Best. Sermon. Ever.: God Wants You to Ask

This is a way that we learn one another's names. I know some of you are thinking, "I hate doing this. I'm tired of doing this already. I don't care." We love you, and part of this is facilitating other people knowing your name. It's really important. If you would take a moment to fill that out—even if there's nobody else on your row—all this does is help other people walk around after service, find you, and get to know you.

Warm welcome in Jesus's name. My name is Geoff Bradford, and I want to welcome you to Christ Worship this morning and to being among his people. We're going to turn our attention to God's Word. If you would find in your bulletin, we're going to look at Matthew chapter 7, verses 7 through 11—or it'll be up on the screen here. We're going to read God's Word aloud together. So, let the people of God read the word of God.

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 to the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks, it will be opened. Or what person is there among you who, when his son asks for a loaf of bread, will give him a stone? And if he asks for a fish, he will not give him a snake, will he? So if you, despite being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him? — Matthew 7:7-11

This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.

My family suffered with an earworm this year. If you're not familiar with that term, we watched Encanto—Encanto, Encanto—and I don't know if you're familiar with the word "earworm" or also called "stuck song syndrome," "brainworm," "sticky music"—you know what I'm talking about. The song "We Don't Talk About Bruno," right? This is the earworm song that got stuck in everybody's head from that movie.

But the genius of that movie was actually not Lin-Manuel Miranda's song—the earworm—but his depiction of family relationships and how families work and how they don't work. If you've seen this movie, there are multiple characters that demonstrate in a really incredible way how people who are insecure about the love they have within their family respond.

You have Louisa, the really strong sister, who's not sure of her family's love for her and thinks she has to be strong all the time, carry things, and not let anything drop. You have Isabella, who again, not sure of the family's love for her, feels like she has to be perfect all the time in every way. You have Bruno—because we don't talk about Bruno, but we're going to talk about Bruno—who takes up a lot of emotional space in the family and yet is absent. Then you have Mirabel, who has a really special gift but feels shame and unworthy of the family's love.

The movie is brilliant in holding up this family where people are really unsure and feel like they have to work or prove their worthiness to receive love.

Jesus Calls Us to a New Posture

Today, we're almost done with our preaching series going through the Sermon on the Mount—Jesus's famous message. I've called it "Best. Sermon. Ever." Not talking about mine, but his. As we're coming through, we're almost done, and I think we're coming to the very heart of the Sermon on the Mount.

Multiple times now—this is the third time—we have been called by Jesus to a particular posture toward God. If you remember in chapter 6, Jesus lays out, "This is the way I want you to pray. Father..." A couple weeks ago, we looked at where Jesus calls us not to be filled with worry but instead to trust our Father. And today we hear again that language of Father, of going to our Father, asking, seeking, and knocking at the door of our Father in prayer.

And it begs the question—maybe the most important question I could ask you this morning—one of the most important questions of your life: Do you have a real relationship with God? A vital relationship with God? One that is really founded in the security of God's love for you?

If you don't talk to God regularly, let's talk about a friendship for a second. Let's say you have somebody that you call, and this person is one of your best friends, and you label them that way. But you never talk with each other. You don't have a friendship; you have history.

Do we view prayer—speaking to God—with the same kind of intensity, intentionality, and intimacy that we would have with a close friend? Do you have a vital relationship? A real relationship? An intimate relationship with your heavenly Father? This is what Jesus is holding out for us this morning.

When he calls us to this kind of prayer, this kind of posture like the woman who was hemorrhaging blood and she makes her way through the crowd and she just says, nothing's going to stop me from touching the hem of his robe. Are we those kind of people in prayer? Nothing's going to stop me from laying hold of Jesus. Nothing's going to stop me till I can get to him. Do you have that confidence?

So we're going to walk through this passage together because I want you to hear three things: the invitation to prayer, the unbelief that often times trumps our prayers, and then the one who prays for you—the one who prays with you.

The Invitation to Prayer

Here's the invitation that calls for prayer. You know, sometimes when I preach, I've gotta do all this homework and I've gotta help you understand this passage. This one just almost preaches itself. It doesn't take a whole lot of interpretation on this.

Jesus says, ask and seek and knock and it will be given to you. — Matthew 7:7

That's kinda it. But these aren't just statements. These are imperatives. Jesus is commanding us. These are commands for us to follow. There's an urgency to this: ask, seek, knock. It's this demand. Jesus is calling us to pray with this kind of persistence.

And the verbs aren't just commands. They are continual commands. So the tense of it in the original language is this: keep on asking. Keep on seeking. Keep on knocking—persistence over and over. What is in view here is bugging God. It's like the child who says, "Mommy, mommy, mommy, mommy, mommy, mommy, mommy, mommy. Daddy, daddy, daddy, daddy, daddy, daddy." That's what's in view here. Do you know some of those kids? Were you some of those kids?

See, the prayer that Jesus invites us to is the opposite of pride. It's the opposite of being able or prepared or sufficient or wise or strong. This is "I need you" prayer. "I can't do it" prayer. "I can't change anyone" prayer. "I can't do it on my own" prayer.

And what's the response from God? It sounds too good, right?

For everyone who asks receives, the one who seeks finds, the one who knocks, the door will be open. — Matthew 7:8

Jesus, are you saying you're handing out a blank check? Are you crazy?

You've probably heard this preached before. I bet some of you have taught this before, and everybody who's not a health and wealth prosperity gospel preacher feels like they need to edit Jesus. "Well, let's not take this out of hand, right? Jesus, you're taking things a little far. This sounds like a very blanket statement. Let's qualify this a bit." And of course, we'll say that doesn't mean you can ask God for a Rolls Royce, right? Of course we qualify. Jesus only means we should ask God for churchy things, right?

But I'm struck about how Jesus doesn't seem at all preoccupied with the fine print. And I think it's meant to be unqualified to address a particular problem of unbelief in our hearts. I think that Jesus doesn't want to pull the punch on this.

And of course, if you want to really take me on after the service, you can say, "Well, you look at this in the context," and you'd be right. We'd say, "Matthew 6, yes, seek first the kingdom." We read it in light of that, blah blah blah, right? But you know what? I'm not worried about this congregation taking things too far. I'm just not. I'm not worried about you taking this out of hand, asking God for crazy things. I'm rather worried—and I think Jesus phrases his words because he knows our hearts—that our problem is not gonna be asking too much, but filled with unbelief where we ask way too little.

You know, what do you hear? What do you think when you overhear—let's say it's not your kid, right? Or it's not somebody you know, but you're at the mall, you're at the store, and you hear the child go, "Mommy, mommy, mommy, mommy, mommy, mommy, mommy. Daddy, daddy, daddy, daddy, daddy, daddy." I mean, what do you hear the parents say? So often, this is what we say to our kids: "I heard you the first time. You don't have to keep saying my name."

And we send a message to our children: don't be persistent, you're bugging me. And I'm not here to shame anybody's parenting this morning. I'm just saying that we are discipled to think that's how we are with God. That "mommy, mommy, mommy, mommy, mommy" is actually bad praying, when Jesus says that's great praying. "Daddy, daddy, daddy, daddy, daddy"—that's actually great praying. This is what he calls us to do, to bug God.

In fact, he tells a parable about this in Luke's gospel, chapter 18.

Here's the preamble that Luke says: "Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up." And he tells the story about this widow who bugs an unrighteous judge for justice, over and over and over, bugging this unrighteous judge. And it says, Jesus says at the end, "This is what the unjust judge says: You know, he gives her what she's due. He gives her her day in court because of her persistence."

And then Jesus asks: "Will not God bring about justice for his chosen ones who cry out for him day and night? Will he keep putting them off?" I mean, what's the point?

This is what Luke says: "Pray to show that we should always pray and never give up."

Here's my question for you. Very simple. What are you bugging God about right now? Are you bugging God about anything? My guess is that you're very much like your pastor—one and done. I asked once or twice. But what are we bugging God about? That's the invitation of this passage: bugging God.

Unbelief About God as Father

So I want to address—and I think this passage addresses very helpfully for us—the unbelief that's in our hearts that trumps our prayers. And here's where Jesus pushes us first: unbelief about God as Father.

Now, of course, lots of people pray in this world. Lots of people who aren't Christians pray. Lots of people pray before a test. They pray around things when things are really hard and uncertain. Lots of people will toss up prayers and be like, "We'll see. We'll see what happens." But Christian prayer—this is the difference. Christian prayer is rooted in relationship. It's about relationship.

Notice how Jesus speaks in the Sermon on the Mount about God as Father. He says over and over again:

"If your son asks for bread, will you give him a stone? If he asks for a fish, will you give him a snake? If then you, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him?" — Matthew 7:9-11

Prayer is a relational connection between a parent and a child. So it falls to the parent to respond in the way that is best for the child, right? If we ask for bread, God will always do this: he will not give us a meaningless stone or a harmful serpent. He's a good Father.

Remember Encanto? I know many people were really moved by that movie. Some of you cried. You were moved to tears because of how that made you feel about your own family. And yet, I think it goes deeper than that. How many of us carry around that same kind of uncertainty with regard to God's love for us?

How many of us are like Luisa, who are not confident of our heavenly Father's love for us, and think that we need to be strong and carry everything—and we pray only when everything finally falls down? Or how many of us are like Isabela, who think we need to be perfect all the time, and it's only when we're at the end of our rope that we actually begin to turn toward our Father? Or how many of us are like ghosts—like Bruno—and we're not even sure that we should be in the same building with our Father? We're not even on speaking terms? Or how many of us are like Mirabel, filled with shame?

I think that you could apply all of those characters to the relationship that we have with our Father. So, fellow Madrigals, listen to Jesus: This Father withholds no good thing. He loves. He will give you what you need.

And I know that is really tough logic for many of us. That's tough logic because not everybody has a model of a good father. But let me explain something about the language of Scripture. God always puts the cookies on the bottom shelf for his people. We read God's Word. We read about a transcendent God of the universe who is beyond all time and space. And yet God always uses language that his children can understand—all of his children, the little ones can understand. He speaks this language for us.

So God, in describing heaven, describes it in language we can use: you know, streets of gold. That is not literally what heaven is. God as a Father and a King, Jesus as a Lamb, the Holy Spirit as a wind, a fire, a small voice. All this language is cookies on the bottom shelf—but it helps our finite minds understand what is infinite.

Is God aware of how loaded the term "father" is for us? What do you think? I think he is. I think he knows that maybe the most powerful relationship we have in this life is a parent-child relationship. And so God, aware of the risks, uses that term. Jesus, aware of the risks, uses that term. Why would he do that?

You know, it's hard because we can't help—this is a comparison from the lesser to the greater, and we can't help in our frailty from transferring some of what we know of the earthly onto the heavenly. Don't we do that?

If you had an absent father, a distant father, a workaholic father, an abusive father—it's hard for us not to transfer that, isn't it? Can I say a word to you as your pastor if that's you this morning? Jesus knows that. And he's actually speaking into that by using this illustration.

I want to show you this. I want you to pivot off the ache. Pivot off the longing. Pivot off the unmet desires because that's what Jesus is inviting us to. Jesus doesn't say, "Cheer up. God is better than a bad father you know." Jesus says he's better than the best father anyone could have. He's better than the best one.

Even the best fathers are flawed. Even the best parents miss it. I can testify as a parent how much you want to connect with the hearts of your children and don't know how. That's a regular thing as a parent. Are we doing the right thing? I don't know. Isn't this what parents do? Even the best of parents—and I'm not holding myself up as the best of parents—but Jesus says something really radical here.

We would say, "Yeah, we're kind of flawed, imperfect." Jesus says evil. Right? Ouch. Jesus says evil. He's saying, like, even evil parents like the best ones pale in comparison to who our Father is. So he invites us to pivot off this. He invites us to take the longings that you have—that testify to what you're designed for with your heavenly Father—and to take that and say, "That's what God is like. My longings are a testimony to what I really, really, what God has designed me for in relationship with him."

That pain—I don't want to minimize anybody's pain. If you say, "I can't think of God as Father. It's too hard," Jesus says to you, that pain is exactly why you should think of God as Father. It points us to the deepest longing we have. He is exceedingly better.

Unbelief That Quits Waiting

I'm sorry, not sorry for getting all English teacher on you twice in one sermon. I've already talked about verb tenses. I know, right? But I want to show you this. The asking, seeking, and knocking—those are present tense. But "will receive," "will find," "will be opened"—come on, class. Where are we now? In the future tense. And there's a problem between that because those are not the same tense.

We experience this all the time. Endemic to the statement is waiting and in between. I hate waiting, and I hate in between. I am a master at measuring Costco lines for the fastest ones. I get mad when the apps on my phone don't work. I hate it when my debit card—I have to swipe it twice. Like, waiting, I am not good at waiting. We are trained not to wait, and our hearts are naturally given to hate in between.

But waiting, Jesus is showing us that waiting and in between are part of it. Lucy Shaw writes this: "This is how waiting works on us. Anticipation lifts the heart. Desire is created to be fulfilled. Perhaps not all at once, more likely in slow stages." I love that. Like, waiting time is God's—God's not being mean. It's not wasted time. It's persistent prayer time. It's pruning time. It's maturation time.

Persistent prayer, like Jesus commands, presumes waiting. There's a time difference between the asking and keeping on asking, seeking and keeping on seeking, knocking and keeping on knocking, and the "will be's," right? What if it is in the waiting that we actually get the good gifts that are promised us? What if that's part of it?

Notice Jesus doesn't say, "Knock and you'll get exactly what you knocked for. Seek and you will get exactly what you sought out." He doesn't say that. There's part of this wedding. He says you will get good gifts, though. You will get good gifts. Prayer is a journey in which God gives us what we need, even in the waiting.

What about it when God says no? What when waiting seems like it doesn't work? Of course, an abusive parent is one who fails to provide what their child needs, but an equally abusive parent could be one who provides everything the child wants. Everything the child wants.

If God gave all I ask, I would be an abusive parent. I would be an abusive parent. You know how Chick-fil-A is like crack cocaine for children? They mix that in with the peanut oil and the breading in Chick-fil-A nuggets, right? And like, little kids, they love Chick-fil-A, and adults too. I mean, peanut oil is my only essential oil, right? But if my kids, if we ate at Chick-fil-A as much as we all wanted to eat at Chick-fil-A, we all know what we would look like.

We give our children what they need because we know better. I love how the preacher Martin Lloyd Jones puts this. He says, "I thank God"—and I'm gonna put this really bluntly.

I thank God that he is not prepared to do anything I may chance to ask him. And I say that as a result of my own past experience. In my past life, like all others, I have asked God for things and asked God to do things which at the time I wanted very much and which I believed were the best things for me. But now, as an old man at this particular juncture in my life looking back, I say I am profoundly grateful to God that he did not grant me certain things for which I asked. He shut certain doors in my face. At that time, I didn't understand, but now I know and I'm grateful to God for it.

Sounds a lot like Garth Brooks. Okay, like two of you got that. Thank God for unanswered prayers. Sometimes when you're talking to the man upstairs, even though he doesn't answer, doesn't mean he don't care. I'll sing it for second service if y'all stay around. But I think Martin Lloyd Jones is talking about an old girlfriend. I mean, let's be honest. Some of y'all should stand up and give praise right now. Stand up and give testimony right now in our church for the things that you asked for—the people you asked for—that were bad news for you. Can I get a witness?

But seriously, the same good father who withholds no good thing is the same good father who does not give bad things. We're asking for what we think is bread, but really is a serpent, and God's like, "I'm not going to give you a serpent, and you've been asking for a serpent."

There's an old Puritan prayer that includes some of the same testimony:

I thank thee that many of my prayers have been refused. I've asked amiss and do not have. I have prayed for from lusts and have been rejected. I have longed for Egypt and have been given a wilderness.

This is what the Puritan says finally: "Go on with thy patient work. Answering no to my wrongful prayers and fitting me to accept it." Waiting time is not wasted time. It's pruning time. It's daddy, daddy, daddy, daddy, daddy time.

Unbelief that Comes from Cynicism

I want to address this last way that we deal with our prayers, and I'm going to call it "heads I win, tails you lose." Picture I've got a quarter. We're going to play that game to see who gets to go first. So I'm going to flip the coin and call it: heads I win, tails you lose. Now, what does that mean? I always win and you always lose, right? And that's what we do so often in how we evaluate what God is doing in our lives.

This is from C.S. Lewis in his book Screwtape Letters. He's writing as a senior devil to a junior devil about how to deceive and discourage Christians. He says:

If the thing that the Christian prays for doesn't happen, then that is one more proof that petitionary prayer doesn't work. If it does happen, the Christian will, of course, be able to see some sort of physical cause which led up to it and therefore, it would've happened anyway. Thus, a granted prayer just becomes as good a proof as a denied one that prayers are ineffective.

We do this with God. I look at the circumstances in which something came about that I actually did pray for, and I'm able to do an inner game of chess where I'm like, "It would've happened anyway. I can assign naturalistic causes." That person remembered me this morning and called me, and therefore, what do we do? Checkmate God. Heads I win, tails you lose. We evaluate and therefore dismiss God so quickly, even in areas where we see God answering our prayers, because we're able to work our way out from underneath him.

Some events can be explained by naturalistic explanations, but it's funny because I find the people—and I'm talking about the home team this morning—who believe the most of Christians, of all the family tree of Christians, the ones who sometimes believe the most in divine sovereignty or predestination or God's power over all things, are some of the worst prayers. Because we do this little internal game of chess: "It would have happened anyway. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter that I prayed about it. God would have done it anyway." I mean, that's folly.

Why is that folly? Because Jesus commands us. The very Lord of the universe who is himself in charge of all things, before all time, seated now at the right hand of the Father, prays on our behalf, commands us to pray and keep on praying. Daddy, daddy, daddy, daddy, daddy. I mean, don't use Calvinism as a checkmate for prayer.

Calvin himself wrote this: "Prayer is the chief exercise of faith." Calvin had a great prayer life. Why? Because he was confident that God was in control of all things. So he was one of those people who's like, if God is really this powerful and in control, and if God commands me to pray, those things go together. They don't work against each other. They don't cancel one another out.

Cynicism does this: heads I win, tails you lose. It makes God out to lose and you lose. It leaves us prayerless.

By contrast, F.B. Meyer wrote this: "The greatest tragedy is not unanswered prayer but unoffered prayer." You didn't get stuff because you didn't ask.

I wonder sometimes if when I die and I go before Jesus in heaven, if He won't be like, "Hey, don't look over there." What's over there? "Well, I got a room full of stuff over there." What's in that room? "Well, that's all the stuff that I wanted to give you but you never asked for. That's all the stuff I wanted to do in your life and in the lives of people but you forgot to ask. You didn't ask." What a tragedy. We don't have because we don't ask.

Jesus Invites Us to Pray

Finally, Jesus prays for us. I want you to think about who is inviting us to pray this morning. Who's inviting us to pray, to ask, seek, and knock? It's so ironic that Jesus says these words as part of the Sermon on the Mount. Why is that ironic? Because Jesus is in the process, as He speaks these words, of being the answer to our greatest needs. Our greatest needs are already provided for in Jesus Christ. He is the yes to all of our needs to which a million nos or a million waits pale in comparison. He is the answer.

Looking at Him, hearing this from Him, knowing where you stand at this point in history and where I stand at this point in history—Jesus is already the yes to all of your what, where, and how. God has already provided this for you.

John Calvin says, "When we pray, it is as it were through Jesus's mouth." Jesus prays for us. He prays with us. He himself is the answer to our prayers, and He invites us to join with Him. So we pray, as it were, through the mouth of Jesus to the one who knows our greatest needs and invites us to come to Him as dear children.

The Table as Testimony

This morning, I'm going to invite you to the table, and the table is a testimony in two directions. Every week it's a testimony for you who are not Christians: God is not your Father unless you own Him by faith and receive the gift of His salvation through Christ. Those are the ones who are given access to call Him Father. Even though in this world lots of people call God Father, that's only the property of those who are His adopted children, who are really part of the family. We don't have to do anything to deserve it. We don't have to do anything to merit it.

But the second thing that will happen when we come to the table in a moment is that it is a testimony to your very senses. Smell the wine. Taste the bread. It's a testimony to your senses that God provides what you need. God provides. He's a good Father who knows what you need, and every week we celebrate this and every week it testifies to us that God is indeed this good to His people.

Let's go to Him in prayer. Father, we thank You this morning that Jesus Christ came and offered Himself as a substitute for us, as a sacrifice of atonement to bring us into right relationship with You. And yet, Lord, that knowledge—which is all true—very rarely seeps down into our bones.

We pray, Father. We offer up our unbelief, our cynicism, our prayerlessness, our doubting of You as a good Father, our struggles to believe. Lord, we offer ourselves to You this morning. We pray that even in this service, You would change us or that You would have Your way among us. That Lord, You would fill us with hope. We pray that we would encourage each other as Your children, as Your spiritual family this morning to trust You. We pray this in Christ's name. Amen.

Let's respond to God in song together.