We continue this morning to meditate on the
words of the Sermon on the Mount as
recorded by St. Matthew, and we are turning
now to chapter 7, and beginning to read
with verse 7, we shall read the passage
that ends with the 12th verse.
Much of the same substance was heard in
our earlier reading from Luke, though you will
notice, I'm sure, that there are some additions
there, or slight differences, the one qualifying the
other.
Ask, and it will be given to you.
Seek, and you will find.
Knock, and the door will be opened to
you.
For everyone who asks, receives.
He who seeks, finds, and to him who
knocks, the door will be opened.
Which of you, if his son asks for
bread, will give him a stone?
Or if he asks for a fish, will
give him a snake?
If you then, though you 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?
In everything, do to others what you would
have them do to you.
For this sums up the law and the
prophets.
We have entitled our message this morning, Compelling
Inducement to Pray, and I trust that the
validity of that title will become evident before
we have concluded our exposition of this passage.
There are many who have read the Sermon
on the Mount, and have concluded that it
is purely idealistic, that it is meant to
be a kind of ideal that should profitably
occupy the minds of people, something to dream
about, but that it is nevertheless totally impracticable.
Incapable of being obeyed and put into practice.
Now, I don't want to take time on
this matter in order to prove it.
There would be no real point.
But it is true, to many people this
morning, the Sermon on the Mount is nothing
more than that.
Others, of course, have seen deeper into the
reality of things.
They have recognized, for one thing, the deity
of the preacher.
And along with the deity of the preacher,
the utter integrity of his word.
And they have recognized that here our Lord
Jesus Christ was really summoning his followers, the
subjects of his kingdom, to live the kind
of life that he here outlines.
Many of those who have recognized the authority
and the sincerity of the preacher have tried
very hard to obey the precepts of the
Sermon.
Some have done well, some not so well.
Many have utterly failed.
And that to which I want to refer
now is this, that many have become broken
-hearted in attempting.
I have discovered many, many, many people, too
many to count, well-intentioned, eager to serve
their Lord, who have read the Sermon on
the Mount and other passages of the New
Testament over and over again, but I'm thinking
now specifically of the Sermon on the Mount,
and have wanted to know the secret of
expressing these precepts in life.
But they've not been able to.
And one of the main reasons why they've
not been able to is that they have
never seen the glory and the significance of
this Word of God before us today, and
they've never seen it in its real context.
I have to confess myself, let preachers make
confessions from time to time, but I have
to confess myself that this has been true
of me.
I believe I have preached on this text
before, not here in Knox, but I think
I have somewhere or other.
But I saw it as dealing with a
subject of prayer, and I came to it
as if it hung in midair, a Word
of God, but I never saw it until
this week, here in the context in which
it is found as the key to the
living of the life to which Jesus calls
us in the very context here in the
Sermon on the Mount.
And if I can do nothing else this
morning, I want to ask the Lord in
His grace to be merciful to us, and
enable us to see that really everything hangs
upon this.
And if you and I see the teaching
and the summons and the ethical standards without
hearing this command to come and to seek
and to ask and to knock and to
go on seeking, asking, knocking, because everyone who
seeks is given, everyone who asks the door
is open to him, and so forth.
Unless we see this, that really prayer is
the ultimate answer to godly living, Brothers and
sisters, we have missed the most important thing
in the whole of the Bible.
Let's come to it.
It seems to me that the passage demands
a threefold division.
It begins with an almost excited announcement by
Jesus of an all-encompassing promise, verses 7
and 8.
It then proceeds to focus attention upon our
all-excelling Heavenly Father.
And this of course is basic to prayer.
Who are we praying to?
What kind of a person are we praying
to?
And then it concludes with an all-inclusive
principle, which would apparently sum up the whole
of the Sermon on the Mount, and say
to us in effect, in conclusion as it
were, Now, this is the way forward.
This one principle seems to gather up everything
that's gone before it.
This is the way forward, and this is
the way of victory.
Let's look at at least two of these
points this morning, in dependence upon the grace
of the Holy Spirit.
First of all, I want us to look
at this all-encompassing promise.
With all his now evident authority as a
teacher in matters relating to God and man,
and with his equally evident sense of the
unrivaled nature of the privilege he was conferring
upon his followers, Jesus made this all-inclusive
promise.
Ask, and it will be given you.
Seek, and you will find.
Knock, and the door will be opened to
you.
Let it be willingly conceded, of course, that
we must understand such a remarkable promise in
the light of what Jesus has to say
elsewhere, concerning the same subject.
But whatever he may say elsewhere, it does
not give us license to whittle down this
remarkable promise, so that it virtually means nothing.
And there are many who do that, that's
why I put it in that way.
As a matter of fact, this is the
crucial key that Jesus puts in our hands
for the successful practice of the precepts he
has enunciated throughout the Sermon on the Mount.
Now, look first at the extent of his
promise.
Ask, and it will be given you.
Now, he's not mentioning them by name, he's
talking to all the subjects of his kingdom.
And his terms are so couched that they
apply to the subjects of his kingdom in
any age, in every age, in every clime,
at any time.
He's not simply addressing the apostles, there's a
larger company even here.
But he is fundamentally addressing the subjects of
his kingdom, his followers, his disciples.
Ask, he says, and it will be given
you.
Seek, and you will find.
Knock, and the door will be opened to
you.
And then, as if that were not clear
enough, listen to this.
For every one who asks, receives.
He who seeks, finds.
To him who knocks, the door will be
opened.
No one seems to be necessarily barred from
there.
It's as wide, it is as extensive as
the kingdom of God is extensive.
It is as inclusive as the kingdom of
God is inclusive.
And if you claim this morning to own
Jesus Christ as your Lord and your Saviour,
brother and sister, these are words of God,
from God, through his Son, to you and
to me.
But you say, they can't be true, because
I have asked and I have not received.
Well now, this raises many questions, practical questions.
But this is the promise.
And I have to ask myself, and I
bid you ask yourself, if we say that
we have asked and sought and knocked and
got no answer, who has been at fault?
Has it been the petitioner?
Or has it been the God and Father
of our Lord Jesus Christ?
You see, the fact of the matter is
this, that so much of our so-called
praying is no praying at all.
And so much of our so-called praying
is not really prayer to the Father Almighty,
through His co-equal Son, in the power
of His Holy Spirit, and according to the
promises of His Word.
So much of our praying is just sheer,
fanciful talking about things, informing God of things
that we deem He apparently doesn't know about.
But God knows a few things.
Ask, said Jesus, and it will be given
you.
Seek, and you will find.
Knock, and it will be opened to you.
Now I pass from the extensiveness of it,
but I hope sufficient has been said, even
to this point, to bring home the fact
that you and I are included, if you're
a disciple of Christ this morning.
And if you and I have not discovered
this to be true, now that is an
area that we've got to look into.
Something's gone wrong somewhere.
And if something has gone wrong, and this
is not working in our lives, we ought
for God's own glory and our eternal good,
seek into things, and find out what, and
why, and where.
You see, it's so much easier to look
for some sort of experience of this kind
or another, and then come back gloating about
some experience of this, of that, or the
other, rather than work out this principle, and
let God show us why it is that
He is not real to us.
Because the fact of the matter is this,
you see, if this is not true, and
if it's not being made true in our
lives, the probability is that God is not
real to us.
And our religion may have God in it
as an article of doctrine, but not as
a fact of experience.
And this is one of the great tragedies
of so much religion in every age, that
God may be in it as a point
of doctrine, a point of reference, but not
as a fact of experience.
Jesus says, ask and you'll receive.
Either He's right, or He's wrong.
Either He's true, or He's false.
And I rather believe that He is true,
even though it indicts me of lethargy, of
sin, of whatever, and tells me that my
prayer life is but an excuse of praying,
or something short of what it ought to
be.
Now let's move from the extent of our
Lord's promise to the content of it.
Let's come in more specifically and examine the
content.
Truly these words would carry weight, as we
have suggested already, even if we were to
take them out of their context.
They're remarkable, they comprise a remarkable utterance.
But here in the context, in the Sermon
on the Mount, I think we see these
words in their glory, their real glory.
Our present text, Matthew 7, 7 to 12,
I believe, provides the one crucial key that
makes the preceding teaching of Jesus practicable.
Until we learn to ask and receive, to
knock so that the door is open, to
seek until we find, until we've learned to
do that, we cannot live the Sermon on
the Mount.
But when we've learned to do that, we
can live the Sermon on the Mount.
In other words, what I believe our Lord
is telling us here, we have such a
Heavenly Father, and we have such a privilege
of approach to Him, come to Him and
keep on coming to Him with all your
needs, and He has everything you need.
And there is nothing you can't do that
is within the orbit of His will, if
you will, by His grace.
Rob the sermon of these words, and you
are left, I believe, in the same kind
of bewilderment as that in which the Blessed
Virgin Mary found herself, when the angel made
an announcement to her that she was highly
favoured of the Lord, that she would be
with child who would be great, who would
be called the Son of the Most High,
who would be given the throne of His
Father David, and who would reign over the
house of Jacob forever because His kingdom would
know no end, to quote from Luke chapter
1, verses 28 following.
You remember how the Virgin Mary was baffled
and bewildered by such a gigantic promise as
that, because she knew one thing as no
one else did, she knew that she was
still a virgin.
And she says so.
And she cried out with anguish, How can
this kind of thing be, seeing I don't
know a man?
What rendered that unique promise believable, however, even
certain, was the angel's reply which begins with
these words, The Holy Spirit will come upon
you, and the power of the Most High
will overshadow you, and that which shall be
born of you will be called a Son
of God.
The reply changed the whole situation for Mary,
her response now is this, I'm the Lord's
servant.
Another way of saying, Lord, I'm at your
disposal.
May it be to me as you have
said, then the angel left her.
There's nothing more to do.
Now it is somewhat similar with us who
have heard the call of this summon on
the mount, and all that is therein contained.
It sounds beautiful, but impracticable to many of
us.
I come to you this morning and I
say to you, It is practicable if you
are prepared to undergo the discipline of learning
how to pray.
And when you've learned the discipline persistently, as
Jesus said, these are all in the present
continuous tense, Go on asking, go on knocking,
go on seeking.
That's what he said.
Now either he's right or wrong, but if
he's wrong, we're in serious waters.
We like Mary know that we simply do
not have the capacity to achieve so high
a calling as that envisaged in this sermon
on the mount.
It may win the admiration of the centuries
as an idea, but do not press its
application to life since we're not sure that
it can be achieved, unless this be true.
And here we have an open door to
the source of all spiritual resources.
And by asking and seeking and knocking, we
may make them ours.
Now that is exactly what our text is,
it seems to me.
It announces the means whereby the ideal can
become practical and experiential.
It tells us how everything Jesus has thus
far required of his followers in the body
of the sermon may be achieved by ordinary
men and women subject to the same temptations
as we are in an evil world.
Now this cannot other than make us uncomfortable,
all of us at some point at some
stage or other.
If it is a genuine word of the
living God through his incarnate Son, then why
are we not more evidently embodying our lives,
embodying in our lives the principles of the
sermon.
Brothers and sisters, if this is true, why
aren't more of us in our prayer groups
from week to week?
Why aren't more of us in the prayer
group here in the church?
Am I honestly disclosing a reality, the reality
of things when I say that we don't
believe this?
Is it true that God is not sufficiently
real to us to believe that he can
give what we cannot concoct or bring about
by dint of our own energy?
And there's not much value in meeting for
prayer.
Brother and sister, how far and how deeply
and consistently is your personal life punctuated by
heaven-reaching prayer from day to day?
You see, the fact of the matter is
this.
Call ourselves evangelicals, call yourselves Presbyterians or Baptists
or Anglicans or United, whatever.
So many of these titles throw dust into
our eyes.
The point is, do we know God?
And if we do not know God sufficiently
to do commerce with him in prayer, on
some level there is something radically, radically, radically
wrong.
It doesn't matter how well you sing.
It doesn't matter how often you come to
church.
It doesn't matter how much you read your
Bible or talk about the Savior.
If this is not true, brothers and sisters,
we are up a side alley somewhere.
James puts it as bluntly as this.
And James, you remember, in the New Testament,
can be terribly blunt.
But he says it as bluntly as this.
You do not have, he says, because you
do not ask God.
And then he has a second thought which
he adds to that.
He says, when you do ask, you do
not receive.
Huh?
Because you ask with wrong motives that you
may spend what you get on your pleasures.
Is it true that the church of Jesus
Christ is impoverished of power to live the
kind of life required by the King of
the Kingdom?
Because we do not really ask and really
seek and really not.
Jesus requires of us to do this and
to do so perseveringly.
Perseveringly.
The prophet Jeremiah had said long ago, and
I'm sure it sounded almost too good to
be true to most of the early believers.
He had said, you will seek me and
find me.
This is in the name of the Lord.
When you seek me with all your heart.
How much of our heart is in our
prayers?
I'm sorry we have to come down to
this, but you know it's necessary.
There is no greater tragic in the history
of the church and the life of the
church than just lip praying.
The heart is the source of prayer.
And if it does not come from the
heart and with the heart as well as
the mind and the dedication of body, soul,
and spirit, then it's no real prayer.
How much real prayer marks our personal life.
You know, someone, I think it's Dr. D
.A. Carson, whom we've had speaking in this
pulpit on more than one occasion, has written
these words.
The Western world is not characterized by prayer.
By and large, to our unspeakable shame, even
genuine Christians in the West are not characterized
by prayer.
And notice what he's saying.
He doesn't say that people don't pray, but
we're not characterized by prayer.
People wouldn't say about us, their life is
characterized by prayer.
That's the outstanding mark of their lives.
Our environment, says Dr. Carson, loves hustle and
bustle.
Smooth organization and powerful institutions.
Human self-confidence and human achievement.
I can do it, you know.
We can do it.
I've got it in me.
That's the attitude, that's the philosophy.
Human achievement, new opinions, novel schemes.
And the Church of Jesus Christ has conformed
so thoroughly to this environment that it is
often difficult to see how it differs in
these matters from contemporary paganism.
There are, of course, exceptions, but I am
referring to what is characteristic.
Our low spiritual ebb is directly traceable to
the flickering feebleness of our prayers.
And that is so.
He who gave us eternal life can alone
sustain it and enable us to achieve our
calling.
You see, let's put it like this now.
Let's relate it to its context.
If we would produce the truly Christian character
outlined in the Beatitudes, being poor in spirit
and so forth, if we would produce the
truly Christian character enunciated there, we must persistently
ask, seek and knock.
If we would be able to count ourselves
blessed when men persecute us for righteousness sake,
or enacting a salt and light in society,
in the conquest of murder and adultery at
their source within our own hearts or imaginations,
in building society on truthfulness with our word
as our bond, or if we would not
only regulate our acts of revenge but have
love for our enemies, or if we would
give to the needy, pray and fast without
hypocrisy, lay up treasures in heaven while we
refuse to worry about anything because we have
such a wonderful Heavenly Father who even has
his mind upon the sparrow's fore.
If we would overcome our censorious spirit while
still maintain a judicious care to distinguish between
truth and falsehood, right and wrong, then we
must see Jesus' word here as providing the
means.
This word here is wrapped up with the
sermon.
The sermon is not concluded.
It's the last verse, verse 12, that concludes
the body of the teaching and then from
there on Jesus is telling people, now you
enter in here, enter in through the straight
gate and so forth.
Many of you call me Lord, Lord, but
you're not.
And he has something along those lines.
And then he talks about building on the
sand or on the rock.
But you see all the rest is application.
He has inbuilt this teaching into the body
of his sermon as if to say, this
is how to do it.
And I want to say to you this
morning, my friend, if it was the last
thing I ever said on earth, I believe
that this is the primary priority for God's
people in every age, but especially in ours.
Neither must we be put off track as
it is said here by Jesus because it
might appear to us that some people get
on quite well without praying.
Don't make that mistake.
You can never judge how people are getting
on until they stand before the judgment seat
of God.
Only then will you know.
You must never judge a book by the
first few chapters, only in the light of
the last chapter.
It is true, of course, that many natural
gifts are given by God the creator to
his creatures without their ever asking him.
We've been celebrating some of them this morning.
Who asked for this lovely sunshine?
You didn't, I didn't.
Many things are given to us.
One writer illustrates such gifts in terms of
the harvest, the gift of a child or
children to a home, food.
And our Lord has already referred to the
rainfall and to the sunshine.
God causes his sun to shine upon the
just and the unjust alike.
And we don't ask for them, neither do
we thank him for them very often.
But in spiritual matters it is otherwise.
Here God bids us ask him for our
needs.
And scripture goes so far as to indicate
that we lack some things, as James says,
because we do not ask.
Let me quote from John Stott here.
He says, God's redemption gifts are different from
his natural gifts.
God does not bestow salvation on all alike,
but, to quote, bestows his riches upon all
who call on him.
For everyone who calls upon the name of
the Lord will be saved.
Romans 10, 12 and 13.
The same applies to post-salvation blessings, says
John Stott.
The good things which Jesus says the Father
gives his children, it is not material blessings
that he's referring to here, but spiritual blessings,
daily forgiveness, deliverance from evil, peace, the increase
of faith, hope and love.
In fact, the indwelling work of the Holy
Spirit as the comprehensive blessing of God, which
is how Luke renders good things, Luke 11,
13.
What is Stott saying?
What he's saying is this.
In spiritual matters God quickens us to life
and he says, Now look, trust me, not
just to live by faith, ask me, seek
me.
And if I do not answer you immediately,
keep on seeking, keep on asking.
I have a good reason for not giving
at that moment.
But you are to seek, you are to
ask, you are to knock, you are to
wait.
They that wait upon the Lord shall renew
their strength, they shall mount up with wings
as eagles.
And you see, we've got such an arrogant
view of ourselves, we sometimes fall on our
knees, even if we kneel, most of us
sit to pray.
But even if we kneel, we think that
the Almighty, the moment He's heard what we've
asked, He's got to come right down and
do it, there and then, just as we
ask, we expect Him to be at our
beck and call.
He says, listen, sometimes I may not give
you what you ask immediately, but I know
what I'm doing.
Keep on asking.
You're very dwelling around my throne and coming
into my courts and breathing the atmosphere of
the heavenly throne, that in and of itself
will do you good.
But in due course you shall have, that's
the promise, ask and it shall be given
you.
Seek and you will find, knock and it
will be opened.
I cannot, I cannot go back on the
word of my Son.
There remains one other matter and I conclude
with it.
It would be my second point, but I'm
only going to refer to it.
Our all-excellent Father.
You see, what makes this more feasible and
more hopeful to us is this.
It's the kind of Father to whom we
come.
It makes our coming, our failure to come
a very heinous thing, a very grievous thing.
But what gilds the promise of our Lord
with gold is this, that we come to
such a Father.
And listen to how Jesus put it.
Which of you, He says, if his son
asks for bread, we'll give him a stone.
Or if he asks for a fish, we'll
give him a snake.
Then he moves.
If you then, though you are evil, know
how to give good gifts to your children,
how much more will your heavenly Father give
good gifts to those who ask Him?
Now just take it in briefly.
The illustration comes from ordinary life and it's
too simple to need any comment.
Nevertheless, I'm just going to say this much
about it.
Which of you fathers or mothers would, if
your child came in and said, Look, I'm
hungry.
I want some bread or I want some
toast or I want something to quench my
hunger, to deal with my hunger.
Which of you would go and look for
a stone and put it in his hand?
I don't think anyone here would do that.
Or if he asked for a fish, would
you give him a snake?
Would you give him something useless, harmful like
a stone or unlikable and harmless as a
snake?
Might we?
Well, now look, he says.
Don't impugn that kind of thing to your
father in heaven.
He knows what you want.
And his son has told you, Ask and
it will be given.
You seek and you shall find.
Knock and it shall be opened.
Don't impugn your father as revealed in his
son.
Don't impugn his character.
And so our Lord gives us a conviction
upon which we may launch out into each
new day.
If you then, though you are evil.
His point is not to prove the depravity
of the race here, but he's referring to
it as a matter of fact.
We're all evil.
The best parent has got sin in his
heart or her heart.
If you then, though you are evil, nevertheless
know how to give good gifts to your
children, because of paternal sympathy and so forth.
If you know how to give good gifts
to your children, how much more will your
father in heaven, not only because he's a
heavenly being, but because there's no sin in
him, no evil in him, and no evil
desire for any of his children.
More than that, let's put the positive, because
he is the God.
He is the compassionate, almighty, all-wise, all
-good, gracious God.
He is because he is the God.
He is and because particularly he has made
you his child, and he is your father.
How much more will your father in heaven
give good gifts, even the Holy Spirit, which
is another way of saying, of giving himself.
You can't give more than yourself.
Of giving himself to those that ask him.
Now do you see the picture?
You say the Sermon on the Mount is
not practicable.
I challenge you to say that again with
these words before you.
What's gone wrong is this.
We've not learned to pray.
We've learned everything else.
We're marvelous at sports.
This is the day to say it, isn't
it?
Oh my, we can lick the New Yorkers.
Even I have some excitement out of that.
I'm sorry, you Americans.
I know there are some here.
You don't mind me saying that this morning.
You know, we're marvelous in the world of
finance, in the world of commerce, in the
world of business.
We have our experts, and we're proud of
them.
But I tell you, my friend, unless you
can pray, nothing really matters in life or
in death.
And one day you and I will be
cornered by disease and death and unless you
have learned to pray, you will be miserable,
even if you're redeemed.
A compelling inducement to pray.
Now you see why I give it that
title?
If you're a child of God, I believe
you know what that means.
This text says to you, if you are
who you are, you ought to be praying,
you ought to be asking, you ought to
be seeking, you ought to be knocking the
doors.
And sooner or later, you ought to be
receiving.
If God is God, there ought to be
something to manifest the genuineness of your relationship
to him and mine.
It was William James, the philosopher, who said,
energy which but for prayer would be bound
is by prayer set free and operates.
Philosopher that he was, he saw this.
And if only you and I could see
this, that all the power of God is
available for us and this is the means
whereby we draw it.
The woman at the well said to Jesus,
you remember in John 4, when he talked
about water in the well, she said to
him, he says, what are you talking about
water from?
We're standing by the side of this well
or sitting by the side of it, but
you've got nothing to draw with.
You've got nothing to draw with.
Well, she was wrong, because he could draw
water from a rock.
But I know many professing Christians who have
nothing to draw with.
It's all there.
We are blessed with every spiritual blessing in
the heavenly places in Christ, says Paul in
1 Corinthians.
And Peter adds, all things pertaining to life
and godliness have been given to us, but
they're not ours.
We've nothing to draw with.
We've not practiced the art of asking and
seeking and knocking.
For if we have, we cease to believe
that God means what he says and we've
packed up.
I call you to come back today.
I don't want you to think of this
morning service as a matter of sermonizing.
I believe this can be a vital landmark
in your experience and mine, and if it
isn't, we should be answerable for it.
I think it should reflect on all our
prayer meetings, all our groups, and the whole
life of this church, and any other church
you may belong to.
God grant us of his mercy that we
may enter into the source room, the room
wherein the gifts are imparted to those who
wait upon our heavenly Father.
Let us pray.
Lord, our God, with a sense of contrition
do we come before you in the closing
moments of our morning's worship because we feel
the impact of this your word upon us
and we cannot wriggle away from it or
out of it.
It does speak to us.
We accept that fact and we accept our
guilt that we are not characterized, as one
of your servants has said it, we are
not characterized by prayer.
Forgive us, O Lord, and teach us, teach
us how to live to your glory and
teach us how to use the weapon of
faith with which to draw from the wells
of salvation every day and every night of
our lives.
In Jesus' name, Amen.