Ask and it Will Be Given

Introduction

Opening Illustration: Jacob Wrestling With God

In the book of Genesis we meet a man named Jacob. Jacob is a grandson of Abraham. Like many of the people we meet in Scripture, Jacob was a mess. He was known for cheating and lying. He spent most of his young adulthood living in hiding for fear of his older brother whom he had cheated out of his birthright. Through most of Jacob’s story he quite a lost individual, until one life defining night. We read in Genesis that one night he was alone in the fields when a man came to him and began to wrestle in the field with Jacob. All night these two men wrestle, and as a reader we get the sense early in this wrestling match that Jacob’s opponent is no regular man. There’s something more. In the midst of the wrestling match, Jacob’s opponent touches Jacob’s hip in such a way that he injures it severely. But Jacob doesn’t let go. He continues to wrestle, he continues to strive. When dawn approaches, the man said to Jacob:

Genesis 32:26–28 (ESV) 26 Then he said, “Let me go, for the day has broken.” But Jacob said, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.” 27 And he said to him, “What is your name?” And he said, “Jacob.” 28 Then he said, “Your name shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with men, and have prevailed.”

That night would be the turning point in Jacob’s life. He would not be perfect after that moment, but he would be different. Verse 29 of that chapter says that Jacob believed that night that he had been wrestling with God Himself. Wrestling with God. Not letting God go until he received his blessing. Even after having his hope dislocated and possibly broken, he clings to God until he receives his blessing. And before the dawn breaks, Jacob gets his request.

Personal

This story is one of the classic texts used to teach on the topic of Persevering Prayer. Persevering Prayer is the idea that we ask of God and we do not stop asking, for we know that God delights in bestowing blessings on His children. That asking often takes the form of wrestling with God in prayer, but never letting go. Even through dislocated hips and every challenge of this world that attempts to convince you that your wrestling is in vain, that your clinging to God is in vain, we don’t let go. We keep coming back. We persevere. And God blesses. What have you asking God for. Perhaps it is the salvation of a loved one. Perhaps it is healing of a marriage. Perhaps the revitalization and spiritual renewal of a city. What are you asking God for?

Context

As we continue through our Advent sermon series we are preaching on the topic of Joy. Last week we dug into Mary’s powerful prayer known as the Magnificat, from Luke 1 where we saw this young teenage Mary rooting her prayers of thanksgiving and praise to God deep in the Scriptures of the Old Testament. What came out of Mary was this hungry joy, despite some of the certain challenges of her situation, there was an abiding overflowing joy in God, her savior. Today we look at the theme of joy from a different perspective. We’re going to come at it from Jesus’ words in the Sermon on the Mount from Matthew, chapters 5-7. Four simple verses today on the topic of Persevering Prayer. More than anything today’s is an invitation from Jesus, to strive with God. Today’s text is an invitation to enter into the hidden life of prayer, where we don’t let go until we receive from God that which He has promised to give. God is a good father who loves to give good gifts to his children.

Matthew 7:7–11 (ESV) 7 “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. 8 For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened. 9 Or which one of 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 serpent? 11 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!

Move 1: An Invitation

The general sense of this passage is that God is a good father who loves to give good things to His children. And before I even venture too far into the details of this passage, I want us to pause and reflect on that reality. The God of the Bible is a good Father who loves to give good things to his children. He is compassionate. He is tender towards his children. He is longsuffering and patient. I want you to consider a few of these verses from scripture that remind us of these truths.

Psalm 86:15 (ESV) 15 But you, O Lord, are a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness.

Psalm 147:3 (ESV) 3 He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.

2 Corinthians 1:3–4 (ESV) 3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, 4 who comforts us in all our affliction…

Psalm 103:13–14 (ESV) 13 As a father shows compassion to his children, so the LORD shows compassion to those who fear him. 14 For he knows our frame; he remembers that we are dust.

Isaiah 30:18 (ESV) 18 Therefore the LORD waits to be gracious to you, and therefore he exalts himself to show mercy to you. For the LORD is a God of justice; blessed are all those who wait for him.

These are but a few of the verses of Scripture that highlight God’s severe mercy, and unadulterated compassion. But quite literally, the whole Bible is the story of the God of Compassion & Mercy extending that compassion and mercy to His people. The very essence of the Christian Gospel is a narrative of grace upon grace for sinners like us. The heartbeat of Christianity is a merciful God who pays our debt for us by sending His own to the cross in our place, and as a result adopts us into His family and becomes our true perfect heavenly Father. Christianity therefore is a relationship between you and your perfect Father. A Father who has chosen to pour out undeserved, unmerited, unearned favor over your soul.

Three Imperatives

This passage is an invitation to prayer. An invitation to relationship with God. An invitation to discussion with your Father. The text tells us that we are to Ask, to Seek, to Knock. While these are imperatives, meaning they are commands in the sense of saying that this is the correct response of child of God. They are also carry the sense of being conditional, which means these two verses convey the idea, “If you ask, you will receive.” “If you seek, you will find.” What a profound mystery. Let’s consider these together

Ask

“Ask and it will be given to you.” The language here is begging us to enter into the mindset of a child coming before a good father. How foolish would it be of a child who is hungry to not ask their good father for a snack. We would pity that child if they didn’t understand that when they felt hunger in their belly, all they needed to do was ask their father to open the cabinet and give him a snack. In much the same way, our Heavenly Father loves to give us that which we cannot get on our own. We must simply ask. And the promise is, we will receive.

Seek

“Seek and you will find.” The language here is of a person on a journey of discovery, a pursuit of the truth. An adventure of the soul not only to discover truth that satisfies that mind, but rather truth that satisfies the soul. This is an invitation to direct your life towards the pursuit of deeper intimacy with God. Greater knowledge of God. More profound walk with God through the Spirit. There are no higher echelons of Christianity that are not available to every man and woman. The most important thing in your life, that which holds everything else together is your pursuit of God. Seek him. Make it a priority. And the promise is - you will find what you’re looking for.

Knock

Lastly we’re told to knock, and the door will be opened. Again another image that paints a vivid image for us of what prayer is like. We are to keep knocking until the door is opened, for the promise is that the door will be opened. In fact when the writer Luke records this saying from Jesus, he records a short parable that Jesus told along with it. Jesus told this parable:

Luke 11:5–9 (ESV) “Which of you who has a friend will go to him at midnight and say to him, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves, 6 for a friend of mine has arrived on a journey, and I have nothing to set before him’; 7 and he will answer from within, ‘Do not bother me; the door is now shut, and my children are with me in bed. I cannot get up and give you anything’? 8 I tell you, though he will not get up and give him anything because he is his friend, yet because of his impudence/persistence he will rise and give him whatever he needs. 9 And I tell you, ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.

What’s the idea that Jesus is getting after here? It’s the call to continue to pray, to continue knocking, to wait on God’s timing, to believe by faith that God will give you all you need and more if you continue to seek Him. That eventually the door will be opened to you.

The Second Half of the Text

The second of this text is a very simple point. Good Dads know rejoice to provide for their children, to answer their kids questions, to give good gifts. Good Dads are not burdened by the little requests of their children, but they love when their kids come to them. One of the phrases I often say to my little girls is, “Sweetheart I wish you would have come to me earlier.” There’s not a thing I wouldn’t do for my girls. And what this text says is that the love I have for my three daughters is only a fraction of the fullness of the love that our Heavenly Father has for us. Because at the end of the day, I’m a sinful work in progress. But God’s love is perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.

Cultural Lie: Common Misconceptions About God

Now we have to do some work on this for two reasons. First of all, texts like these can be abused and taken out of context, and be made to say what they don’t actually say. Under this category we have heretical movements in the modern church like the ‘Word of Faith’ movement which essentially believes that if you are praying for something and not receiving it, it is because you lack enough faith. In other words, God always intends to answer every prayer you pray with the specifics of what you intend to receive, if you will only bring enough faith to the equation. False. Second and what I would consider even more deadly, is that texts like these can be written off as pie in the sky wishful thinking. My guess is many in this room have written this verse off. And today I want to beg you, to believe in persevering prayer once again. I want to beg you to come to your Heavenly Father who loves to lavish good gifts on his children.

To navigate these two errors (abusing the text and disbelieving the text) and help us arrive at what I believe is firmly Biblical basis for persevering prayer I want to consider three false caricatures of our Heavenly Father and their implications.

Caricature #1: Abusive Father

The first caricature of God that many of us have is that rather than God being a Good and Heavenly Father, God is more like an Abusive Father. For those of you who grew up with an abusive father, either physically, emotionally, or spiritually, I think we tend characteristics of those men into our understanding of God. Those who have this concept of God see God as a strict tyrant who must appeased through religion. They tend to view God more like the God of Islam. In Islam God is never referred to as Father. That is a foreign concept to Islam. The primary impulse that drives the God of Islam is obedience, not love. What’s more the love that the God of Islam has for his followers is a conditional predicated love based on performance and obedience, not based on relationship. Now this is not intended to be a critique of Islam so much as it is a critique of how we miscaricaturize the God of the Bible.

This Creates Wounded Children

Now I believe some Christians have mistakenly begun to view God this way. They see God more as a tyrant than as a compassionate Heavenly Father. This vision of God creates wounded children who are both afraid to come to God for anything, or who simply put just want God somewhere in the background, but not up close and personal. But the God of the Bible is not an abusive Father, He is a Heavenly Father who loves to give good gifts to his children. Yes, the Christian has a proper sense of the majesty of God and a proper fear of God, but our fear of God is balanced in a healthy way with the reality that the Father loves you so much that he would sacrifice His Son, in order forgive you of your sins.

Caricature: Foolish Father

Secondly, some of us have a caricature of God that He is a Foolish Father. The Word of Faith movement that I described earlier believes in a very Foolish Father. A foolish father is one who thinks like a child. A foolish father has no higher wisdom to make better decisions than what the child wants. Foolish fathers don’t say, “No” to their children, and as a result their household is out of control and their children develop into ego-centric brats. Any parent who has read the Scriptures knows that parents cannot say yes to everything a child asks for. In fact, the essence of Biblical parenting is shaping the heart of our children to know and love God so that they desire differently. When a child asks a foolish father to watch TV, the foolish father hands them the remote, with no consideration of the consequences of the images that child will see. When a child talks disrespectfully about their mother in front of a foolish father, a foolish father will ignore it as if it didn’t matter, not realizing that a disrespectful attitude towards a mother will reap tragedy in that child’s life as they get older. To put it simply, the Foolish Father always says Yes.

This Creates a Self-Absorbed Child

When Christians believe that God is a Foolish Father, they begin to adopt heresies into their faith. We begin to believe movements like the Word-of-Faith Movement. Or perhaps you’ve seen the Name it and Claim It movement. “God wants to give you that promotion.” Praise God, we do not have a foolish father, but we have a Good Father who loves to give good gifts to his children. A helpful to antidote to the Foolish Father vision of God is James 4:3 which reads:

James 4:3 “You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions.

James hits the nail on the head. In persevering prayer, the Christian is invited to bring their whole selves to God. God is not angry when we bring him any number of requests in our life. He’s not up there shaking his head in disappointment, thinking, “what a small-minded request.” But often what God will do is as we labor in prayer, God will reveal the motivations of our prayer to us. More often than not the very things we pray for and most think we need, are actually more rooted in our passions, and less rooted in God’s vision and God will for what He is doing…

Absent Father

Lastly, and most likely the greatest of the three caricatures of God is that God is an Absent Father. Some of you may have grown up with a Father who was absent either physically because he abandoned you, or perhaps not physically because we was technically there, but he wasn’t really present. He wasn’t a major shaping factor in your life. He was there, but kind of in the shadows, not really interested in you, not really interested in the needs you had, the challenges you went through. And frankly you learned just to how to get by without him. He wasn’t necessary. You grew strong and you overcame hurdles, and you did it without him. Sadly, for many who had Absent Fathers, there can often even be a sense of pride in self at the fact that you made it without a Dad.

This Creates a Disconnected Child

Absent Fathers can create very disconnected children. And for many, when we think of God, we think of an Absent Father. He’s too busy and too concerned with so many other things to give you the time of day. He’s there, but he’s doing his own thing. He doesn’t really care. And if that is you in this room today, if you see God as as an Absent Father, it is no wonder your prayer life is stuck in 1st gear. It is no wonder Church is more often a burden. You’ve bought the lie that you can do it on your own, and so God is more of a background blur than a true Heavenly Father.

Consider the Life of Christ

But God is neither an Abusive Father, nor is he a Foolish Father, nor is an Absent Father. He is a good father, who delights in giving good gifts to his children. And if you will just come to him in prayer, and labor in prayer, and learn to see God for who He truly is, and what He is truly doing in your life, you will find that there is more to the God of the Bible than you have yet to learn.

Revival

Every great revival that has ever happened that I have ever read of, has come on the backs of remarkable concerts of prayer.

1727 The Moravian Movement – “Herrnhut, Germany; Moravians. Unified prayer from about 300 refugees brought forth a great hunger for Jesus and His Word. Everyone desired above everything else that the Holy Spirit would have full control. Self-love, self-will, as well as all disobedience, disappeared, and an overwhelming flood of grace swept them all into the great ocean of divine love. This brought forth a night and day prayer watch that lasted over 100 years and birthed the first systematic sending of missionaries around the world to win the lost.”

The Great Awakening took place in early colonies of American History between the 1730s and 1740s. What started in England with men like the Wesley brother and George Whitefield spread to the shores of America until the gospel was preached to what some consider 80% of the population. How did it begin. Small, powerful, prayer movements.

The Great Revival of 1859 started with a handful of men and women determined to pray together daily. A room of 6 people. The following week 14, then 25, then 40. It grew from building to building until one reporter said he was able to visit 12 of the locations praying at the noon hour and counted 6,100 men total. It was during that 1859 revival in Chicago that DL Moody’s legendary ministry took roots. Small Powerful Prayer Movements.

1914 – Belgian Congo, Africa, Charles Studd: Studd wrote that, "Some want to live within the sound of church bells; I want to run a rescue shop within a yard of hell." He reported on the revival in Congo that the Holy Spirit came down in mighty power sweeping the congregation, with people falling, jumping, laughing, crying, singing, confessing, and shaking, leading many to salvation.

1927 – Shanghai, China, John Sung: Sung made it his regular habit to be up at 5:00 a.m. and pray for up to three hours. He believed prayer was the most important work of the believer. He defined faith as watching God work while on your knees. Estimates of conversions from this revival run to hundreds of thousands in China and South-East Asia.

1949-1953 – Hebrides Islands, Scotland (Duncan Campbell); Christine and Peggy Smith, two aged sisters praying night and day fanned the flame that stirred six or seven men to pray in a barn, three nights a week from 10:00 p.m. to 3:00 a.m. All of this praying brought Duncan Campbell to Lewis Island, of the Hebrides. The night of his arrival, they asked him to speak for a short while at 9:00 p.m. to about 300 people in a church. The meeting went on to about 11:00 p.m., and when he closed the meeting and walked outside, he was astonished to find hundreds more outside of the church. While he and a team were ministering to the crowd, someone came up and told him he had to go to the police station. He asked, "Why, what is wrong?" to which he was told there were about 400 people gathered around the police station confessing their sins and faults, crying out for mercy, and the police did not know what to do with them. As he walked about a mile up a dirt road to the police station, he heard cries from people lying in the ditches, calling out to God in brokenness for His mercy.,

Let’s not forget to mention the revivals sweeping through the underground church in China, sweeping through the persecuted Church in Iraq, in Iran. I spoke to one friend who is preparing to move his family to the border of Afghanistan in less than a few months time, whos team of 5 out there has seen hundreds of muslims put their faith in Jesus. Prayer! Prayer!

Close

I don’t know how to get this message across in any other way. Prayer as the heart of Christianity, and so often is only the peripherals of our Church. We must reverse this. We must labor in prayer. You must labor in prayer. There is great work to do. And if we go about it prayerlessly we will accomplish absolutely nothing. Oh but God says, “Ask and you will receive. Seek and you will find. Knock and the door will be opened to you.”