September 30, 2007

Asking, Seeking, Knocking

Matthew 7:7-12

Earlier in His sermon on the mount, the Lord gave His disciples - and us - some really important instructions on how to pray, and the church has always referred to these instructions as the Lord's Prayer. He told them "... when you pray, do not use vain repetitions as the heathen do. For they think that they will be heard for their many words.
:8 "Therefore do not be like them. For your Father knows the things you have need of before you ask Him.
:9 In this manner, therefore, pray..." and then He proceeds to teach them how to pray, what to pray for, and what our priorities in prayer ought to be.

In Matthew chapter seven, He begins by giving them lessons in how to exercise sound judgment without being judgmental, and then He returns once again to the topic of prayer, and that is where we are going to be stopping and letting down our nets, and seeing what we can pull in.

If you have your Bibles with you today, and I hope you do, turn to Matthew chapter seven and verse seven. "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 he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened.
:9 Or what man is there among you who, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone?
:10 Or if he asks for a fish, will he give him a serpent?
: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!
:12 Therefore, whatever you want men to do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets."

The Lord gives us three things to do in terms of our relationship with God, and those are ask, seek, & knock, three things.

First, asking. Years ago, when I was in the Air Force, Barbara & I got to go to Taiwan, and also to Hong Kong. We saw something there that we hadn't seen before, and that was beggars. And most of the beggars that we encountered were children. In crowds. In masses of kids, surrounding you, five deep. Insistent, demanding, determined.
If you have never been in that sort of situation before, it is really freaky. They are not shy, they are not bashful, they are serious. They know what they want, they know you have it, and they make no bones about asking for it. Dollar, dollar, dollar, dollar. No hesitation.

They do it all day long, to every foreigner that comes by, no slack, no let up. They don't quit. Not that we ever gave them anything. We had been warned, if you give any of them anything, the rest of them will be on you like wolves on a rabbit. And we saw that, someone gave them something, and instantly it was like watching seagulls at the beach when the bread man shows up, loud, pushy, demanding, intimidating. And kind of scary.

They had no restraint, no holding back in their asking, but how often does it happen that we neglect to pray and ask God for what we need? Or ask Him for what some one in our family needs? Or maybe we assume that it is just automatically going to be there, so we don't need to ask? Hmm...

How is it that street urchins can be totally dedicated to spending their day begging from people who are likely to give them nothing, and yet we often fail to ask of our Heavenly Father who would like to richly give us all things, if only we would ask? That's strange.

Ask and it shall be given unto you. Not only that, we can ask safely, verse 11 says "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!" Unfortunately, the best of us are flawed, the best of us are fallible, the best of us make mistakes in judgement and behavior, yet we still do the best we can for our families and children. We want to give our children the best things we can, things that are good for them, things that will profit them. Sometimes we make mistakes, but we do the best we can. When they ask for bread, we don't give them stones, we feed them with good food. But God does so much better.

God does not have our limitations, and as long as we pray seeking His will to be done, we have nothing to worry about. We can ask for anything we want, and as long as we ask with an attitude of "Lord, you know what's best, you know what I really need, please give me what you think is right for me according to your will," we can't go wrong.
Think about it - if you want something and you can honestly pray "Lord, I don't see anything in your Word that says this isn't a good idea, I think it is a great idea, this is what I want, but your will be done, and if you say no - if you don't want it, then I don't want it." If you can pray with that attitude, you won't get in any trouble. You can ask for what you want safely, knowing that God makes no mistakes.

I suspect that some people, and probably some Christians, have the idea that God is kind of tight-fisted, sometimes it's hard to get Him to turn loose of the things we want.
That's not true. God likes to give His children things, but His priority is that we should be Christlike, and making us Christlike sometimes means having us do without things. Or sometimes wait for things. But that has nothing to do with God being stingy, or mean, it has everything to do with His wisdom in what He gives us.

I suppose your homes are a lot like mine, there are some things in my house that my grand daughter Arwen doesn't need to see about or have access to. She doesn't need access to the medicine cabinet, the gun rack, the band saw, the razor blades, or the chemicals in the garage I use to strip paint, dissolve things, or destroy things. If she was to ask for them, no matter how bad she wanted them, "Pleasseeze?" she doesn't get any, period. Why? Because it is not my will that she have them. Because I have decided, in my finite and fallible human will, that it is not in her best interests to have any of those things. So if my fallible will knows how to with hold things that are not suitable for three year olds, should we not expect that God will keep us from things that are unsuitable for us as adults? Sure. Absolutely.

But what if we ask for them anyway? What if we think that we really want certain things? It gets back to asking that His will be done, doesn't it? Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.

But what if we have read the Bible, we have learned from the Scriptures what it is that God wants, what it is that He desires, so we make sure that we are praying in accordance with His will, we know we are praying for what God wants, and yet - we don't get answers? What has gone wrong? Why is it "not working?" Why have our prayers failed to move the hand of God and accomplish what God manifestly says He wants?

Back in the Old Testament days, Israel wanted a king, and God gave them Saul. Saul had a problem, he was wishy washy, he was inconsistent. And worst of all, he was disobedient to do what the Lord had told him to do. Instead, he did what he thought was more important. When the prophet Samuel came upon Israel in disobedience to God, because of Saul's disobedience, this is what he said, 1st Samuel 15:22. "So Samuel said: "Has the LORD as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the LORD? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed than the fat of rams.
:23 For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, And stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry. - And then Samuel told Saul - Because you have rejected the word of the LORD, He also has rejected you from being king."

I would suggest to you that it doesn't matter how much praying we do, or how careful we are that our prayers are in accordance with the will of God, - if our lives are being lived in disobedience to God, then He will very likely with hold His hand from answering our prayers.

If you are praying earnestly for something, and God is not answering, it is possible that God has other or better things in store for you, and you will just need to wait until the time arrives for God's best. However, sometimes there is another reason that prayer is not being answered, and that is because we are in disobedience to the Word of God, we have not done what God has told us to do, our personal lives are disobedient, and we are substituting prayer for obedience.

Think about that. God tells us to pray, He also tells us to be obedient. If we are disobedient, if we refuse to obey God, can we substitute prayer for obedience and still expect to get good results to prayer? Even prayer for what God says He wants? Will that work? In lieu of obedience? I submit to you that prayer is not an acceptable substitute for obedience. Not now, not in Bible times, not ever.

Psalm 66:18, it is in your bulletins, and I want every one of you to pick up your bulletins and we all need to say this together, "If I regard iniquity in my heart, The Lord will not hear me." Is there any part of that verse that you don't understand?

Just so there is no confusion, look at the next verse listed, 1st John 3:4 "Everyone practicing sin also practices lawlessness, and sin is lawlessness." The word for lawlessness is the same word as iniquity, lawlessness and iniquity are exactly the same. Iniquity equals lawlessness. To be lawless is to be a law unto yourself, to reject the sovereignty of God over you, to be subject only to your own will. That is iniquity. It is to be in defiance of authority. It is to set yourself up as the final authority.

Don't we all like it that way? That appeals to our old fleshly nature quite nicely, doesn't it? We like it. I know I do. But it is the foundational sin from which all other sins find their source. Lawlessness. And God says that if we regard that attitude in our heart, if we pet it and feed it, if that is the way we think, if that is what we are all about, then He won't hear us. Our prayers get about as high as the ceiling, and then they quit.

"O God, I've been praying for whatever-it-is for years, and you haven't answered me." And God says, "Are you talking to me? Strange, I haven't heard anything, and my hearing is perfect. The problem must be at your end."

God is holy, God is sovereign, and God is consistent. And God is not going to act like our relationship with Him is peachy-keen if we are setting our will up over His will, if we are being rebellious toward Him, if we are ignoring His will and being lawless. So if we are in that sort of a condition, and meanwhile we get all worked up and motivated about prayer, and we pray and pray and pray, and we get all emotional and cry and weep and we convince ourselves that because of our passion and our sincerity that God is just absolutely going to wonderfully answer our prayers - we are wasting our time.

Psalm 66:18, read it with me again - "If I regard iniquity in my heart, The Lord will not hear me." If you are regarding iniquity in your heart, it doesn't matter if you are praying 24/7, you are wasting your time. Amen?

But if you are in a proper condition to pray and receive, then pray, but still, make sure that you pray according to God's will, as best you can. There is such a thing as asking for things that we might think are pleasing to God, when in reality they are merely pleasing to our old flesh nature, and when we go in that direction, God is going to say no, because we are going in the wrong direction.

James tells us about this when he says in chapter 4, "From where do wars and fightings among you come? Is it not from this, from your lusts which war in your members?
:2 You desire, and do not have. You murder, and are jealous, and cannot obtain. You fight and war, yet you have not because you ask not.
:3 You ask and receive not, because you ask amiss, that you may spend it upon your lusts."

It is easy for us to mislead ourselves and persuade ourselves that some of the foolish things that we want are actually the things that God wants. Probably not, don't be surprised when those prayers don't get answered. But notice also what James says right in the midst of these three verses that deal with our fleshly lusts, he still tells us to ask, and that the reason that we don't have is because we don't ask. So there is a valid asking and an invalid asking. Deal with the flesh, and then ask.

Next comes the admonition to seek. Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.

Seek. What are you looking for? What do you want? I am not the oldest one in this assembly of Christians, but I have been around long enough to know that every worldly thing you can want is eventually going to get old and boring. So what we need is to want something that does not get old, something that does not get boring and stale, and I suggest to you that only God and the things that He gives us are going to satisfy us in the long run.

God and His glory will satisfy us long term, everything else is eventually going to become boring. As Paul said in Philippians 3:8 "Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ
:9 and be found in Him, not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith;
:10 that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings..."

Paul had more adventures, more ups and downs, more experience with the highs and lows of this world than most any of us will ever have, and he said it was garbage compared to knowing Christ. I accept that. That sounds very reasonable to me. Even my own limited personal experience agrees with that. If you live long enough, I expect that you will probably get to that point yourself.

But let's say that you do, you come to the point that the world is old, stale, boring, and your desire is for Christ, and Christ alone, how do you attain that closeness with Christ ahead of all else? How do you get there? You've got to want it. Your priorities have got to change. If you want something else more than you want a close relationship with God, then that is what you will have instead of God.

The Old Testament is full of references to God being a jealous God, which does not mean that He is a green eyed, narrow, sharp tongued thing, but that He is not willing to share His love with another. As we are the bride of Christ, He is jealous over us, He is not willing to share us with anything else. So if we love something else more than we love Him, He will let us go, He will let us be unfaithful, but if we do, then we can't expect to have real intimacy with Him. We have to want Jesus Christ first, we have to want Him most, we have to have our priorities and our spiritual love life in order before things will be like they should. But if Christ becomes first in your life, if Christ becomes the main thing in your life, if Christ is what you want more than anything else, then nothing can keep you from finding what you are seeking.

Back in the Old Testament, when God told Israel that if they were unfaithful, then He would scatter them to other nations. He also promised that when they got their hearts right, then they would be brought back, Deuteronomy 4:29, "But from there you will seek the LORD your God, and you will find Him if you seek Him with all your heart and with all your soul." We are Christians in a heathen world, so we are somewhat like Israel off in Babylon, what God told those people applies to us. If we will seek God with all our heart and soul, then we will find Him.

Which means that the corollary to this verse is also true, if we do not find God, it is because we are not seeking Him with all our heart and soul, we are seeking other things first. Other things have priority. And God allows us to find what we are seeking, and then we wonder why we are not satisfied.

Tozer says "The man that will have God's best becomes at once the object of the personal attention of the Holy Spirit. Such a man will not be required to wait for the rest of the church to come alive. He will not be penalized for the failures of his fellow Christians, nor be asked to forego the blessing till his sleepy brethren catch up. God deals with the individual heart as exclusively as if only one existed...."
"Every prophet, every reformer, every revivalist had to meet God alone before he could help the multitudes. The great leaders who went on to turn thousands to Christ had to begin with God and their own soul. The plain Christian of today must experience personal revival before he can hope to bring renewed spiritual life to his church." Very true.

What are you seeking? Are you seeking for a closer walk with Christ? Is that your first priority? Is it a compulsion? Is it what drives you on? Or is it just a sort of a nice idea? Depending on where it is at on your priority level, that is how God will answer you. Remember Matthew 6:33? Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and His righteousness, and all these things will be added unto you.

Next the Lord tells us to knock, and the door will be opened unto us. This instruction I find the most interesting of all, probably because I have some odd memories of knocking on doors. I remember many years ago, I was fourteen or fifteen years old, that awkward age, and I would be at some girl's front door, and I was never quite sure how things were going to go. So I would knock on the door. Sometimes I didn't hear anything. It was a mixture of disappointment and relief. So do I knock some more? Or do I just figure, "Well, nobody's home, maybe I should leave now?"

But what if I start to leave, and I am ten feet down the sidewalk, and the door opens? Now I look like an idiot. Or do I just stand here and knock some more? Maybe she knows it's me and she doesn't want to come to the door? Because she knows it's me? Now I really feel like an idiot.

What if it's her father or mother who comes to the door, and wants to know "Who are you, and what do you want?" Maybe I'll say something stupid, and then I'll really be an idiot. Maybe she'll come to the door, and say something like, "Why are you here? You're an idiot. If I had known it was you, I never would have opened the door."

Just in case you hadn't figured it out, for a young teenaged guy, going to a girl's house and knocking on her door was not a happy thing. It was not anything I looked forward to. It was trauma 101. It didn't matter if the door got opened or not, my mental image was that things just never turned out real well. The Charlie Brown complex.

But God is not like that. God invites us to knock, with the expectation that the door will open, and that what happens next will be really great. We will receive an invitation that we will really like.

Compared with how things were back when I was learning to date, things now are so totally different. If I come home to my front door and it is locked, I get out my keys and start to fumble around with the key in the lock, and the lock on our door doesn't work all that well. It is one of those locks that you have to put the key in, and wiggle it and jiggle it, and maybe if you are holding your mouth just right, the key will turn. I wanted to buy a new lock, but they no longer make a style that matches the holes in our door.

Anyway, as soon as Barbara hears me jiggling and fiddling with the lock, she calls out, "I'll get it, I'm coming." She doesn't want me to have to wait for the old lock, she'd rather come and unlock it for me. She wants me to come in with no effort, no problems, she wants me to know that I ought to have free access with no hindrance, and that I am welcome and more than welcome, it is my right to come in and she is eager to admit me. That's so nice...

That is how God wants us to knock. Are we a close relation of His? Are we children? Are we brothers and sisters of His Son? Then He is going to see to it that the door is opened quickly and we are welcome. Knock on that door as children who love their Father, children who are in obedience to their Father, children who are in subjection to their Father, who delight to do their Father's will, and the door is opened as the doors of a palace, admitting the princes and princesses of the kingdom, heirs of all their Father possesses, and He is pleased to give it to them.

Our problem is that too often we are like foolish 15 year olds who have no proper standing with anybody, we are self sufficient, - HAH - we think we are, and that doesn't work - we are self willed, (and consequently on shaky ground) we are knocking on the door for all the wrong reasons, so we are never sure what is going to happen when the door is opened. If in fact, it ever does.

It makes all the difference in the world what our relationship is with the Person who lives in the house. If the relationship is right, we can knock on the door with confidence and good expectations. If the relationship is not so good, then knocking on the door is not something that appeals to us, because we are never sure how things will turn out. We are never sure what kind of reception we'll get.

It doesn't have to be that way. God's intention is that we ought to always be able to knock in confidence, because we ought to always be in a right relationship with Him.
If we are regarding iniquity in our heart or our mind, then we need to quit it. It needs to stop, and we ought to be walking in obedience to the will of God instead. Walking in obedience to God means that we always have the right and the privilege to knock expectantly, and when the door opens, everybody involved is going to be happy with how things turn out.

Something that is implied in these three actions, asking, seeking and knocking, is the idea of persistence. To be serious and earnest in what we are doing, to be diligent, to start and then stay at it, and then to persist until we get an answer. There is nothing in these verses that would imply that we can go at this with a half-hearted attitude, maybe it will work, maybe not, if it works OK, if it doesn't work, OK, just - whatever... No.

Every parent is aware that children often ask for things just because they happen to think of it at the moment, and five minutes from now they will have forgotten about it and want something else. And every parent knows that you don't need to pay any attention to those requests. They are literally not worth listening to.

There is another sort of request that indicates that the child is serious, and that is the persistent request. It keeps coming back, you hear it often, for weeks and weeks, the child won't let it alone. If it is not something unreasonable or inappropriate, you take it to heart, and normally it turns out to be something that you end up getting for your child.

The point is, parents know the difference, they know which kind of asking, seeking and knocking to ignore, and which sort to pay attention to, and respond to. The same thing is true in our relationship to God. Are we serious in what we are asking for, seeking, and knocking on the door about? Do we persist? Or are we just being trivial? God knows the difference, and we ought to know the difference as well. Should we really expect God to pay much attention to us when we are trivial in our requests, we show that we really don't care because there is no persistence in our asking? Maybe not. Probably not.

In verses nine, ten and eleven, God compares His mercy and grace to our mercy and grace as parents as He encourages us to expect good things from Him when we ask.
We have a fallen nature, we have problems, sins, we get impatient, we act unfair, but even so, we provide good things for our children. And we know that to be normal. We expect that any normal parent will give their child good things, needful things in spite of their sin nature. So if we who are flawed are still able to give our children good things, then a perfect parent is going to do even better, He is going to do perfectly.

God wants us to think about this as we pray to Him, He wants us to have a high level of expectation. God is unable to give us garbage, He is only able to give us good things, that is His nature. The only reason that we might not get the things that we ask for is A) if we are asking for something that God knows we don't need, which might be harmful to us, maybe impede our spiritual growth,
or B) if God has a game plan that we are not aware of, and what we are asking for doesn't fit in with His plans or His will,
or C) if we are regarding iniquity in our hearts, then we are not in a proper condition to be asking for anything.

So let's suppose that you ask God for something, and you don't get the answer you wanted. If God's reason for not answering your request is either A or B, then it shouldn't really bother you, should it? You ought to be able to take it pretty well, and not get too upset. If God knows you didn't need it, or it's not in your best interests, what do you have to get upset about? Or if God has a different plan or program that you might not be aware of, and your plans don't fit in with His, should you get upset? In either instance, you ought to be able to accept God's answer without too much fuss. Whether you like it or not, it is still fair, and good.

But if the reason is C, if God says no because you are regarding iniquity in your heart, if part of you has a lawless attitude, if your will is contrary to God's will, then there is a good chance that when God tells you NO - it is going to tighten your jaws. Make you mad.

Maybe you pray for something, you beg and plead and weep and pray for years, pray forty hours a week, but meanwhile - along with all that religious activity you are putting out, there is rebellion in your life, you are doing something that you know God wants you to quit doing, or you are not doing what God has told you to do, - beloved, you are wasting your time. If you regard iniquity in your heart, He will not hear you. Let's see why. Let's think about "regarding iniquity."

To regard it is not like you were going along minding your own business, and iniquity jumped out of the bushes and ran across in front of you before you knew what was happening. An unexpected temptation. No.

To regard iniquity is to see temptation, recognize it, look at it, ponder over it, mentally entertain it, contemplate what you might do about it, look at it some more, let it play around in your imagination for awhile, and now it is like the plot and storyline of an interesting book. Except that you are the main character, it has become your story, you are choosing the script, choreographing the action, and planning for how you would best enjoy having the story turn out. Regarding it. And meanwhile, the whole story, from start to finish is something that is contrary to the will of God, it is outside of what is permissible, it is no different than Eve seeing that the fruit was good for food, pleasant to the eyes, and desirable to make you wise. At least in your own opinion.

Or in other words, sin and rebellion against God. That is what you are regarding, that is what is entertaining you, that is where your head is. And God says that when you are in this condition, rebelling against Him, He doesn't hear you. God is like "Talk to the hand... because the Face is not listening."

It's not like you stumbled, it is more like you were going down the street, and saw temptation in a shop window. You stopped, looked at it, thought about it for a while, and then went in the door. Rebellion. You stood before the rack, and found the one in your size, you took it off the hangar and tried it on. Guess what? It fits. You regarded it until it became yours. Unfortunately, you have now exchanged the presence and the closeness of God for this sin you have chosen. That's iniquity.

Now - Instead of a conscious awareness of the presence and love of God, you now have separation from God, you have separated yourself from Him, because you have deliberately chosen to put something in between yourself and Him.

If this describes your situation, you need to get rid of it. Whatever it is, no matter how important you think it might be, you are paying too high a price for it, get rid of it.

Being close to God, and having a relationship where you are both communicating with each other is what you need, don't settle for anything less. Get rid of anything and everything that disrupts your relationship with God. Amen?

Then the Lord tells us something that seems to be on a different topic, and that is verse 12, "Therefore all things, whatever you desire that men should do to you, do even so to them; for this is the Law and the Prophets." But I don't think this is a different topic, I think this is part of the same topic, and I think it is extremely important to our prayer life.

Consider the book of James. In the epistles of the New Testament, we have Paul explaining to us in great detail and with many illustrations what it means to walk and live by faith, and that we are saved by faith without works, and then coming along behind Paul, we have the book of James, who tells us that faith without works is dead.

In a like fashion, Christ has been telling us about prayer, about the vital necessity of having a good relationship with God the Father in order that our prayers might be effectual, and then He suddenly turns and reminds us in verse 12 of our relationships with other people, and tells us that how we behave toward others reflects how we understand the Bible, and being in God's will.

Like we said last week, it is not enough to have only a vertical relationship with God, God has put us on earth among other people, and how we treat them is also important.
James 2:14 says "My brothers, what profit is it if a man says he has faith and does not have works? Can faith save him?
:15 If a brother or sister is naked and destitute of daily food,
16 and if one of you says to them, Go in peace, be warmed and filled, but you do not give them those things which are needful to the body, what good is it?
:17 Even so, if it does not have works, faith is dead, being by itself.
:18 But someone will say, You have faith, and I have works. Show me your faith without your works, and I will show you my faith from my works."

Christ concludes this section on praying effectually by reminding us that part of what it means to be in God's will is to be Christlike to others. That is the works we need to be doing, our faith in action. Just as God gives us what we want, gives us what we think is good, gives us what He knows is good, we ought also to give our brothers and sisters what is good. Unless we are mindful of our brothers and sisters, unless we are aware and concerned about them, our prayer life is going to be hindered because something is missing from it. The horizontal, practical-share-the-good-with-others component. Treating our brothers and sisters like God treats us.

God does not want our prayer life hindered, not in any way. That is why He tells us these things, because He wants us to come to Him and tell Him what we need.

Spend time with God. Talk to Him, He always has time to listen. God is never in a hurry, He always has time for you.

Try putting yourself on His schedule, take time for Him, ask, seek, knock. Talk to Him, pray. No matter how busy your day is, you will never regret the time you spent in prayer, you will only regret the times when you didn't spend time in prayer.

That's a promise. Let's pray now.