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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.
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