Pray Always (Matthew 7: 7-11)
Prayer can be puzzling there have been times in my life when I prayed a lot and other times when I prayed and I didn’t think the Lord answered, and times when I hardly prayed at all. An answer prayer can be fuzzy and sometimes not in the least what we expected. When praying sometimes I can be difficult to know what to do next, For example, there’s been some things that I didn’t get an answer to and I thought well I just keep praying. Should you pay for something repeatedly and how many times should you ask for something. Should you just ask once and forget it, should you put limit on it like I'll ask 10 times and then stop or should you just keep praying and praying. Maybe there are some prayers you should not pray at all and others you should just keep pray and keep praying.
Today l would like to address the issue to grapple with some of those questions and try to find some answers, I’d like to invite your attention to Matthew Chapter 7 because toward the end of the sermon on the mount Jesus addresses the subject of prayer. Actually, as you might remember if you have been with us all the way through he also did it in the middle of the sermon on the mount in that very famous passage that is often called the Lord’s prayer. But here gain he addresses prayer again in this passage. This portion of the sermon on the mount is just pointed out in eloquent terms is that we are to be persistent in prayer.
The second thing he does which we’ll look at later is he gives us sort of an explanation for why we ought to do that. But before we get to that explanation let’s just look at his exhortation where he tells us to be persistent in prayer. In verse seven he says
Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. (Matthew 7:7)
That’s the point he’s making, it’s an exhortation to pray, it’s an invitation to ask, he is simply telling us to pray. Perhaps that is because of what he has said just prior to this about examining yourself and not judging others. Yet at the same time after you’ve examined yourself and maybe you need to go help others. He talked about the beam in your eye on the one hand and said take the beam out of your eye, and then if you’ve still got a Pearl in your hand don’t cast it before swine. Perhaps he’s discussing prayer at this point because you need system to know how to go about doing that sort of thing. Discerning who to help and who to move on from. At any rate there’s no doubt that at this point he is saying, pray but he doesn’t stop there. The point he’s making is not just that we pray but that we keep on praying. He says ask and it will be given to you seek and you shall find, knock and it will be open to you, so he’s piling one image on top of another to teach us to be persistence in prayer. Do you ever lose your car keys and you just looked in one spot and stopped right you sought until you found. Or the image is knocking on the door knock, and if nobody comes keep knocking keep knocking until somebody comes to the door. That’s sort of the idea going on here.
Earlier in the sermon on the mount he talked about what we call the Lord’s prayer and he said avoid vain repetition, this is different than that, this isn’t about endless repetition of the same words, this is persistence and there is a difference, a huge difference here. What Jesus is saying is you ought to pray you ought to pray persistently and you ought to pray fervently like you’re looking for something that’s lost, like you’re knocking on the door and it’s urgent that they open to you. Just do it and you do it and you do it persistently. This is the opposite of praying formally or praying with a cold heart. Thomas brooks has said cold prayers always freeze before they reach the Lord. This is the opposite of those cold mindless heartless repetitive prayers This is not the arithmetic of our prayers how many they are, it’s not the rhetoric of our prayers, how eloquent they are, nor the mathematics of our prayers how long they are. Nor the logic of our prayers, how argumentative they may be nor the method of our prayers how orderly they may be. What God wants is sincere fervent spiritual prayer. So it’s this persistent fervent spirit that says I’m going to ask and ask and ask and ask and ask get the point until I get it. I'm going to keep on asking. I think it's the attitude of Jacob who said when he wrestled with the Lord in prayer, I will not let you go unless you bless me. Here Jesus is saying ask, ask persistently, ask repeatedly, ask perfectly ask, seek, knock and don’t stop. Just keep asking. Then in verse 8 he asks.
For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened. (Matthew 7: 8)
Let me explain you just really need to do this because this is one of the keys to getting an answer to prayer if you ask you get, if you seek, you’ll find, if you knock it will be open to you. Or to put the same thing another way, if you don’t ask you don’t receive, if you don’t seek you don’t find and if you don’t knock no one comes to the door.
Perhaps we should make a distinction at this point between delays and denials. I think it’s the delays in the answers to prayer that discourage us, but don’t take a delay as a denial. That’s what he’s telling us, keep asking, there may be a delay, but that doesn’t mean that there is a denial
Bill Hybels pastor near Chicago says it like this if the request is wrong God says no, if the timing is wrong God says slow, if you are wrong God says grow, if the request is right and the timing is right and you are right, God says go. So, make some little distinctions here between a delay and deny maybe you need to grow a little maybe the timing is not right maybe God isn’t saying no permanently. I read once of a tribe in Africa where a number of them came to know Christ they made a practice of going out into the outskirts of the village outside the village surrounding the village to pray and everybody had their little spot in the jungle where they pray and to get to it they took the same path until these new Christians had little paths going out into the jungle but if somebody stopped praying the grass would grow up on their path and the other Christians would see it and they’d say friend there’s grass on your path is that grass on your path did you probably not get an answer you got discouraged. Jesus is saying don’t let grass grow on your path keep going keep going keep going keep going, get the point persistently praying is the thing, that’s the issue just keep praying. Now that’s the exhortation let’s look at something of the explanation.
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! (Matthew 7: 9)
The explanation he’s giving us in this passage has to do with fatherhood. What he does in these couple of verses is he contrasts a human father with our heavenly father to make the point that the reason you want to keep asking is because God is a father who delights in giving good gifts to his child. Jesus is saying a human father would not give a stone to his son if he were asking for bread and he wouldn’t give him a serpent if he were asking for fish. I wanted to choose those objects well the first-place bread and fish were the standard diet he’s speaking according to tradition looking at the sea of Galilee where they fished and down on the shore. I am told there were little limestone rocks that had the shape and the color of a small loaf of bread and there was a serpent that had the appearance of an eel like catfish.
What Jesus is saying is if your child asks you for food something you really need if you were just a human father. We’re all sinful creatures we wouldn’t give them some lousy substitute like a stone that looks like bread and has no nourishment or a serpent that looks like a fish and has no value. For that’s what a human father would do, but Jesus is saying not even a human father would do that that’s his point and in contrast the heavenly father would certainly not do that. I’m sure you’ve heard of the famous Scottish literary figure named Robert Burns he was a poet from Scotland but he died at age 37 of malnutrition he could not sell his poetry so he died soon after he died the literary minded people of Scotland raised a marble monument in his memory.
During the unveiling his mother was asked to say a few words she had a prepared speech, but she broke down and looking at the monument and referring to this verse she said, and I quote, “Oh Robert my son you asked for bread and they gave you a stone”. Jesus said that even sinful fathers would do that God is a father for those who’ve trusted his son and God gives us good gifts. As a matter of fact let’s look at that he says in verse 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 him who ask”. The good things the simple father gave were things the child really needed; the Greek word translated good in verse 11 means beneficia. If you’re asking for the right thing and this by the way is critical to the explanation of what’s going on here if you’re asking for the good thing for the beneficial thing for the thing that you really need. If God says you really need it then is when your father delights in giving it to you. That’s the point keep asking for the good thing. Someone has written, I asked God to take away my pain, God said no, it’s not for me to take away, but for you to give it up I asked God to make my disabled child whole, he said no, her spirit was whole her body was only temporary.
I asked God to grant me patience he said no patience is a byproduct of tribulation, it isn’t granted it’s earned. I asked God to give me happiness he said no, I will give you blessings, happiness is up to you. I ask God to spare me pain, God said no, suffering brought you out from your other worldly cares and brings you closer to me. I asked God to make my spirit grow and God said no, you can grow in your own, but I will prune you to make you more fruitful. I asked for all things that I might enjoy life, God said no, I will give your life so that you can enjoy all things. I ask God to help me love others as much as he loves me, and God said no, you finally got the idea. Ask Godd for good things and I think the basic concept is that he is a loving heavenly father. God responds to perseverance and prayer that is provided we’re asking for good things.
I want to conclude all this but that doesn’t really mean I have finished with this passage; it just means I have a long conclusion by which I want to try pull it all together and put it in focus and to do that I would like to give you a couple of illustrations.