is the motivation for prayer. In the prosperity gospel the motivation is wealth. The motivation is increase for the enjoyment of this life. One Prosperity pastor wrote the book Live your best life now. But for the Christian, the best is yet to come. Scripture full heartedly denounces such motivation:
You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions.
God does not bend to the selfish desires of man. The proper motivation for fervent prayers is praying for God’s will to be known and exalted! We are seeking to be conformed to the already perfect will of God.
And this is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us.
So whatever it is that we are asking, seeking, and knocking for, it must be in accordance with His will, which is to say we should be seeking to glorify the Lord in all we do and in all we ask. To Him be the glory forever. Amen.
The motivation for prayer is glorifying God.
Now I want to give you one thing to pray for that you can ask, seek, and knock for and know that this is something that is for God’s glory. That is, WISDOM. Plead to God for wisdom.
Contextually this fits our section of Scripture this morning perfectly. We finished last week by looking at a very hard saying in Scripture. We talked about being discerning in our evangelistic efforts. We aren’t to willingly allow those who are completely against God to profane His name. Deciding when is the appropriate time to walk away requires much wisdom. So Jesus flows rights from that idea to instruction on fervent prayers.
“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.
When we are trying to discern what to do for the glory of God, we cannot do so without the divine counsel of the Heavenly Father! We should be constantly asking the Lord for His wisdom in our daily lives.
If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him.
Pray to God for Wisdom. We search His Word constantly which is a great thing, but we pray to Him for the wise application of His Word. Godly wisdom is a great thing. The importance of wisdom is seen all throughout the book of proverbs. Let’s look at some of the benefits of wisdom:
How much better to get wisdom than gold!
To get understanding is to be chosen rather than silver.
Whoever gets sense loves his own soul;
he who keeps understanding will discover good.
Wisdom is better than silver and gold! The wise discover good in this life.
It should be no surprise to anyone listening today that we have all gone through trials. We’ve all been caught in sticky situations with no clear way out. The Lord uses those times to remind us of our dependency on Him. We call out to Him for wisdom and He graciously provides.
We see general wisdom in His Word:
The fear of the Lord is instruction in wisdom,
and humility comes before honor.
We fear/revere Him. We are humbled by His greatness.
The wise of heart will receive commandments,
but a babbling fool will come to ruin.
We receive His commands. Wisdom starts with fearing the Lord and obeying His commands. Then we pray and seek God’s Wisdom for specific application to our current circumstance. God is gracious to give His Wisdom. We find rest in Him as we grow in knowledge and faith.
So wisdom is one of the primary things we ask, seeks and knock for that is in alignment with His will. In the next few verses, Jesus explains how the Father is good in how He deals with His children’s requests:
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!
This sections shows us that: God Provides.
Let’s break down these metaphors. If a son asks his father for bread, who would give him a stone? This is asking, what kind of father would be intentionally deceptive to his child? A stone could be the same size and shape as a small loaf of bread. A child not knowing any better would bite in only to be met with a broken tooth. "The crudest of fathers would hardly deceive his own son by giving him a stone to eat that looked like bread. Even if the son discovered the deception before breaking a tooth, his heart would be broken by his father's cruelty.” (MacArthur)
Then Jesus uses the metaphor of the fish and the serpent. If a son asks for a fish, what father would give him a serpent? Now I think all of us initially think of this as handing a child a live rattle snake when they wanted a goldfish. Now of course, that would be an outrageous thing to do. However, I think there is something more subtle and yet just as destructive going on here. Keeping in line with the stone being intended to be eaten in place of the bread, the snake would have been presented as food instead of a piece of cooked fish. Now, if you’re an adventurous eater like me, you might think, why would that be a big deal? I’d love to eat snake at least once! But we have to keep in mind that Jesus was speaking to Jewish people who had strict laws on which foods would be clean. In Leviticus we read:
Leviticus 11:12 “Everything in the waters that does not have fins and scales is detestable to you.”
So in the context of Jesus’ example He is saying what kind of Father would intentionally, spiritually defile his children? A good Jewish father would not trick his child into eating something so blatantly against the Word of God.
Our Lord Jesus is using the stone and the serpent to explain that human fathers naturally look after the physical and spiritual needs of their children. Jesus says, “If you then, who are evil,
You who are evil shows the depravity of man. We’re sinful creatures. Fathers who oh so often fall short of the glory of God still know not to give their children rocks instead of bread! So if sinful man knows “how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is heaven give good things to those who ask him!”
So if sinful, depraved fathers know how to give good gifts to their children, how much more does the all righteous, all wonderful, mighty God know how to give good gifts to His children!?
God’s love is so big and so deep that it is unfathomable from our perspective. I love the song How Deep the Father’s Love For Us. The first verse reads like this:
“How deep the Father’s love for us,
How vast beyond all measure,
That He should give His only Son
To make a wretch His treasure.
How great the pain of searing loss –
The Father turns His face away,
As wounds which mar the Chosen One
Bring many sons to glory.”
God the Father truly is a good good Father. He is good to all those who believe in Him. He is faithful to His Word and His promises. He provides for us in ways that we don’t even comprehend.
How do we know that He is a Father who love us?
but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
God has shown us His love by sending Jesus to die on the cross for us. That’s deep, sacrificial love.
How does God continue to show love for us after salvation?
And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.
God works all things together for our eternal good. So when we pray for His will to be done, when we ask, seek, and knock for His glory to be proclaimed or His wisdom to be given, we know that He is faithful to accomplish that. Even in our lowest moments, those who are called according to His purpose, those who truly recognize Jesus as Savior and Lord, can have peace because they know that their good good Father is working all things together for their good. That good culminates with being in the eternal presence of Jesus our Savior.
God is good. He Provides well for His children.
I want to give us two quick points of intentional application before we go.
Remember that God uses all things together for your good. Remember that when you pray you pray Lord, Your will be done. That means that sometimes, many times, God’s plan does not play out the exact way that you thought it would or maybe even the way you thought it should. It is in those times that we must remember that God is God and I am not. Children often make requests of their parents that, if fulfilled, would not be for the ultimate good of the child. Children ask for ice cream for breakfast. The caring parent denies such a request. Just because we do not get out desire, it does not mean that God is not good, gracious, and giving.
We have seen that God is good and answers His children’s request with goodness. God is loving. May we imitate this love in all that we do as well:
Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children. And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.
God loved us and gave us His son. Christ loved us and gave His life. May we have sacrificial love for all those around us. When requests are made of us, use discernment and do whatever would bring glory to God. Give good for God’s glory. How do you discern what is good? Ask God for wisdom and rely on the truth of His Word.
It is a wonderful blessing that such a big, great, infinite God would want to know us personally. Even greater is that He would redeem us when we are not deserving. Understand the weight of your sin and the good of God to give salvation to all those who call on the name of the Lord. Come to Christ today.
Pray.