You know, I'm probably making the understatement of the millennium by telling you that people can look at a simple question, the same question, and arrive at completely different answers. Like the famous question, why did the chicken cross the road? Well, now we know the answer, so we can get to the other side, but that's not always how people see it. For example, when Charles Darwin was asked that question, he said chickens over great periods of time naturally have the tendency to move genetically from one position to another, and to cross natural barriers. It's part of natural selection, the survival of the fittest, and the next logical step towards mankind. Martin Luther King said, I envision a world in the day where chickens can cross any road anywhere and not have their motives questioned by anyone. The Buddha said, oh, when you ask that question, you're denying your inner chicken nature. Karl Marx says, it was an historical inevitability. One barnyard working class oppressed chicken, yearning to be free from the crass struggles of our life. Bill Clinton said, Hillary and I feel that chickens pain. Al Gore said, I will introduce legislation to protect endangered domestic foul from hostile motorists who are irresponsibly robbing our environment of a natural ecological future with our brothers the chickens. Our President Barack Obama said it was simply a time for change. Sarah Paylon said, golly, gee, whiz, I think he was trying to steal a job from a decent, hard-working American. And by the way, I want to know, is that illegal or illegal resident chicken? And Paul simply said, in my day, we didn't ask why chickens cross the road. They told us an elementary school that they would, they were prone to do this and that was good enough for us. And of course, Colonel Sanders of Kentucky fried chicken said, what chicken, you mean I missed one? Simple question. Why did the chicken cross the road and look at all the different answers that we can arrive at? How much more so it is, folks, when we ask people serious questions like, why did Jesus come to this earth and die on the cross? And sometimes when they answer the question in a way that we think or that we know is wrong, we become irritated with him. And that's what Jesus is talking about, I think, in this particular section on the Sermon on the Mount. Beginning in 1st 1 of chapter 7, he says that we're not to judge people harshly. Judge, not list, you be judged. For the judgment you pronounce, that with that judgment, you too will be judged. And with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. People will answer the wrong question about why Jesus came and what's the only way to cross from this side of the road into the eternal kingdom of God and into heaven? When they give the wrong answer, it is our tendency to be harsh and critical and judgmental. Jesus said, don't do that. Or we may ignore our own wrong answers, forgetting that we once too, when asked that question, didn't have a clue. Jesus says, why do you see the spec that is in your brother's eyes, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, let me take that spec out of your eye, where there is a log in your own eye, you hypocrite. First take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly how to take the spec out of your brother's eye. We can ignore very conveniently the wrong answers in our own lives and focus on the wrong answers in other people's way of living. And Jesus calls that hypocrisy. Sometimes he says, it's not wise to force the right answer on to someone when they are unwilling or unable to accept the truth about why Jesus Christ came into the world. Do not give dogs what is holy and do not throw your pearls before pigs, unless they trample them under foot and turn and attack you. I think sincaller Ferguson is correct. This whole pericopy, this section of the Sermon on the Mount from chapter 7, verse 1 to chapter 7, verse 12 is about relationships. It's about how to see and how to treat and how to react and live with and help other people. It ends with that marvelous golden rule that were to do under other people what we would like them to do to us, which summarizes the whole section. And Jesus is telling us that it takes time from people to move from spiritual blindness and ignorance into spiritual light and revelation, to move from agnostic to believer, from spiritual dog to spiritual son, from moral and ethical pig to a saint of God who's being sanctified. It takes time and it takes patience and it takes much prayer. So it is logical for Jesus Christ to lead us to this next point and his instructions on how we deal with individuals. We don't judge them. We don't see their faults critically while we ignore our own. We don't force spiritual riches and pearls of God's will upon them and they're unable or unwilling to accept them. We are patient and rather than judge, rather than get irritated, rather than force ourselves upon them, the best thing to do is to pray for them. Verse 7, ask and it will be given to you. Seek and you will find. Knock and it will be open to you for everyone who asks receives and the one who seeks finds and to the one who knocks it will be opened. Or which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent. If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children. How much more will your father, who isn't heaven, give good gifts to those who ask him? It is wonderful little book on the sermon on the Mount called The Good and Beautiful Life. James Bryan Smith makes this observation about these verses. Most of the struggle we and our friends face will not go away overnight. Most problems are not overcome with a single prayer. Not because God is not strong enough or our prayers are not good enough, but because change often comes slowly. Jesus is telling us about opportunity in prayer and how it is often necessary. Our persistent prayer is not a sign of a lack of faith, but of our love for others and our commitment to Christ. Ask, he says, and seek and knock, push through these barriers between you and the good things you want for the people who are your friends and loved ones and acquaintances in life. Sin Player Ferguson says this is a matter of 2020 vision. This whole section is learning about how to see God and ourselves and other people from the proper perspective. Why did the chicken cross the road? Who cares? Why did Jesus come into the world and die on the cross? Everyone must know. And if we get frustrated and deal with them harshly, if we say in our hearts, oh you, you spiritual dog, you moral pig. We say, you know, you're just unwilling to accept these things. We're doing the very opposite that Christ says we ought to do. How do you know why someone rejects Jesus Christ? How do I know what things stand in the way of their understanding and believing and repenting in trusting Christ? And who am I? Who was once one of these dogs, once one of these immoral pigs? Who am I to get irritated with other people when I am just one step ahead of them because of the prayers and the patience of God and his people? And so he asked us to turn and learn when to be silent and when to speak, when to put forward holy things, when to withhold spiritual pearls. And the only way to do that, Jesus said, the only way is to become a person who prays, prays with opportunity, with persistence, with pigheadedness, stubbornness. We ask and we seek and we knock until God does the good things in people's lives that we know they need. There are three things Jesus tells us in this little passage. Why we are to pray for others the way we do, how we are to pray for them, and what we are to ask for them all in these, these far-fired little verses. First of all, why do you pray for others in this way? Ask and it will be given to you. Seek and you will find. Knock and it will be open to you for everyone who asks receives and the one who seeks finds and the one who knocks to him it will be opened. Well the first reason is obvious. We ask for things that only God can give. There is a tendency in our age of self-sufficiency to think that somehow if we had a better gospel presentation, if we had a more airtight and irresistibly logical apologetic, if we had a way to, in our relationships, kind of push ourselves upon people in a strategic way that we could somehow change them and they could come to Christ. We treat a lot of people this way. We think that if we use the right kind of formulas for living, we can automatically pass on our faith through our children. But we can cause people to believe because we use the right evangelistic method or that we can help people find relief from sin and suffering because we are therapeutically and biblically prepared for proper counseling. We can answer all of their prayers. They can all be answered if we just knew the right method, the right words, the right format in which to pray, and of course all of that is wrong. There are certain things that men must receive that only God can give and therefore we are relegated in that arena to the simple humble act of faith where we ask. Ask and you will receive for everyone who asks the promise says receives. James the brother Jesus says, do not deceive yourselves my beloved. Every good gift and every perfect thing comes from above coming down from the father of lights with whom there is no variation nor shadow of change. Every good thing and every perfect gift comes from God and not from us. There is what John Stott calls a simplicity about this asking and seeking and knocking but he says it's a deceptive simplicity because it's asking us three things and the first thing is this. Will we acknowledge that prayer first presupposes knowledge that we know what God wants, that we are knowledgeable of how to ask for it, that we understand the repercussions if God were to give us what we ask for. And of course the answer is we don't. We don't know these things but as we persist in asking a divine revelation comes to us an understanding of the word of God and the illumination of the things we ask for how many times have you and I had this experience we began asking for something and over time we refine that from a shotgun approach to a rifling in on one specific thing because we gained an understanding of God's will as we prayed. So we ask because there are certain things that only God the father can give and we seek secondly because there are certain things that can only be found in Christ seek and you will find and the one who seeks finds that's the promise. God chooses to give some gifts to us only after there was a search rooted in faith and in the word. We go after something and persevere in it. I believe that that's true when we're trying to discern God's call on our life or which person we're going to marry or what church we're going to join or how we're going to use the wealth and the gifts that God has given us. I believe that this is true and someone coming to Christ was true for me that there was an 18 month search a consistent week by week search going to church reading the Bible, reading literature people would give me asking questions. I probably read every evangelistic track printed in America in those 18 months struggling to understand why I could have been such a devout Roman Catholic but feel so unconverted these things don't come about quickly. There's a search involved and why will because if faith presupposes knowledge it also presupposes agreement with God that God will bring our wills into agreement with his how many times I have started out praying for one thing and over time as I had to seek and seek and seek and study and search all the sudden I ended up praying for something that was the complete opposite. Why because my prayer never changes God the process changes me it brings me to want something different than I first began asking for I can't trust my will or my priorities or my understanding of people in this world. But I can trust God to change me so that my search leads me sometimes in surprising venues and inventors of prayer and I end up asking for something that I thought in the beginning was totally unnecessary thirdly we knock we knock because there are certain times only the spirit of God can open up the human soul. Asking will be given to you seek and you shall find knock and it will be open to you I want you to turn for a minute if you would please and turn over to Luke chapter 11 keep your finger and Matthew 7 and turn to Luke 11 where Jesus says these things things about prayer about asking and seeking and knocking but in a different context where he sets this principle of persevering prayer in a parable about two neighbors. Luke chapter 11 verse 5 and he said to them which of you who has a friend will go to him at night and midnight and say to him friend lend me three lows for a friend to mine is arrived on a journey and I had nothing set before him 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. I tell you though he will not get up and give him anything because he is his friend yet because of his impudence or his persistence his opportunity in prayer he will rise and give him whatever he needs. I tell you ask and it will be given to you seek and you will find knock and it will be open to you for everyone who asked receives and the one who seeks finds and the one who knocks to him it will be opened. Now here's a picture of someone banging on the door of a neighbor to get a necessary loaf of bread and Jesus uses that illustration to teach us this third thing about prayer. There are certain things that we have to push towards because if prayer presupposes knowledge and presupposes the change of will it also presupposes desire. God wants us to want something as bad as he does oftentimes before he gives it. This desiring is something that becomes a passion for us and I think that's best evidence in the conversion of our loved ones. Our children and our spouses our parents our siblings our relatives and friends we just won't let God go. In fact as we pray for our children if it appears that God says no I'm not going to save your children we say oh God that is not good enough and we push. We throw ourselves on that door of heaven and we bang it with a vengeance we will wear God down until he wears our sons and daughters down and brings them to saving faith why. Because God for reasons I don't understand often tests our desire and the great test is whether we will knock and push and bang with opportunity and what the English standard version calls impudence. Without any sense of shame or propriety we just keep storming the gates of heaven until we shake loose with our banging what we believe God needs to give us. Alexander McLaren says is there any region of experience in which to ask is immediately to receive or to seek is to quickly find and in which every door flies open at our touch. If there be it is not in the ordinary work of day world in which you and I live. Where we all have to put up with a great many bitter disappointments and refused requests we have all searched long and sorely for some wonderful thing that we have not yet found. And the search has aged and satan does but still we push on ask because there's some things you can't get for yourself. Seek some things can only be found in Christ knock some things can only be opened by the Holy Spirit. Martin Luther had such a such a homely and colorful way of presenting things in his home spun language and when he came to these verses he says, I am so lazy and lax in my attention to the word of God and to everything good. How can I prevent my own death or the riots and rumpuses that the world causes or the raging of the devil or the trouble in the misfortunes I see everywhere. Now because Christ our Lord knows this and knows it well he wants to be good in faithful physician and to show us a precious and powerful remedy. He wants to teach us what to do as though he were saying to us this world is insane. It tries to get rid of its insanity by the use of wisdom and reason and it looks for many ways and means for all sorts of help and advice on how to escape these distresses. But the shortest and the surest way is for you to go into a little room into a corner and there to open your heart to pour it out before God. Filled with complaints and sighs but also with confidence and trust to ask to seek to knock until your faithful heavenly father gives you the help and advice that you need and that he is always intended to give you in the end. I don't know why God doesn't answer prayers quickly but perhaps it's because there are things we need to know about receiving a gift rather than getting it ourselves. A process we need to go in searching for something that makes it all the more valuable over time or pushing persistently against great obstacles until our desires become consumed with that which consumes the heart of God, the saving and the blessing of his elect. But that's why we pray, why we ask and we seek, we knock, and how we do it is explained in the next two verses or which one of you if the sun asks for bread will give him a stone or if he asks for fish will give him a serpent. If you then who are evil know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your father who isn't heaven give good things to those who ask him? Now here's how we pray, first of all, we pray to a good God. God contrasts himself with us, we are evil and he is good. And I need to remind you because we often forget this, somehow we think that the Bible is God's idea and prayer was our idea. That somehow these word and prayer dynamic go together, God's part and our part but I'm here to remind you that prayer is not our idea, prayer is God's idea. Jesus said we ought always to pray about all things that will not become discouraged and lose heart. It is God who invites mankind to him, men do not naturally in their fallen state want to pray to God, nor do they know how. We live in a country that is more and more in principle committed against prayer. We can't pray in public schools and we can't pray in our courtrooms and we don't want to be praying in the stadiums. We certainly don't want to ask in Jesus name and when we do pray as a people it's usually at the 11th hour we'll say well all else is lost. I guess there's only one thing left to do, let's pray. And we reduce it to some simple slogan like God bless America whatever that means. We forget that God is good and it is God who says to us, come all you who are very heavy laden and I will give you rest, come. Come let us reason together though your sins be discarded. I shall make them white like will come. Behold the works of the Lord come let us worship them that out come. He's always inviting us to come in a prayerful attitude and talk to him why? Because this good God is a good Father. He says if you who are evil know how to give good gifts to your children. How much more will your Father who isn't heaven give good things to those who ask him. Paul puts it a different way that he who did not spare his own son but gave him up for us all how will he not also with him freely give us all things. This text is pretty direct it says that you're evil you're full of sin and yet I know that as an evil man as a sinful man as a detective father I always sought to give good things to my children. How much more Jesus says how much more will your heavenly Father who knows all the good things how will he not also give you these things. You say how do I know that how do I know that God because of Jesus Christ for God so love the world that he gave his only begotten son for he knew not not spare his own son but delivered him up for us all how will he not also with Christ freely give us all things. Jesus Christ is the earnest and down pledge the guarantee that God has in store for you and for your loved ones only good things because he gives us the best thing Christ right up front and all of the rest that we receive the Bible tells us in the New Testament or part of his unsearchable riches found in Jesus Christ. So God is a good father knows what is good I don't know what a good thing is I pray before the elections but I don't know who's best for America. I don't know who should win the national championship or get the Heisman trophy I don't know who should get the promotion at work when I was a young bachelor I didn't know which girl to marry there were some days they all look good to me. Other days where they all looked horrible to me I was back and forth and back and forth and in and out of relationships I didn't know how many children to have how much portfolio to build I don't even know how long I'm going to live in fact I don't know what tomorrow is going to bring I don't even know if I'll be able to join you for certain tonight in worship. But God knows Abba that's what Jesus calls him daddy God knows and God gives good things to his children and that good thing is very specific in fact if we turn back to Luke we find that where in Matthew God says he gives good things to those who ask Luke says he gives the Holy Spirit to those who ask that is what we are to pray for. I tell you ask and it will be given to you seek and you will find knock and it will be open to you for everyone who asks receives and the one who seeks finds into the one who knocks it will be open what father among you of his son asked for a fish will instead of a fish give him a serpent. If we ask for an egg will give him a scorpion if you then who are evil know how to give good gifts to your children listen carefully how much more will your heavenly father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him. What is it that you should pray for your loved ones well the one thing for sure to pray for them is that they receive the ultimate gift of God which is the indwelling Holy Spirit that is what will convert them cause them to be regenerated and born again to repent of sins put their faith in Christ it's the Holy Spirit who will give them the justifying graces and the righteousness of Jesus Christ it's the Spirit who will adopt them to be God's children give them an inner sense of assurance will persevere with them through life will comfort them and strengthen them and sanctify them and prepare them for glory the Holy Spirit is all we need for all God has in store for us. So much so that on Pentecost Sunday when people said sirs what do we need to do to be saved Peter said you need to repent and be baptized for the forgiveness of your sins and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit for this promise is for you and for your children and all who are far off those who will someday call upon the Lord in faith it is the gift of the Holy Spirit that is the primary request we should have and folks I pray as you probably do every day by name for my four children and my five grandchildren and the best thing I ask for them day in and day out is that God will give to them an indwelling presence and fullness of the Holy Spirit which will meet all of their needs and strengthen them for all of the circumstances they face and keep them ever from stumbling away from God and from grace and while read it perhaps we ought to ask for the Holy Spirit ourselves because Jesus says your father knows how to give good gifts to you how much more will he give the Holy Spirit to them who ask Jesus didn't say they were asking only for the Spirit for other people oftentimes when we pray we're asking for the Holy Spirit for ourselves Paul puts it this way likewise the Spirit also helps us in our weakness for we do not know how to pray as we ought to but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groaning too deep for words and He who searches hearts knows what is in the mind of the Spirit because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God there are many people in this room in fact every person in this room today needs the gift of the Holy Spirit in greater measure either you're unconverted and you need the Spirit to regenerate you and bring you to life and to give you this 20 tundee vision on spiritual matters that you might be saved or you're a Christian who needs revival and renewal your relationship with God and Christ and the things of the kingdom has grown stale and you need the Holy Spirit to fill you once again give you a baptism from above an ancient and outpouring a pentecostal experience that you might know the fullness of God's goodness and grace and His greatness and I think that if there is one unforgivable sin one sin that can never be forgiven blastedly the Holy Spirit I think there's one prayer that can never be denied and that's the prayer for the Holy Spirit to come and to do God's specific will in each person's life years ago when I was studying in a monastery to be a Catholic priest in high school we got up every morning at six o'clock and every morning at seven o'clock from seven to eight Monday through Sunday we had our morning prayers and we began with this prayer Holy Spirit come and shine on our souls with beams divine issuing from your radiance bright come will father of the poor ever bounteous of your store come our hearts unfailing light come consoler kindness best come our bosoms dearest guest sweet refreshments sweet repose rest in labor coolness sweet tempering the burning heat truest comfort of our woes oh divine is light in part unto every faithful heart plenty of streams from loves bright flood but for your blessed deity nothing pure man could be nothing harmless nothing good wash away sinful stain gently shed your gracious rain on the dry and fruitless soul heal each wound and bend each will more more hearts be numbed and still all our wayward steps control unto all your faithful just who and you confide in trust dain your seven volt gift to sin grant us virtue blessed increase grant a death of hope and peace grant the joys that never end through Jesus Christ our Lord amen God answered that prayer over time asking in the late 1960s seeking in the middle of the 70s knocking on the door on August 14th of 1976 receiving the gift of the Holy Spirit when I was converted finding more of God as I grew in Christ opening up deeper levels of life and union and intimacy with him even unto old age that is the request that will never be denied that God would give us the Holy Spirit Father in heaven it is our asking today our seeking at this moment in time this knocking in our lives this pushing in persisting in prayer that you would give us the fullness of your Holy Spirit a spirit to convict of sin to convince us of Christ and all that he offers for us all of his sufficiency hope and life no good things found in him the spirit who will convert us and bring us to repentance and faith into gospel obedience of spirit who will comfort when all of our comforts have flown from us and we are feeling alone a spirit who will pray for us when in deep burdens and great angst of soul we don't know what to ask for a spirit who will come and teach us all good things change our minds and our wills and our desires a spirit who will come and revive us again that your people may rejoice in you all of this we ask for we ask for this because you've told us as our Heavenly Father this is the good gift you want to give us and because we come in the name of Jesus Christ who promised us the gift of the Holy Spirit if we were to come to him in faith and rest in him alone Holy Spirit come in shine on our souls with beams divine issuing from thy radiance bright come and meet us at this Lord's table and through this means of grace empowered by the spirit's presence and his activity fill us with grace and renewing us all that is good that have come from your hand through Jesus Christ and by the work of the Holy Spirit that we might be refreshed and renewed and we might live faithfully for you all this we do pray and ask in Jesus name amen