Matthew 7:7-12
~17 min read
TRANSCRIPT
The year 2023 is coming to an end, and the year 2024 is just one day away. As people reflect on this year, there may be certain regrets, disappointments, and discouragements. There may be certain things that they wanted to do but failed to do or things they should not have done but kept doing. Therefore, as they prepare themselves to usher in the new year, perhaps they resolve in their hearts that they must not repeat those same mistakes. Instead, they resolve to be faithful in serving God, be more committed to walk with the Lord, be better Christians, and so forth.
It is common for people to have plans, aspirations, and make resolutions for the new year. Dear friend, what about you? What are your new year's resolutions? In view of the new year, I have prayerfully chosen this text from Matthew 7:7-12. The title of our message is "Our New Year's Resolutions". This is a wonderful passage spoken by our Lord Jesus Christ, but it is also a text that has been greatly abused.
Jesus said, "Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you". Some people have used this text like a blank check. Just go for it—name whatever you want and you claim it. God is like an ATM machine; you just need to press the buttons enough times in prayers, be persistent, and you will get what you want. They will tell you the sky is the limit. All you need to do is just ask. You can ask for a Mercedes-Benz; you can ask for promotion; you can ask for any material things you desire, and you shall receive it. This is absolutely wrong.
If we take any verse or passage in the Bible out of context, it is both dangerous and heretical. We must read the verse according to its context. What is this passage talking about? Jesus was speaking to His disciples on the mountain known as the Sermon on the Mount. He was speaking about Christians being the salt and the light of this world. He was speaking about a righteousness that exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees.
When you are angry with your brother, it is like murder in the eyes of God. When you look at a woman and lust after her, it is like adultery in the eyes of God. You must be truthful; let your yay be yay, nay be nay. You must love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you. When you give to the Lord, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing. When you pray and fast, do not be like the hypocrites who love to be seen by men. You must not lay up treasures on this earth but treasures in heaven. You must serve God and not mammon. You must not be worried about tomorrow; do not worry about what you shall eat, drink, and wear, but seek ye first the kingdom of God. And you must not make judgmental things about your brother. All these things were taught in the preceding verses. Notice the focus was all about the kingdom of God.
As God's children, you and I must live as children belonging to His kingdom. We are to be holy as God is holy. We must live out these principles set for us in the Sermon on the Mount, but it is a tremendously high standard. Most certainly, we cannot live out these principles. So, what can we do? It was in this context that our Lord Jesus said, "Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you”. So, this is not a blank check for us to ask anything we want. This passage teaches us to pray for the character of God's kingdom to be manifested in our lives.
From this passage, we want to draw three new year's resolutions, and by the grace of God, we want to live out these resolutions not only for the year 2024 but beyond, as long as our Lord Jesus would tarry in his return.
I. Obey the Command to Pray
Firstly, we want to obey the command to pray. Jesus commands us to pray—ask, seek, and knock. Notice the three verbs have an ascending intensity. Ask implies asking for a conscious need—you have a need, whatever be the need, and you humbly ask for it. Seek is more than asking; it involves action. The idea is not just to express your need but to rise up to pursue, to look around for help. Knock is more than asking plus seeking; it is persevering like someone pounding on a closed door. These three verbs are imperatives, which means they are commands. In the Greek language, there are two basic kinds of imperatives—there is the Aorist imperative, which commands to do one particular thing or one definite command, such as ‘shut the door’ or ‘pick up the newspaper’. There is also the present imperative, which commands a continuous action. These three verbs are present imperatives, which means keep on asking, keep on seeking, keep on knocking.
There are several things we ought to learn about this command. Firstly, this command is only given to the believers because Jesus was speaking to his disciples, and in the preceding chapter, he taught them to pray saying, "Our Father which art in heaven." Only the believer is able to pray and call upon God as their heavenly Father. Secondly, if we want to obey this command, we must be living in obedience to our Heavenly Father, as 1 John 3:22 says, "And whatsoever we ask, we receive of him, because we keep his commandments, and do those things that are pleasing in his sight." If we are living in sin and then keep on asking, seeking, and knocking, God will not answer our prayers.
Thirdly, we must be submissive to His will. If we are trying to serve God and mammon, if we are trying to love God and love the world at the same time (which is impossible), God will not answer our prayers because it is not His will. 1 John 5:14 says, "And this is the confidence that we have in him, that, if we ask any thing according to his will, he heareth us". Fourthly, our motives in asking and seeking and knocking must be right. All of us are familiar with James 4:3 that says, "Ye ask and receive not,”—why?—“because ye ask amiss,”—you missed the point, you miss it—”that ye may consume it upon your lust." God will not answer the carnal desires of whatever we utter to him; he will not answer those prayers.
Finally, the very fact that there is this progression in intensity—we begin by asking and then seeking and finally knocking—tells us the element of our human responsibility. For example, if we want God to provide us with a job, we should be looking for a job ourselves and then wait upon the Lord for His guidance and provision. If we want to mend a broken relationship (which is the right thing to do), we should be looking for ways to resolve the conflict and then wait upon the Lord to help us mend that relationship. If we want to help a brother confront a particular sin, we should be learning about that brother, all that he's going through, the situation, and what the Bible says about the issue. And then, wait upon the Lord to help us walk through the restoration. That is our human responsibility.
Some of us may be thinking, why is it that I cannot find victory in my Christian life? I know I must trust God, but why am I always still worrying? Why am I so unforgiving, so judgmental, so critical? Why am I not actively serving the Lord? Why is my life having so little effect on my family and my children? The answer is perhaps you have neglected your prayer life. You do not have because you do not ask. We cannot live out the principles in the Sermon on the Mount without asking God for His help.
But you may be thinking, ‘Well, I have asked, but nothing happens.’ Dear friend, if you ask once, that is good. Ask again. Ask a third time. Ask a hundred times. Then let your asking become seeking. You keep on seeking and pursuing. And then let your seeking become knocking. Why do you knock? You knock because you want to be heard. Do you think God does not hear? The psalmist says, "I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help. My help cometh from the LORD, which made heaven and earth. He will not suffer thy foot to be moved: he that keepeth thee will not slumber. Behold, he that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep" (Psalm 121). God never sleeps. If God never sleeps, then why did He not just answer my prayer the first time?
Let's presume God answers your prayers every time you ask the first time. What do you learn? Nothing. But what happens when your asking turns to seeking and your seeking turns to knocking? What do you learn? Perseverance. Like the illustration of the man whose teacher placed a rock in front of him and said, ‘Push the rock. The man pushed with all his strength, but it did not move, not even a tiny bit. Yet the teacher said, ‘Push the rock every day.’ The man faithfully pushed the rock, but it did not move. After several months, he went to the teacher and said, ‘I've been pushing the rock, but it did not move.’ And the teacher said to him, ‘I asked you to push the rock, not move the rock. Now look at your muscles.’ By then, the man had built a strong body with huge muscles.
In a similar fashion, God wants us to keep on asking, keep on seeking, keep on knocking, so that we may build up our spiritual muscles. So that you and I will be men and women of endurance, of perseverance, of faith. We must obey the command to pray.
II. Trust in the Promise of God
Our second point is to trust in the promise of God. Let us move on to verse 9 and 10: "Or what man is there of you, whom if his son ask bread, will he give him a stone? Or if he ask a fish, will he give him a serpent?" In the Galilee region where the Sermon on the Mount occurred or took place, the people were familiar with the flat stones by the seashore which looked exactly like round flat bread. There were also snakes, or more likely eels, that looked very much like fish.
Can you imagine your son telling you that he is hungry, and you give him a stone instead of bread? ‘Here, son, take it and enjoy yourself.’ And then you hear the crackling of his teeth as he bites into the stone. Or you say, ‘Here, take this fish.’ And then you hear him crying out in pain as he is bitten by the snake. No loving father would be that ignorant and cruel.
To the Jews, snakes were considered unclean creatures and were not to be eaten. A loving Jewish father would not defile his son by deceiving him to eat something unclean. Here, Jesus was simply showing that it was not natural for the father to ignore either the physical or the spiritual needs of his son. No loving father would do that. And then, He went on to say, “If ye then, being evil,”—which means sinful, sinful human fathers—”know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him?” (verse 11).
So here, Jesus was speaking from something lesser to something greater. If it is true of the lesser, how much more of the greater? Our heavenly Father loves us with a perfect love. An earthly father would never give a child a stone instead of bread or a serpent instead of a fish. But sometimes, he does make mistakes. At times, earthly fathers who think that they had done the right thing only to discover that they were actually wrong. Which one of us here, who are fathers, has never regretted over the decisions we have made for our children? Or regret over some things we should have done or some things we should not have done? All of us make mistakes. As much as we love our children, we have our shortcomings, our weaknesses because we are not perfect. God never makes mistakes. He is perfect.
"how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him?" These good things are a reference to spiritual things, not physical things. How can we be so sure? When we read the gospel in unison, we will get a clearer picture. If you have your Bibles, turn with me to the Gospel of Luke, chapter 11, verse 13. Let me read for you: "If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children: how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him?" If good gifts are a reference to spiritual things, what is the greatest spiritual gift our heavenly Father can give to His children? The Holy Spirit.
This is not about the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. All believers already have the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, as Romans 8:9 says, "if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his". The indwelling of the Holy Spirit occurs one time, and it is at that time when we are converted. The filling of the Holy Spirit is a repeated occurrence. Here, this is about the filling of the Holy Spirit that enables you and me to live out the principles taught in the Sermon on the Mount.
Dear friend, take the Sermon on the Mount, all the teachings of our Lord Jesus Christ, and ask yourself: ‘Am I angry with a brother or a sister in Christ? Am I angry with my husband or my wife? My parents? My children? Why do I struggle with forgiving them?’ Keep on asking, seeking, and knocking. God will help you through the Holy Spirit that works in your heart. If you are someone who is always cheating, lying, whether in your business or to your spouse, keep on asking, seeking, and knocking. And God will help you through the Holy Spirit that you will become a truthful person. If you struggle to be generous, take time to pray. Make it a habit to pray, and God will give you a generous spirit. If you struggle to be kind, you persistently pray, and God will give it to you.
Often times, we will persevere in prayers when someone close to us is sick. When one of our children is sick, we would pray without ceasing, right? If we are in financial troubles, or if we are in a dangerous situation, we generally find it easy to pray. But do we keep on asking, seeking, and knocking for spiritual growth? For ourselves and for our children? Do we keep on asking, seeking, and knocking for a forgiving spirit? Or for the removal of a judgmental spirit, often we do not do that.
Can you imagine if everyone here in Bethel B-P Church were to pray for spiritual things as intensely as they pray for physical needs? Will our church not be blessed, not be united, and grow? Will our families not be bonded? Will our young people not be godly?
If we want the character of God's kingdom to be manifested in our lives through the fullness of the Holy Spirit, we have to do these two things. Firstly, we need to keep on asking, seeking, and knocking. We need to seek God persistently and passionately for spiritual blessings. Secondly, we need to ask confidently. Not because we are good, not because of anything we have done, but because God is good, and He has promised us that He will answer. "For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened." Take a moment and consider this. God promises every one of us believers, if you keep on asking, keep on seeking, keep on knocking, you will receive. This is the blessed promise of God. Will we not do that?
III. Follow the Golden Rule
Our final point is to follow the Golden Rule. Let us look at verse 12: "Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets." This verse has often been known as the Golden Rule. Sometimes it has been called the Mount Everest of ethics.
Do you know that most of the major religions and philosophical systems in this world also have a similar teaching to this Golden Rule? For example, the Jewish Rabbi Hillel said, ‘What is hateful to yourself, do not do to someone else.’ One of the books of the Apocrypha, which the Roman Catholic subscribes to, teaches, ‘What thou thyself hates, do to no man.’ Confucius taught, ‘"What you do not want done to yourself, do not do to others.’ The Greek philosopher Epictetus said, ‘What you avoid suffering yourself, do not afflict on others.’ They seem to be teaching the same thing as our Lord Jesus, but they are totally different.
The difference is in the motivation. To refrain from harming someone in order that we will not be harmed, the motivation is out of fear for self-interest. Basically, it is selfish. The motivation behind Jesus' teaching is love. How do we know it is love? Because it was a paraphrase of the Second Great Commandment. Remember, Jesus said, "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets." (Matthew 22:36-40). In other words, this Golden Rule is based on love, not motivated by fear or self-interest.
Do you realise that it is much easier to state this principle in the negative? You and I do not like to have our things stolen, right? So we don't steal. We do not like to be cheated, so we don't cheat. But to state this principle in the positive, it is different. It means you have to be proactive. You are not only refraining yourself from doing something; you have to do something. You have to do the very everything that you want others to do to you.
How do we apply this principle into our lives? Let me give you some examples. Not exhaustive, just some examples. In our marriages, there will always be differences and issues. When there are quarrels and we do not talk to each other, we want the other party to take the initiative to start the talking first. Or there may be a problem in the marriage, and then the husband will say of the wife, ‘When she submits to the Lord, when she submits to me, then I will love her.’ The wife will say of the husband, ‘When I think he loves me, then I will submit.’" The Golden Rule is never wait for the other person to do the right thing first; you take the initiative first. "whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them".
In the church, we want people to receive us, to welcome us. We want the people to be approachable. When we do not feel welcome and we cannot find anyone approachable, we murmur and complain. ‘My previous church is better’ or ‘my friend's church is better’. Dear friend, people may want to approach you, but they may feel that you may respond negatively. Have you ever paused to ask yourself, am I someone who is welcoming? Am I someone who is approachable? Am I someone who is proactive, always reaching out to others? The Golden Rule is: "whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them".
Most of us would like people to forgive us of our wrongdoings. If I have done something wrong to you, I would like you to forgive me and love me as I am. I do not want you to keep a record of my wrongdoing, like the people who keep a receipt as a record, as an evidence, as proof that they have paid. The same thing people would do when they keep a record of what you have done only to remind you later on. ‘Remember what you have done? You have done this; you have done that.’ We want people to forgive and forget. They may not be able to forget that matter because we cannot just erase our memory like the way we delete our documents in the computer. But we can choose not to keep a record.
1 Corinthians 13:5 says charity or love “thinketh no evil", which means love does not keep an inventory of evil. Love does not keep a list, a record of evil. What about us? We want people to love and forgive us, but are we loving and forgiving? The Golden Rule is: "whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them". We want people to be grateful, respectful, honest, gentle, generous, kind, and so forth. The Golden Rule is: "whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them".
God sets this Golden Rule not for His sake, but for you and me. If every one of us were to live according to this Golden Rule, then we will be a church that truly glorifies the almighty God. Every soul that walks into our church will find this love in the Lord Jesus Christ manifested out of our lives. If every family were to walk according to this Golden Rule, husbands would love their wives, wives would submit to their own husbands, children would obey and honour their parents in the Lord. If every individual were to live according to this Golden Rule, then we would all be the salt and the light of this world.
Dear friend, we are children of God; we must live as children belonging to His kingdom. We must live out the principles taught to us in the Sermon on the Mount, not just the Sermon on the Mount but throughout the entire Holy Scriptures. It is a command we have to do, but it is impossible for us to live out those principles. It is an extremely tremendously high standard. So we must pray, and we pray that by the grace of God, you and I would be able to live out these three resolutions: obey the command to pray, trust in the promises of God, and follow the Golden Rule. So that all of us will live as children of the kingdom of God on this earth, to the glory of His precious name. A blessed new year to all of you. Let us pray.
Our Father in Heaven, we thank Thee for enabling us to consider the words of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Indeed, as people approach and welcome the new year, they would have plans, aspirations, and make resolutions. We want to make our resolutions according to what our Lord Jesus had taught us. And we want to draw these three spiritual principles and make them our new year resolutions: to obey the command to pray, to keep on asking, seeking, and knocking, and to trust in the promise of God. God says those who ask will receive, those who seek they will find, those who knock the door shall be open.
And we want to follow the Golden Rule, not the negative principles taught by the other religions or the other philosophical systems in this world, but the principle set forth by our Lord Jesus Christ, a principle that is motivated by love, not out of fear or self-interest. Oh Lord, we cannot obey, we cannot accomplish these resolutions unless the Holy Spirit that indwells with us fills us. Then we will be able to live out these principles. Oh Lord, help us make these our resolutions and make these resolutions come to pass in each and every one of our lives. We give Thee thanks, and we pray all this in Jesus' name. Amen.
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