Praying to Our Good and Great Father (Matthew 7:7-11)
Here’s Sunday’s message from Matthew 7:7-11. You can listen to the audio here.
“I know it’s important to pray, but I don’t pray as much as I should.” That true of you? Now I if I asked for a show of hands, I’m guessing that most of the people in this room would sheepishly raise theirs up. Do you agree? “I know it’s important to pray, but I don’t pray as much as I should.” True for false? For you? For us? Probably true, right?
A recent Gallup poll found that less than 49% of Americans pray every day. And a Pew Research Center poll from not too long ago also showed that 68% of Christians do. Now I’d say, and maybe you’d agree, that 2/3 of Christians who pray daily isn’t exactly great. But of those 2/3, what kind of prayers are we talking about? Rich times of communion with God? Or maybe just quick grunts thrown to the sky? I’d say most of us - and most Christians in America - would say our prayer lives are pretty weak.
Now that’ll be my starting point as we look at this passage in Matthew today. And it was more than likely true for Christ’s hearers there on that mountain. For otherwise, why would He have said what we see in today’s passage? We don’t pray as we should. And I want us to think today about why.
Last week, I gave Aaron an easy passage. You’ll have to go back and listen, if you missed it. But as we go about, sharing the message of Jesus, folks will squeal, people will bite. And we have to know, as they say, when to cut bait. Before we yank out a shark, and it eats us alive. That’s the point, I think, Aaron showed us from verse 6.
But isn’t there a more basic point we’ve seen in Christ’s sermon? Go back to chapter 6. Following Jesus will lead us into a place of risk, where we might find ourselves wondering if our needs will even be met.
Think back to chapter 5. Loving your enemies. Keeping your cool around people who hurt you. Telling the truth. Sticking with your spouse. And staying faithful to him or her. Not giving yourself over to anger. All easy things to do, right? NO. Not at all. Following Him as King. Working to spread His Kingdom. So hard. Maybe Jesus is trying to tell us something. Like… we need some help.
This morning, I want to give you four reasons why I don’t think we pray like we should. And I want you to see how Jesus addresses each of those, through the words we see here.
What’s the Point?
Here’s the first reason why I think we don’t tend to pray. It’s this. We don’t see that it makes a difference. “What’s even the point?” we can tend to think. Right?
The Lord already knows what we need, before we even ask. Didn’t we see that back in chapter 6, in verse 8? So why even bother? To even ask at all? Well, right after that verse, Jesus introduces what we call the Lord’s Prayer. And tells us to pray to “our Father in heaven.” So, he sure isn’t saying that. He’s ruling out mindless, repetitive prayers. Manipulative mantras. Those the Gentiles would pray. Stop doing that, Jesus says. There’s no need. He says, “When you pray” - He assumes we will - “don’t pray like pagans.”
Well, but then we might just point back to our first verse for today, where Christ says, “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock and it will be opened.” You might say, “If He knows our needs, and He’s our Father, why all this work?” And we can act like a punk kid who wants his mom to give him the toy already, and leave him alone, so he can get on with playing with it.
But that parent wants more than that - to just hand the gift over. And surely also does our God and Father. We see a progression in those words. “Ask.” “Seek.” “Knock.” You’re in the room with that mom or dad. You just “ask.” If they’re not, you get up. You go “seek.” If you find they’re behind a closed door, you “knock.” That progression implies effort. It pictures perseverance - even an urgency, as we pursue the Lord with our prayers.
But why all the work? Why does God seem to be playing “hard to get?” Why this game at all? Maybe we wouldn’t lose heart, if God would answer already. Right? Well, maybe He wants to build something with us - and even change something about us. Through all this asking and seeking and knocking.
Maybe the Lord doesn’t want to just be Santa Claus, who gets to hold us only once a year, and then we respond with fear. Maybe He actually wants a relationship with us. And not just to give us stuff, when we demand it. Again, like old St. Nick. Have you thought about that? It might not be that He’s trying to avoid us. Maybe He’s actually wanting to know us - and us, Him. And that comes about through all these prayers.
I love the way Old Testament scholar Alec Motyer once put it:
“He loves us to talk to Him. He says, ‘I want you to tell me. Please, open your heart to me. Let me know how you feel. Let me know where you hurt. Let me know what you want. What do you want me to do for you?’” (Alec Motyer)
Could that be true? I also love how David Powlison once described prayer. “Prayer is meant to be the conversation where your life and your God meet.” Really? He wants to know us - and what we’re going through that much? Wow.
Also, maybe the prayers aren’t so much about us trying to change God. Maybe they have more to do with Him changing us. My wife is an amazing nurse at University Hospital. And it’s a good one. But they have this marketing slogan there that frankly makes me cringe. “A culture of yes.” Now I get being helpful. And trying to serve. Overall, being kind. Trying to meet needs. That’s what hospitals should do.
But that kind of culture can also lead to some problems. “No, you can’t have more oxycontin, just to take for the road.” “No, you can’t have eight family members packed into your room.” Take spoiled, 2023 American patients, and point them to a sign with that slogan, and what comes out often isn’t pretty. And you know, the goal of the hospital isn’t to just give people stuff they want. Hello! It’s to help them get better. And maybe that’s the Lord’s point, too. He wants to make us different. Through this relationship. Through these prayers. E.S. Jones once gave this illustration. You’re in a boat. You throw out your rope. Do you pull the shore to you? Or maybe you to the shore?
Tim Keller writes: “The basic purpose of prayer is not to bend God’s will to mine but to mold my will to His.” Or as Paul Miller puts it - and you should read his book, The Praying Life:
“God wants to do something bigger than simply answer my prayers. The act of praying draws God into my life and begins to change me, the pray-er, in subtle ways.” (Paul Miller)
We again like to ask, “What’s the point?” Maybe the point is something different - something greater - even something better than we could ever imagine. To draw us into a relationship. And to shape us into something beautiful. But that doesn’t mean He won’t answer our prayers. Just to prove some kind of a point. In fact, the next verse says the opposite of that.
Does It Even Work?
Let’s get there, and with it, think about a second reason why we might not pray. We don’t believe He hears and helps. We can’t see how prayer ever works. So we doubt. And we don’t try. Or just give up.
Now for some of us, we might think that God can’t do anything with our requests. That God might be good. We might agree with that. But He really isn’t great - meaning He’s not strong enough to make things happen. Perhaps He’s deaf. Maybe He’s weak. He won’t hear. He can’t help. Therefore, we don’t think prayer works. God’s ears are plugged. Or His hands are tied. And so there’s no help with Him.
But check what Jesus says here in verse 8: “For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened.” Christ the King says the exact opposite of that, right? The asker, the seeker, the knocker will end up finding what he or she is after. With the command we see in verse 7, we also find this promise right here. The Lord does hear. He can help. He will help.
So what does that mean? Well, we should go to Him with our stuff. We should pour out our hearts. And as we do that, we should actually expect Him to answer and work.
Now I don’t think this means we’re asking God for a Tesla. So we can be #blessed. In our context here, we’re asking for His help in living out what we’ve seen here in this Sermon on the Mount. For spiritual help, as we wrestle with our sin, and as we fight through the sufferings of this life. We cry out to Him. But I don’t think this doesn’t include physical help.
Otherwise, what’s going on back in chapter 6? Where Jesus says, look at the sparrows, look at the lilies. And trust your Father to provide. He wants us to ask Him to meet those needs, too. For our “daily bread,” right? Now sometimes God might give us CC’s broiler steaks - if that’s what He wants - or, for Amy, the CC’s Pizza. But I don’t think that’s what He’s promising us here.
But this is where the theologian in the room, the extra-super Reformed guy steps forward and speaks up, and says, “Now, let’s be cautious here, brothers and sisters, lest we start sounding like charismatics or something. Every prayer must end with the words ‘Thy Will Be Done’ lest anyone have any fun.” And we end up taking those words Jesus prayed in the garden and tacking them on to every prayer. We pour out our hearts and then we mop those prayers up again because we don’t want to come across as presumptuous and don’t want to end up disappointed.
Hear me: these words are not qualified here by Jesus, right? Not in any way. Jesus wants us to take it all to Him. Raw. Real. But here’s why that dude isn’t all wrong. Not all of our prayers do get the answer we want, first of all. Right? Clearly, some things are not in His will. But second, wouldn’t it be the case that the more we get close to our Father - and the more He transforms our hearts - that we’d end up finding ourselves more in tune with His will? Yes.
And 1 John 5:14 says that’s critical to having our prayers answered. And with that, the more we get to know Him, and the more we grow, isn’t that more what we want? That His will would be done, on earth as it is in heaven? Yes.
But what about our prayers that go unanswered? Yes, most basically, it’s because they’re not a part of God’s sovereign will. But let’s think about it from our perspective on earth. Sometimes maybe our answer is “No.” And we have to trust it’s best. For us. For the universe. For God’s glory. Other times, though, maybe our answer is “not yet.” But there could be another answer that speaks through that silence. It could be that He’s got for us something that’s better. And with that, I want to turn to my next point.
Does God Even Care?
Now if you’re ever bored or sad, and could use a good laugh, make sure you’re friends with my wife, and then type these four words into that Facebook search bar. “Amy Larson Cupcake Wars.” Back almost ten years ago now, on a cold, snowy day, we were stuck in the house, and my wife was trying to keep us all sane. So she decided to get the kids baking and turn me into the judge. And she had the kids bake some cupcakes, but they each had some surprises. And they were not good at all.
Now if you know me, I have a really weak stomach. I can’t clean up after our dog, or Amy will just be out there a few minutes later, cleaning up also after me. So I did not do well tasting cupcakes that were laced with pickles or topped with ketchup. I spent the whole video gagging. My kids, so young and cute in the video, are cracking up, while I’m totally miserable. And that’s so often how we think we’re supposed to live, as Christians. With a God always wanting to give us our medicine. Or foods that are sure to make us sick. But that couldn’t be further from the truth. And that’s what Jesus wants us to grasp here.
Maybe it’s that we know God’s great. But the problem is that we doubt He’s good. We question if He even cares. He may hear, but He chooses to ignore. Here’s a third reason why we so seldom pray. We don’t believe He cares and gives.
But Christ wants us to hear that God’s our Father. Again, don’t skip over how big of a deal that was. And is. That didn’t really come naturally to Jews back then. Folks who were afraid to even say God’s name out loud. And it also doesn’t come that easily to us. Especially if we’ve had a hard relationship with our dads. Or didn’t have fathers at all. But Christ means for this to be a comfort.
That’s because the Lord is a Father that’s good. And He wants to give us good stuff. In James 1, Christ’s brother is saying that evil never comes from God. And in fact, “every good and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights.” And that’s what our Lord is saying back again, in Matthew chapter 7. Hear verses 9 through 11 again:
Matthew 7:9 Or which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? 10 Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? 11 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!
Here’s the logic. It’s not too hard to understand. Dads, moms, if your kid, your son, your daughter, asks for food, you’re not gonna give the kid something else. Not something inedible - like a rock. No way. Certainly nothing dangerous - like a snake. Of course not. If they ask for a meal, you’re not going to give them Taco Bell. No. You’re a good dad. You’re a good mom.
But actually, you’re not. You’re “evil.” Isn’t that what Jesus says? No, you’re not as wicked as you possibly could be. He’s saying that you’re a sinner, with all of us here. And somehow we still manage to give our kids good gifts ourselves. We’re not perfect. But we love them. And we try to show it through our deeds.
Here, Jesus is arguing from lesser to greater. If you, a fallen, human father will give your child good gifts, how much more will the Father, the perfect deity give us things that are good, if we ask Him for them?
Now I mentioned it earlier, but one of the best books out there on prayer, that we used as a OneRead back in the day, is Paul Miller’s A Praying Life. And in that book, he lays out this tension that we as Christians have to live in, and try to break out of. He says that we’re so easily cynical, especially in America today. We don’t end up bothering with prayer, because we don’t think God’s going to hear. Or He’s not going to help.
We don’t think He cares, or even desires to give. He can’t. He won’t. And we end up living like there is no God. Or if He exists, He sure isn’t a Father. Or definitely not a good one. And we end up living like we’re orphans who have to scrounge for ourselves. Or maybe we’re just those who won’t get nice things at all. We’ll have to eat those rocks and slurp down the serpents so we can show others that all we need is Him. We live cynical lives. Not praying much at all.
Miller says we have to rediscover a child-like spirit. Where we come messy to our Dad. Where we bring the real you and me to Him in prayer. And we believe these promises. We trust He wants to give us good gifts. Will we have cynical hearts - or a childlike spirit? Will we believe Christ’s words here in Matthew 7? John Onwuchekwa says we have to fight for two things: confidence in God’s ability. Contentment in His activity. In other words, that He’s great and good.
Of course, the reality is we often look and think there’s coal in our stocking. What’s in our grip, sure looks like a stone. We look around at what seems like a pit of snakes. And what are we to do with that - other than let ourselves get bitter? We do have to rest in the sovereignty of God. And we have to choose to believe that His will is better. That He loves us enough to give us what’s best.
It isn’t just that God says, “No,” or even, “not yet.” He might be saying, “Yes,” and giving us something great. Something better than we could ever imagine. But it’s just not time. Or we’re not ready. Yes, that answer might wait until we get to that new world. But it also could come about in this one right here. And it so often does. But it’s so hard to wait. Right? And to keep on asking. But we have to keeping trusting that it’s worth it.
Look with me also at Romans chapter 8. I love this chapter. Not only do we have verse 28, that tells us He’s working all things for good. My favorite verse. What a treasure that is. But we also have 32, how we can believe it’s true. “He who did not spare His own Son but gave Him up for us all, how will He not also with Him graciously give us all things?” Whoa. Here we move from greater to lesser. So He gave us the biggest thing - the greatest thing of all. How will He not also give us these other things, the really little things?
What if I married one of the women that I begged God to let me keep? I wouldn’t have these kids. I wouldn’t be standing right here. It wasn’t that God wasn’t great. That He couldn’t hear and help. It wasn’t that He wasn’t good. That He wouldn’t care or give. It was that He was awesome. Perfect. Working His plan. Seeking my good. He is wiser than you and me. He cares more about us than we do ourselves.
C.S. Lewis once put it in this way:
“When the event you prayed for occurs, your prayer has always contributed to it. When the opposite event occurs, your prayer has never been ignored; it has been considered and refused, for your ultimate good and the good of the whole universe.” (C.S. Lewis)
Tim Keller gets even more to the point: "God will either give us what we ask or give us what we would have asked if we knew everything he knows.” Isn’t that such a comfort? Don’t we understand that with our own kids? And won’t that move us to prayer - like children? Let’s trust our Father who is powerful. And let’s trust His heart, Karis. He is so good. And so kind.
But I’m Doing Fine
I want to move on to the fourth and final reason why I think we don’t tend to pray. And it’s the most basic one, the most tragic one. We don’t see that we have a need. We’re doing fine. Therefore, we’re not compelled to pray. This is why we don’t ask and seek and knock. It’s why we don’t ask Him for good things. We’re good - on our own.
Now maybe this isn’t a conscious thing, a rebellious thing, or really a defiant thing. But it’s in reality how we live. And it’s a blasphemous thing. Like we’re atheists. Like we’re orphans. Now there’s a way we can get away with this - sometimes even over the course of our lives. But one day, at the judgment day, at least, we’ll have to face up to the lie.
But I’ll tell you one thing we can’t do. We can’t see what Jesus says here, in Matthew 5 through 7, and try to live it out. Not in our own strength, we can’t. Life is hard. We all know that. Living this life is especially hard. And to even get started, we so much need His grace.
What would have to change to make us pray as we should? Think back to the beginning of this sermon. To those Beatitudes. We need to see that we’re poor in Spirit. We should be those who mourn over their sins. The meek. The hungry, the thirsty, for God and His ways. What would have to change, for us to pray as we should? We have to see our need for Him. Every minute of every day. Dependent upon Him. Insufficient in and of ourselves. “Prayers are the calls of the needy heart,” as Ed Welch puts it. Is that us? Or are we proud?
I love the way Jackie Hill Perry puts it:
“Prayerlessness is almost always a humility issue. We'd like to believe that we don't pray because of busyness or that we just lack discipline and need to "do better.” At the end of day though, we're just a proud bunch. Pride deludes us into thinking we're self-sufficient. That our jobs supply our needs. Our relationships provide comfort. Our intellect and ambition made us successful. But in fact, everything you are and everything you have is because God rains on the just and unjust. So then, to become more prayerful, we have to be honest. Literally embracing the reality that we are perpetually needy even when it doesn’t feel like it.” (Jackie Hill Perry)
Or, as Miller puts it so well, once again: “If you are not praying, then you are quietly confident that time, money, and talent are all you need in life.” Is this you? Is this me? Or do we comprehend our need? If we did, we’d be praying, and we’d be praying all the time. A main way God works is in response to prayer. He is the Giver. And He gets the glory.
Think back with me to where we’ve been:
If we understood the point of prayer, we’d pray persistently.
If we comprehended the power of prayer, we’d pray expectantly.
If we grasped the person who listens to prayer, we’d pray audaciously.
If we admitted our poverty without prayer, we’d pray desperately.
Karis, what’s the main answer, the deepest answer to helping us get back in prayer? It’s His grace. It’s Karis. We need Him every day, every hour, every minute, every second. We have to believe that. Will we hear Christ’s words to us here?
This morning, we gather in this epic auditorium, truly one of the most beautiful, certainly that I have seen. But do you know the story of how we got here? Back in, I believe, 2011, we were meeting in the Tiger Hotel downtown, and things seemed to be going well, and the management asked us for a meeting. A new owner had purchased the hotel, and he had no interest in having a church meeting there at all. I was distraught. I didn’t know why. I couldn’t understand what God had in mind.
But sometime later, I spoke to a pastor friend, who was serving as the interim leader for the church that worshipped right in this place. Calvary Baptist was declining. They didn’t need all the space. And he proposed that they share. And so we began this dialogue between our church and theirs, that ended up with us meeting here on Sunday mornings. They’d have their service. We’d come in and have ours. But to be honest, it felt more like a stone. Like a big lump of coal.
Our vision had always been to have a space downtown. And with them here, as well, it honestly felt very weird. It felt like we were meeting in my mom’s living room. And I think guests here on Sunday’s were weirded out, too. Was this a second gathering of Calvary Baptist? Their kids’ service or something? It was strange, for sure. I tend to wear my emotions on my sleeve. And I think some of the Calvary people could tell. And it was really hard to grow.
But here we are, more than ten years later. And this is our space now. And we got it for free. Our great God heard our prayers. A good Father met our needs. And better than we could have ever imagined.
But here’s something you may be thinking, you might be asking in your head. I am evil. I’m not a good person. I’ve messed up too much. My whole life. This stupid week. Why would God give me nice things at all? Here’s the good news. Jesus died for our sins, so we could be forgiven. He gives us His good deeds, and God see us as perfect. God’s no longer just a judge to us. He’s not just a Dad. He’s our Dad. And our sins fill Him with compassion and make Him want to run to us more.
Family, let’s destroy these doubts, let’s battle through these barriers. Let’s receive and rejoice in these words of Jesus. And let’s start by asking Him to make us people of prayer. And let’s stand back and watch Him work. Let’s pray persistently, growing closer and more like Him. Let’s pray expectantly, trusting that He’s big and He’ll help. Let’s pray audaciously. He’s our Dad, and He loves to shower us with gifts. Let’s pray desperately, knowing that everything comes by grace and grace alone.
I want to leave you with two questions to ponder, as I wrap up today.
As you hear Jesus’s words here, what needs to be adjusted about how you see God and how you see yourself? Do you see Him as great and good and ready to answer? Do you act like everything in your life is all up to you?
As you reflect on your life, how can you see God’s hand, and how can it impact your prayers moving into the future? How have you seen Him working for your good? How can that deepen your trust?
Let’s go to our Father with our needs, for He hears and He cares, and He loves to provide. Let’s pray.