You can trust God No subject is more precious or more needed than prayer! John Wallace (1802 1870), a Scottish clergyman, wrote, Prayer moves the Hand which moves the world. The British poet Alfred Tennyson (1809 1892) said, More things are wrought by prayer than this world dreams of. US President Abraham Lincoln (1809 1865), referring to the dark days of the US Civil War, said, I have been driven many times to my knees by the overwhelming conviction that I had nowhere else to go. In previous lessons on the Sermon on the Mount, we have received God s instruction regarding prayer. In Matthew 6:5 8, we learned how not to pray - to be seen by men. In Matthew 6:9 15, we learned how to pray as we studied The Lord s Prayer or The Model Prayer. Now, in Matthew 7:7 11, we will be told what to expect when we pray: Matthew 7:7-11: 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 he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened. Or what man is there among you who, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will he give him a serpent? If you then, being 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! NKJV You can trust God to answer your prayers: In Matthew 7:7 11, Jesus teaches us about the power of persistent prayer. It could be thought of as a follow-up to the section on worry! Matthew 6:34 So don t be anxious about tomorrow. God will take care of your tomorrow too. Live one day at a time. TLB If disciples are not to worry about tomorrow, what should they do? They should pray! Prayer is God s antidote for worry! Philippians 4:6 Don t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank Him for all He has done. NLT These verses also come between two passages on human relationships (Matthew 7:1 6 and Matthew 7:12). This teaches us that prayer is essential to getting along with people. We have learned that if we want to get along with other people, we are not to be judgmental, we are to be merciful and kind. God shows mercy to us, we should show mercy to others. At the same time, we are not to be gullible; we need to know when to shake the dust off our feet. These judgments are difficult to make. How can we keep from being tough when we should be tender, or tender when we should be tough? Matthew 7:7-11 gives us the answer. We must rely on God! If you really want to know how to deal with all kinds of people, how to get along with people, if relationships are important to you, then you will spend much time in prayer. James 1:5 - If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him. NKJV Matthew 7:7 - Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. NKJV 1
The key words in these verses are ask, seek, and knock. The word ask expresses desire and indicates dependency on God! Phillip Brooks defined prayer as a wish turned God-ward. The word seek conveys a sense of urgency! In Jeremiah 29:13 the Lord said, And you will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart. NKJV The term knock suggests perseverance! The parallel passage in Luke 11:9 13 follows Jesus parable of the man who would not take no for an answer when he was trying to get food for an unexpected guest (Luke 5 8). Most agree that in the progression from ask to seek to knock, there is an increase in intensity! Jesus does not want us to ask once and quit. He wants us to keep on asking and not cease from asking. Ask, seek, and knock are all in the present tense in the Greek, indicating continuous action! God wants us to Keep on asking, Keep on seeking, and Keep on knocking. Jesus taught His disciples Luke 18:1 men always ought to pray and not lose heart NKJV If we persist in prayer, here is the wonderful promise: Matthew 7:7 - Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. NKJV If anything is clearly taught in the Bible, it is that God answers prayer. out of 667 prayers for specific things in the Bible there are 454 traceable answers. Eleanor L. Doan It is interesting to note that the word ASK begins with an a, seek with an s, and knock with a k. When you put those letters together, they spell ASK. Jesus wants us to ask. James 4:2 - you do not have because you do not ask. NKJV To make sure we do not miss the message, the Lord repeated the promise and, if possible, made it even stronger: Matthew 7:8 - For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened. NKJV Why should we be persistent in prayer? Because we have a God Who loves us and Who will answer our prayers: James 5:16 18: Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The earnest prayer of a righteous person has great power and produces wonderful results. Elijah was as human as we are, and yet when he prayed earnestly that no rain would fall, none fell for three and a half years! Then, when he prayed again, the sky sent down rain and the earth began to yield its crops. NLT If we desire to be blessed by the Lord, we must ask, we must earnestly seek, and we must persist in knocking. If we will do these things, Jesus promised that we will receive, we will find, and the door of blessings will be flung open. Some of the best passages on God answering prayer are: Psalm 34:4 - I sought the Lord and He heard me, and delivered me from all my fears. NKJV Mark 11:22-24: So Jesus answered and said to them, have faith in God. For assuredly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, Be removed and be cast into the sea, and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that those things he says will come to pass, he will have whatever he says. Therefore I say to you, whatever things you ask when you pray, believe that you receive them, and you will have them. NKJV 2
1 John 3:22 And whatever we ask we receive from Him, because we keep His commandments and do those things that are pleasing in His sight. NKJV Many other passages could be quoted to show that God answers prayer, but no single passage teaches this truth more clearly or with greater power than Matthew 7:7-11! Some people protest: Wait a minute! God hasn t answered my prayer! I m hoarse from asking, I m exhausted from seeking, and my knuckles are bruised from knocking. But I haven t received or found, and the door is still shut tight! Passages like Matthew 7:7 11 teach that God answers prayer, but they do not teach that prayer is some sort of magical incantation that compels God to say yes to our every wish. Other passages teach that there are conditions to acceptable prayer. We must ask according to God s will: 1 John 5:14-15: Now this is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to His will (anything that pleases Him), He hears us. And if we know that He hears us, whatever we ask, we know that we have what we asked of Him. NKJV We must ask in faith: James 1:6-7: But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for he who doubts is like a wave of the sea driven and tossed by the wind. For let not that man suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord; he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways. NKJV We must pray unselfishly: James 4:2-3: You want what you don t have, so you scheme and kill to get it. You are jealous for what others have, and you can t possess it, so you fight and quarrel to take it away from them. And yet the reason you don t have what you want is that you don t ask God for it. And even when you do ask, you don t get it because your whole motive is wrong you want only what will give you pleasure. NLT Protesters speak up again: Conditions for prayer? So God just answers prayers if they meet all the conditions. I knew there had to be a catch! The idea of God immediately granting every request might sound like a dream come true, but such an arrangement would soon become a nightmare because we don t always know how to pray or what to pray for. God answers the prayers of His children. He may not always answer yes, but He always answers. One preacher used a simple outline to illustrate possible divine answers: If the request is wrong, God says, No. If the timing is wrong, God says, Slow. If you are wrong, God says, Grow. But if the request is right, the timing is right and you are right, God says, Go! The biblical view is that life is a journey full of perplexities and uncertainties. No matter how great your faith in God, pain and grief are a part of life. Job 14:1 How frail is humanity! How short is life, how full of trouble! NLT What matters in this world is not so much the problems we meet as whether or not we are ready to meet them. One thing that will help us is the certainty that God answers our prayers. 3
To give you only good things: You can trust God to answer your prayers. You can also trust God to give you only good things. Matthew 7:9-10: Or what man is there among you who, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will he give him a serpent? If you then, being 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! NKJV The Sermon on the Mount was preached in Galilee. The most common foods found around the Sea of Galilee were bread and fish. Also, the shoreline of the sea had an abundance of water-smoothed limestone rocks and a variety of snakes which hid among the rocks. Jesus first illustration was about a son asking his father for bread. Jesus asked, in effect, Would a loving father respond to that request by playing a cruel joke on his son? Would he put a round, brown rock in his son s hand or even a deadly snake? Jesus wanted us to understand that a responsible father would never, never do that to his son - our heavenly Father does not treat us like that either. Every earthly father has made mistakes in dealing with his children, but God does not make mistakes. He does not give gifts that are in reality curses He is not like that. Everything God does is because He loves us even when He discipline us: Hebrews 12:5-10: have you forgotten the encouraging words God spoke to you as his children? He said, My child, don t make light of the Lord s discipline, and don t give up when he corrects you. For the Lord disciplines those he loves, and he punishes each one he accepts as his child. As you endure this divine discipline, remember that God is treating you as his own children. Who ever heard of a child who is never disciplined by its father? If God doesn t discipline you as he does all of his children, it means that you are illegitimate and are not really his children at all. Since we respected our earthly fathers who disciplined us, shouldn t we submit even more to the discipline of the Father of our spirits, and live forever? For our earthly fathers disciplined us for a few years, doing the best they knew how. But God s discipline is always good for us, so that we might share in his holiness. NLT Our Heavenly Father: Jesus was ready to make His application. Having talked about how human parents respond to their children s requests, He said: Matthew 7:11 If you then, being 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! NKJV When compared with God, all men, even kind parents, are evil. We all fall short. When my kids were growing up, I tried my best to be a good father. I did what I thought was best for them at any given time. Now, when I look back, I see many mistakes I made, and I am sure I made other mistakes of which I am still unaware. How thankful we should be that our heavenly Father does not have the shortcomings we human parents have! Unlike us: (1) God knows what is best for His children. It was not always easy to know what was best for my kids, but God always knows what is best. John R. W. Stott wrote, If we ask God for good things, He grants them; if we ask for things which are not good, He denies them, and only he knows the difference. 4
(2) God is always able to give what is good to His children. Regarding what I could do for my children, I was limited by time, energy, and finances. God does not have those limitations. Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 9:8 And God will generously provide all you need. Then you will always have everything you need and plenty left over to share with others. NLT (3) God is always kind to His children. Have you ever lost your patience with your children and said or done something you regret? I do not like to recall such moments, but on occasion I was short-tempered with my children, especially when I was exhausted or frustrated. God does not have the deficiencies of human parents: Isaiah 49:15 Never! Can a mother forget her nursing child? Can she feel no love for the child she has borne? But even if that were possible, I would not forget you! NLT (4) God is always near when His children need Him. There have been times when one of my kids needed me and I was unable to get to them immediately. God, however, is always near, always ready to give what is good to His children: Hebrews 13:5 For God has said, I will never fail you. I will never abandon you. NLT When Jesus said that God gives what is good to those who ask Him, what good things did He have in mind? In the parallel passage in Luke, instead of what is good, the text has the Holy Spirit! Luke 11:13 So if you sinful people know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him. NLT In Luke 11, the emphasis is on spiritual blessings God gives His children. However, in Matthew 7 physical blessings are almost certainly included. In Matthew 6 the promise was made that God gives the physical necessities of life to those who seek first His kingdom and righteousness (Matthew 6:33). In His model prayer, Jesus indicated that we are to pray for both physical and spiritual blessings (Matthew 6:11-12). The phrase what is good, therefore, surely refers to all the good gifts we receive from our heavenly Father. James 1:17 Whatever is good and perfect is a gift coming down to us from God our Father, who created all the lights in the heavens. He never changes or casts a shifting shadow. NLT Sometimes Christians object, But I m a child of God, and He hasn t given me good things! In fact, some really bad things have happened to me lately! I wish I had the ability and insight to explain satisfactorily why bad things happen, but I do not. What I can do is suggest several truths to keep in mind. First, we do not always know what is best for us. We may think we know. We may be certain with every fiber of our being that we know - but we do not. Romans 8:26 And the Holy Spirit helps us in our weakness. For example, we don t know what God wants us to pray for. But the Holy Spirit prays for us with groanings that cannot be expressed in words. NLT Second, that which we think is bad may turn out to be a blessing: Psalm 119:71 My suffering was good for me, for it taught me to pay attention to your decrees. NLT Third, only God knows what is ultimately best for us. We must therefore leave all matters in His hands. We need to pray, as Jesus did: Luke 22:42 Father, if you are willing, please take this cup of suffering away from me. Yet I want your will to be done, not mine. NLT 5
Conclusion: We are to ask and keep on asking. We are to seek and keep on seeking. We are to knock and keep on knocking. Do we need to do this because God is like a stingy miser whom we must persuade to give us good things? No, when we look at our text as a whole, we see that Jesus was teaching that we should persist in prayer because we are confident that God is generous and openhearted. If we keep asking, seeking, and knocking, we will receive, we will find, and it will be opened to us. Does this mean that God will give us anything and everything we ask for, exactly as we ask for it, and precisely at the time we ask for it? No, God is not an indulgent grandfather who will gratify our every whim. He gives us only what is good for us to have. Nor is God a mean-spirited practical joker who tricks or tantalizes His children. You can trust God. You can trust Him to answer your prayers. You can trust Him to give you only good things. Understand, however, that the promises of Matthew 7:7 11 are based on a father/child relationship. To appropriate them, you must be a child of God. Are you His child? 6