Hey man, it's so good to hear everyone singing out. You can really hear your voices coming forward and I'm blessed by that every time I get up to preach and get to be on this side of the pole pit We are continuing our series in the sermon on the mount We're rounding the corner kind of getting to the end and tonight's scripture of passage is Matthew chapter 7 verses 7 through 11 In the title of the sermon this evening is persistence and prayer and If you look at that word prayer and you thought well this seems familiar because Tom just preached on that with the Lord's prayer You would be right and you would be right and and and seeing in the Sermon on the mount that prayer figures very prominently For Christ and his teaching and so we're returning to this topic tonight as a means of grace That's something that's incredibly important for you and for me in spiritual growth in our lives And so I have a question for you just to start off when you think When you think of what hinders your prayer life What do you think of when you think of what hinders your prayer life? What do you think of We say perhaps it's its busyness and and we all live busy lives And maybe it is that the schedule just sort of squeezes prayer time away from us and we just kind of lose it It just kind of goes like an hourglass between our fingers and we lose our time of prayer Or maybe it's distraction You know you lie down at night and by the way, that's a great time to pray But what is on your bedside table? the phone The phone is and there's your phone besides your bedside table and so you have a choice to make Are you wake up in the morning and guess what's still there? Your phone is there again And so we have constant distractions and maybe that's something that you think about. I'm just distracted all the time and I can't seem to overcome that or maybe it's discouragement Perhaps perhaps it's a struggle with a certain sin something that's been going on in your life for a long time And it's something that you've been praying about for a long time and The days have passed the weeks have passed the months have passed You don't see much change So you're discouraged Or maybe it's a different kind of disappointment perhaps you have a wayward child or or there's a lost relationship and You've prayed over and over again for God to change something in your life and you're beginning to lose hope and with losing hope You're losing your will to pray or maybe it's just a sense of boredom I had a friend of mine. We were talking about prayer one time and he said you know just honestly I'm not sure I have that much to say to God I thought wow Maybe it's that you feel like prayer is rather pointless or it feels that way when you try to pray or or maybe you're just Confused and you don't really know what to pray What should we be praying about? Is your prayer life like a flourishing tree in the spring lush with green and Green and life Or is it like a Withering tree we a couple years ago maybe two years ago. We planted this Japanese maple tree in our front yard and It's been a source of concern for us because it be honest. It looks a little paltry
It's and especially in the spring because now it's surrounded it's surrounded by all these spring trees that is flourishing with new life And we're just looking at that and and they're there in the middle of sort of our bed with bushes and all kinds of other things There's this there's this Japanese maple this little guy just there Not a lot of branches And I get what I'm going I go by there and I just kind of think about that tree and you wonder is it is it gonna make it? Have the roots going deep enough There's not a lot to it I think how can we help him and maybe some of you who are experts and that you can come to me after and tell me how But if your prayer life feels like our Japanese maple tree Jesus offers some help for you this evening and for me In our passage We're going to see that our prayer life can be affected by a lot of things But there's one fundamental thing there's one fundamental thing that determines not only whether you are praying or not or how Regularly you're praying or not but the vitality of your prayers and That is the knowledge of God As our Heavenly Father That's the one determining factor the knowledge of God as our Heavenly Father This has been a consistent theme for Christ throughout the sermon on the Mount Not just in prayer, but in his teaching and maybe you've seen it if you're reading carefully you can see it Oh when Christ has been teaching us about the temptation to seek the praise of men Or the nature of our worries or where our treasures are or how we judge Just think of the last few weeks and all the imperatives that Christ has given us in this sermon and what does Christ appeal to in the midst of those imperatives? Let me read a couple of things Here's what he says When you pray pray in secret For your father Here's pray like this our father who art in heaven When you fast do it in private for your father sees Do not worry. Why should we not worry? What's the key to not worrying? Jesus says for your father knows what you need And what we come to see with greater and greater clarity throughout the sermon on the Mount is that is the knowledge of God as our Heavenly Father That's to animate our lives And to nurture our life of prayer and so that's where Christ takes us and that's the arc of this sermon And so what I want to do is a little bit of a risk is I want to take that tree analogy and that's going to form an Outline for this sermon as a directive as a directive to a flourishing life of prayer And so we have three points of flourishing prayer life gross mini branches It develops deep roots and it bears eternal fruit And so let's read from Matthew chapter 7 verses 7 through 11 and Then let's pray here the word of the Lord Ask and it will be given to you Seek and you will find not and it will be open to you For everyone who asked 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 him 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 is in heaven give good things to those who ask him? Let's pray and so father we come to you now To ask you to give good things to us From your word And so we pray that you would help us to see Glorious things in your word truce Truce that we need to see from the gospel And we pray Lord Jesus that you would glorify yourself in and amongst your people this evening through the preaching of your word in Christ name Amen Well the first thing we see in this passage is that there's an open invitation to prayer Christ invites us or we might even say he even even commands us. He tells us to ask. He tells us to seek He tells us to knock And this take this can take on a variety of different different forms. That's why my first point is that there's many branches to prayer There's a breath to a praying life when we come to God and so he says ask seek and knock and you might think of the first thing that that comes to your mind as you think of your life of prayer is the petitions that you make before God When we think of give us this day our daily bread asking for God's provision Or Paul says in Ephesians 6, 18 that we should pray in all times in the spirit with all power and supplication And to that end to keep alert with all perseverance Making supplication for all the saints and so we might think of praying for others as well or from our reading from Philippians 4 and chapter 6 do not be anxious for anything But in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God Or maybe we might even think of our prayer walk this morning as we walked around our communities and we prayed for our surrounding Communities we see that a rich life of prayer has many branches reaching far and wide And sometimes I think that we limit ourselves and we limit what God we don't limit what God can do But we limit our belief in what he can do by not praying And seeing the wideness of God in a prayer and giving giving his grace to us And how far branches of prayer can reach I've got a neighbor who has a tree beside my yard and and his branches always always reach over into my yard And so I'm mowing and many times I'm having to just duck and get underneath his branches and it's kind of annoying And so I think well, I cut his branches and he doesn't mind but eventually I look over and I see that tree and I think wow That's that's a great tree Maybe I want to maybe I want to plant that tree in my yard And so what's happening his branches are actually invading my space, but it attracts my attention to what is there There's a breath to prayer And God wants us to have many branches that are reaching Far and wide and so Jesus says when we ask when we see we knock we're spreading our arms out wide To bring our petitions to him about many things about our needs And that's the kind of prayer that the Lord loves for us to bring to him Now we can go wrong with this passage We can think that this is a bit like a wishless as he can knock and it will be given to you that God will just Give us whatever we want that prayer is this sort of platinum credit card that we just insert our prayer chip And then we get what we want And so there's many people who may start praying according to their wines And that would be a wrong application of this text when my kids were younger They really wanted to go to Disney World. I mean they really wanted to go Well, guess who didn't want to go? me And guess who became an expert side stepping that conversation and just avoiding that all together And you know what I found out and talking about this with other people I found out that there are Disney evangelists literally when I would tell other adults that I wait a second wait a second You have not taken your children to Disney World and they're appalled It's like they needed to have some prayer intervention for me and the kids would have probably enjoyed that encourage Lord, would you change his heart Asking seeking knocking For the heavenly father to come and change my heart. Well, we can say this they can keep praying they can keep asking they can keep They can keep knocking maybe you can tilt me into taking my kids They can keep praying for that, but that's in the want category That's in the want category and it's okay to pray for some of our wants We do that, but I think the point is that our prayer life should not be driven by our wants What is it that brings us to prayer It's our needs It's our needs Jesus is saying here and ask seek and knock he says I have a cure for your prayerlessness. You know what it's called Problems Problems And so that might be a starting point for prayer where we bring our needs to the Lord and it glorifies him for us to do that Who we think about a praying wife we might begin there But I believe that Jesus is concerned in this passage for something Beyond those things and that moves us to our second point and that is a flourishing prayer life develops deep roots A flourishing prayer up prayer life has many branches flourishing prayer life develops deep roots And what causes us to develop deep roots or we might ask What are we to be asking for what are we to be seeking for what are we to be knocking for Well, I think the focus of what Christ has in mind here is praying for our spiritual needs That's what he's driving it praying for our spiritual needs and praying for spiritual blessings And it comes in the form of this amazing promise here's what he says Ask and it will be given to you Seek and you will find knock in the door will be open to you You can see Christ flinging wide the door there saying come to me ask seek knock It will be given to you you will find the door will be open And we might wonder at this point. Well, what would be given to us? What is this? What will we find What will we receive what will be open to us And to answer that question we must look at what Christ has been teaching about in this whole sermon So you'll miss after zoom out and look at the entire sermon on the mount And all that Christ has been teaching us It's been teaching us About lust He's been teaching about seeking the praise Of man he's been teaching about hypocrisy. He's been teaching us about what we truly treasure He's been teaching about our worries and our anxieties. He's been teaching us about Seeking the kingdom of God. He's been teaching us about judging
And perhaps as you've been listening and you've been thinking about this over these weeks You've come to this conclusion Who can live this way? I mean all of these things that Jesus has been covering They're deeply rooted in my heart
And here we begin to see as we begin to reflect on all that Jesus is teaching We begin to see our spiritual need And we see our need for change and for transformation And maybe that's you is God's been working on your heart in these Sunday evenings You're looking within for all of for all of these virtues that you're supposed to have and you can't find them They're not there or at least they're not there the way you want them to be there And so you start asking yourself hard questions and am I willing to take drastic measures to kill my sin Dowd your eye out Do I seek the praise of men or do I truly seek the praise of God Are my thoughts pure and holy and my free from simple anger And my single mindedly seeking and treasuring The kingdom of God Am I intent on seeing the law on seeing the log in my eye before I pluck the dust out of my brother's eye And even if I see that log in my eye, how do I get it out? It kind of wants to stay there
So what do we do? Do you feel this? And so there's a sense in which if we're reading the sermon on the Mount rightly We see all that we are lacking spiritually all the gaps all the sins all the weakness all the failures all the hardness of heart
And what does that do to us Jesus says That should bring us to our needs and so We have a hunger that begins to be awakened in us just like when there's a physical hunger You know when we when we need food It awakens something in us. There's a corresponding spiritual hunger That's awakened when we see our spiritual need and that motivates us to go to God as Jesus says Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness for they will be filled a central ingredient In the life of Godliness and the life of prayer is a sense of our need for God and our hunger for God And so we might we might feel like Feeling our sins is a is a sign of sickness You know if that's you, but that's actually a sign of health It's actually a sign of health and so what do we do? We cripple up in a ball and go inward. No. What does Jesus do here? Jesus knowing this is true Pay attention to this in great mercy. He invites us He draws us away from ourselves from looking within and directs us to the promises of God He says ask seek and knock ask seek and knock about what about everything that he has been teaching here in the sermon on the mount That is to pray for God's saving rule and reign in your life
That would come over us that it would change us that it would transform us thy kingdom come You know thy kingdom come is a cosmic prayer, but it's also a personal prayer a kingdom come In me and so Jesus says come to me Not only does he tell us to do this, but he tells us to do it continually the verbs here are present active imperatives And so what he's saying is he's saying keep on asking keep on seeking keep on knocking And so our prayer life our prayers are a continual action in that direction keep on asking keep on seeking keep on knocking And this should encourage us because what he's essentially saying is don't grow weary Don't grow discouraged in prayer no matter what you see when you look within Ask seek and knock and keep on asking and keep on seeking and keep on knocking keep on praying God does not want us to be undone by our struggles
Neither is he exhausted by them Sometimes we can get annoyed with our own children because they're persistence And they keep on asking for something There's there a spin-the-night party can we do it can we do it can we do it and finally we were lent and we give in Why because we're annoyed by their persistence We're exhausted by their persistence, but listen God is never exhausted by our persistence in fact he's glorified when we come to him for these things
And so this sense of need this sense of need what's sad about this is this sense of need it so often It keeps people from praying it might keep you from praying When it should bring you to prayer
Because that is where our roots deepen and so you might be saying I still struggle I prayed for many years and I still Struggle with pride. I still struggle with worry. I struggle with lust. I struggle with losing my temper I struggle with I still find myself even after last week sermon I still find in myself this this propensity to judge others And what Jesus says to that he says keep on asking keep on seeking Keep on knocking Not only is there this this continual dynamic we might we might be tempted to think okay Asick and knock is one thing, but there's actually a progression here And what Jesus is describing It's not just a passing request. You know, we can do that Sometimes with the Lord Lord. Would you change me? Would you help me and just just periodically every now and then throw an ask out there just throw an ask out to God But that's not what the Lord has in mind. He says ask. He says seek That means I'm looking for something I'm looking for his will. I'm looking for his way. Am I like I'm looking He says knock I'm at the door. I'm at his door And I'm wanting to take advantage of opportunities to grow and grace and so I'm looking for answers and I'm knocking Just think of what happens when you misplace your phone What happens Well, the first thing you probably do is you go to someone or you go to someone in your house and you ask Where's my phone? Has anyone seen it? No And so then what do you start doing then you start seeking You get up you start turning over the the cushions in yourself, and you start digging around here You're seeking you're trying to find it. You're searching under every every place you can think of And then what happens you say you use that again someone please ping my phone Please call my phone and why you start asking for someone to call your phone and you start listening You start listening and then you make everyone else be quiet be quiet. We're quiet. Did you hear that and you hear this Pain or something off in the distance and you go running upstairs. I call it again. I can't find it You're listening You're seeking you're listening You're knocking That's what we're doing in prayer We're not stationary. We're not just throwing out and ask every once in a while. No, we're pressing There's a progression here We're looking for the Lord and as well We're seeking we're asking we're knocking listen not in a frantic way Not in a frantic way because we don't know where to look or because self-righteously We're trying to earn our salvation not in a frantic way, but in an earnest way That's what Jesus is getting at in an earnest way Because we have been saved. We know where to look Isn't that great when you lose something and someone says I know where to find it
And they go and they help you find it or maybe you're that person We know where to look we have a spiritual hunger a desire for more of God We want more of his grace. We want him to change us. We want him to transform us We want to become all that he wants us to be and so what are we doing? We're praying We're praying Lord Help my unbelief Lord help me to become more gentle Lord Help me to be less judgmental and more gracious Lord teach me change me Lord guide me Do you pray this way? Do you pray in such a way that you're seeking spiritual growth and spiritual blessing from God?
That's what Jesus wants you to do. That's what he wants us to do He wants our roots to deepen To see our spiritual need and to go to him for blessing And that leads us to our third point A flourishing prayer life bears eternal fruit A flourishing prayer life bears eternal fruit Christ promises Something will be given to us Blessings You might be thinking what are these blessings or you might be thinking where are these blessings
You might think that's great. I have been asking. I have been seeking. I have been knocking I've been struggling with sin. I've been asking for God to change me and I'm not receiving. I'm not finding I am not entering. No door seemed to be opening to me
And there's lots of examples of unanswered prayer and scripture whether we think of Paul and the thorn of the side asking for God to remove it Or many women we see throughout scripture who are bearing and for so long there are seasons of silence and waiting on God We're using of so many saints that have struggled with Malities like depression and anxiety through the years And no doubt that is difficult and at times it is agonizing And here's what we need to see brothers and sisters this promise can be Elusive if we are simply trying to see it realize through a temporal lens Or if we think by asking and seeking and knocking we can dictate the way in which spiritual blessings will come to us The problem is spiritual blessings are often hidden They're hidden to the naked eye. We can't always see them Immediately and they come more gradually than we might want or through much more struggle than we might ever choose
But Jesus says Stay persistent you see when it comes to prayer We have to think a little differently in terms of what is promised We do think not so much about the moments of prayer But a lifetime of prayer So when you think about what's promised here don't think so much about the moments of prayer Think about a lifetime of prayer because that's what Jesus is talking about and the unspeakable promise The unspeakable promise Church of God is this in this text a life of asking Seeking and knocking will be a life of receiving finding and entering That will be your life Ask seek and knock You'll find And so Jesus backends us to prayer and then Christ shifts our eyes and verses nine through eleven And here's what he says 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 is in heaven give good things to those who ask
And hear Christ shifts our eyes from the process and even the promises to the person To the father You see Jesus does not want us frantically looking within ourselves for what we do not have or looking here And there for blessings that we cannot see no he wants to bring us to a person
And that's what prayer is is turning To our heavenly Father And here we see that Christ wants to assure us and read assure us for all that we need and all that we lack Is found in him That's the critical piece to a praying life is actually believing that all that you need is found in the Father And that's where Jesus goes with this If Calvin has a great quote about this here's what he says After we have been instructed by faith to recognize That whatever we need and whatever we lack is in God It remains for us to seek in him And in prayers to ask of him What we have learned to be in him and so where's the storehouse Is God himself he has it. It's his kingdom. He has the storehouse It's in him and so it remains for us to go to him to ask of him And so Jesus he fixes our eyes on the Father And he reminds us of the heart of the Father
And remember the introduction as said the critical dimension of the critical dynamic to a praying life Is what we believe to be true What you believe to be true About God It's not distractions. It's not busyness. It's not disappointments or discouragements all of those things can affect our prayer life but ultimately What do we believe to be true about God?
He says which of which one of you if his son asks him for bread will give him a stone or ask for fish? We give him a serpent Jesus answers this often and if you're honest this anxious and annoying Feeling that often disquiets and interrupts and discourages our prayer life And it's this subtle quiet suspicion what stinclair Ferguson calls serpentine theology And it's that notion that somehow God is stingy or that God is harsh It lurks beneath the surface in our hearts And that's what Christ is dealing with He compares earthly fathers with the heavenly father He says which which one of you if if your child asks him for bread will give him a stoner fish you give him a serpent Hey dad I'm really hungry Can I get some bread? I'll tell you why won't you go eat that stone over there try eating that how about that Or dad you know, it'd be really great for dinner tonight some fish would be great Well, I'll tell you what I got for you. Here's a serpent
Jesus says You're evil and you're not that way with your children You desire good things for your children. You want their joy you want to we want to see our children flourish We want to see them grow we want we want good things for them And yet in our own sinfulness and fallenists we often lack goodness and tenderness and wisdom And how we give gifts to our children just think of how we give gifts to our children sometimes we can be short-sighted and giving gifts We might not think about their ultimate good And a reason why we might give gifts to them is just just to relieve the gift some relief from persistent requests But nevertheless nevertheless we love our children And usually come out on the plus side of gift giving Jesus says how much more We're heavenly father-gift He says our heavenly father lacks neither goodness nor tenderness nor wisdom toward his children Jesus says the Father knows how to give good gifts to us He knows how to give good gifts to us There's a parallel passage in Luke 11 you may be saying well What are these good gifts and they're wrapped up in these kingdom blessings? But more specifically here's what Jesus says in Luke 11 He says how much more would the heavenly father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask of him And so the promise to you and me are around the blessings of the Spirit The one who regenerates us the one who gives us new life the one who changes our desires The one who changes our perspectives Causing us to see not only more of our sin but more of Christ and more of his kingdom Jesus says the Father gives freely to those who ask he gives Good gifts to us Now what's a good gift gift giver It's someone who knows you well right and they love you Right they know you well and They love you when I was a child We would go to my grandmother's house for Christmas Eve and I'd always get this talking to this lecture from my parents Because my aunt and uncle every year would give me tube socks Y'all seen tube socks They'd go back into the 70s and watch a basketball film or something to see those tube socks And they would give me a lecture on the way now. You need to act like you're grateful for this Don't act as appointed And every year I would see that wrapping paper and I grabbed that and I'd feel it'd be soft and I'll go Tube socks again Bad gift giver Bad gift giver is someone who neither Neither cares to get you something that you truly need Or they don't know you well enough to know what you need
Listen Jesus says our Father cares infinitely more for us than anyone else could and he knows you infinitely better than anyone else could he knows how to give Good gifts to us
And we might not always be able to control the manner in which they come to us or the timing But the Lord the heavenly Father he gives us what we need When we need it and so what will sustain you in a praying life Would Jesus takes us to the heart of the matter by taking us to the heart of the Father And that's where he wants to anchor our confidence in prayer. That's what he wants for you and for me That's the ground. That's the soil in which a rich praying life is nurtured In which there's vitality It's in the goodness of God the Father It's in believing and trusting in his goodness and prayer is where we exercise that faith and trust in his goodness By turning to him over and over and over again You see Jesus wants to shape this impulse in our lives He's in a sense. He's crisis increasingly drawing the focus of his disciples away from themselves and away from earthly rulers to the heavenly Father
Why he's anticipating the opposition the trials the temptations that are going to come their way And he knows there's going to be a temptation to seek and earthly rulers what they should be seeking in God Or to seek in relationships to seek peace provision rest all of those things to seek in someone else or something else that which is only in the Father that can only be found in the Father And so Jesus is leading them and leading us. He's saying go to the Father That's where all the gifts are go to him ask seek knock keep asking keep seeking keep knocking And you will receive you will find in the doors of the kingdom the spiritual blessings of the kingdom will be open to you into me Let's pray So Lord Jesus we thank you that when your disciples came to you and they said Lord teach us to pray you gave us so much So much to think about so much to do and that you meet us where we are And so we thank you for your gracious invitation To come to you We thank you Lord Jesus that you reveal the heart of the Father to us Lord We pray that we might see that more and more And then we might grow in grace and grow in prayer And increase in faith we make this prayer in Jesus name Amen