Ask, Seek, Knock — Don McClure

Asking in the Context of Jesus’ Teaching

Matthew chapter 7 verse 7. Ask and it shall be given you. Seek and you shall find. Knock and it shall be opened unto you. For everyone that asketh receiveth, and he that seeketh findeth, and to him that knocketh it shall be opened.

Or what man is there of you whom, if his son ask bread, will give him a stone? Or if he ask a fish, will give him a serpent? If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more?

So your heavenly Father, which is in heaven, give good things to them that ask him. Father, we thank you for your word and we ask that you administer it to us now. Teach us, Lord, this wonderful text.

We ask it in Jesus' name. Amen. Here as we continue on in the Sermon on the Mount and the text this evening, this is one of those texts that when Jesus said, ask and it shall be given unto you. Seek and you shall find.

Knock and it shall be opened unto you. This is one of those that I think is probably very, very commonly taken out of context in the sense that it is usually used for things. I think we'll see as we look at it this evening.

I don't believe that is Jesus' fundamental intent at all in what he is saying. We'll be looking at that, but context is perhaps an extremely important thing and to put everything in context, and we'll take a moment to do that.

But there's a great tendency sometimes to take a verse out of the Bible and just kind of grab on to it and and then make it mean what we want it to mean. And this is one of those types of things, but it can be dangerous.

And also anytime you take anything out of context, you weaken the real value of it. I don't believe you ever come out with a greater truth out of taking something out of context. The greatest truth that you'll ever have is right in the context.

So even if you thought it was wonderful in the way that you may have thought, I think it's more wonderful in the way it's actually written. But sometimes again we take things out of context. We're like the old story of the fella who, you know, is looking for some sort of a word from the Lord and opens his Bible and, you know, puts his finger in and, Lord, speak to me and give me some direction.

And his finger falls in the place that says that Judas went out and hanged himself. Well, he looked at that and he said, well, that's that can't be the Lord. He closes his Bible and he prays again, Lord, you know, come on, I really need, you know, a word from you.

And so he opens it up again and sticks his finger in there and looks at it and it says, go and do thou likewise. And then he's really upset and he closes it again and the third time he, Lord, please, please, I need a word.

And he opens it, puts it down again, says, what thou doest, do quickly. But you get things out of context, it can be disastrous. And you want to get things in context. And here, one of the things that in the Sermon on the Mount, that it's all about God and man.

Humanity Created for God’s Glory

It's all about God's great, I believe, master passion for the soul of every man. His great desire to have a deep and an abiding union and communion with us more than with any other thing that God desires this.

When we realize and you pick up the Bible and you realize in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. Or as John tells us in first, or in John one, that in the beginning was the word and the word was with God, the word was God, the same was in the beginning with God and by him were all things made that were made.

But then you look at Colossians and you realize there that when the genius of heaven, when God was creating and he was making, there it says all things in Colossians were made by him and for him. Or you look in Revelation where it is God is again creating.

And it says thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honor and power for thou has created all things and for thy pleasure they are and they were created. When God was creating in this fabulous, wonderful work of creation, there in the midst everything was made by him, everything was made for him.

And the most glorious, the chiefest, and the most wonderful and eternal of all of his creation were in Genesis 126 when God said let us create man after our own image. Thereafter God in all the glorious aspects, day after day of creation, then God said let's create someone to share our life with, our being with.

Someone that is an image, a reflection essentially of ourselves. Paul tells us in 2nd Corinthians 318 in the Amplified it says all we with an unveiled face continuing to behold we reflect like mirrors the glory of the Lord and are changed from glory to glory as by the Spirit of the Lord.

There when God created man he created us in such a way is that we could behold God face to face and as we could with man would behold God we would reveal and we reflect nothing less than God's very glory himself.

And reflecting that glory we would just go from glory to glory as by the Spirit of the Lord. The more that man would look the more the glory he would reveal and he would experience and he would reflect and he would know.

What an unbelievably wonderful thing is there God created man for this reason. Paul also tells us in Romans chapter 8 verse 19 he says for the earnest expectation the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God.

For the creature was made subject unto vanity not willingly but by reason of him who has subjected the same in hope because the creature himself shall also be delivered from the bondage of corruption under the glorious liberty of the children of God.

Here Paul writes he says when God did this wonderful work of creation and he created us in his image and he created us with the capacity to share his life, his glory, his love, his fullness, his richness.

He also created us there as Paul says in Romans 8 subject unto emptiness. In other words he created us in such a way that as long as we received his glory and we lived in his glory and we shared his glory we would be full but there when we were created subject or our lives subjected immediately unto an emptiness the moment we look for glory or identity any other place.

God created us in such a way that only he could fill us. Not that he wanted to toy with man or tinker with man but there's something about us that seemingly if we could find a full life, a rich life, a complete life in any other place we probably would.

But there is something about it. God created creatures subject unto vanity, created us in such a way there's a law of diminishing returns on anything you do. You don't have to live a long time to realize that you can go find something and immediately the first time you find it it is the greatest thing in the world.

This is wonderful. This is unbelievable. Like maybe the first time you had an In-N-Out burger you know or something if you know those of you that like them and if you don't that's fine with me it just leaves more for me I don't really don't care but at any rate but but you you can the first you think this is wonderful you you know you drive you got to have another one and another one and then after you've had another and another and another and on and on.

Then one day you think well they're still okay but not you know it's but it diminishes. It's like if you've ever been on the Atkins diet, protein diet, all meat, all the meat you can want and you go and this is the greatest diet in the world.

You don't need meat so yeah I mean you just eat meat and well this is I love the first day wonderful second day it's okay third day you know hey is there any chocolate in the house you know I mean there's a law of diminishing return on anything and God this is because God created us because if we could find something that would satisfy we would do it and we'd live we'd die and you know and live and die never knowing what it was to have had God and to be searching for him with all of our life and there God as he created this void this constant emptiness in a sense until we find him it was even his work of love that did this for us.

The Emptiness of Sin and the Search for Fulfillment

And then of course when man became distracted from God entirely by sin immediately then man began a search where virtually I suppose everything you can search under the Sun to search for to find any form of I you know fullness a man through history has looked for it I don't suppose there's a rock yet unturned that man hasn't tried to find some form of fullness or identity everywhere in the world or everywhere in ourself life or in others or in other things or any form of pleasure any addiction any any place that we've searched the planet we've you know searched the islands the paradises and all of these things that can seem to be if you just live there if you just ate this if you just own this if you just had this if you've just been there if you just drank this if you just had a needle full of this or that or whatever man has looked every place trying to find something that would prove the Bible wrong rather than realizing no what the Bible says is absolutely true.

God created this. And in when man becomes self-centered or centered or you know world centered around him he'll always fail. And Jesus even himself he says take heed beware of covetousness for man's life consists not of the abundance of the things which he possesses.

Then no matter what it is that a person can acquire in Jesus as if a man do you know you could have the whole world. But profit is a man if he loses his soul you see no matter what it is God has created in such a way that he is unbelievably jealous for you in that wonderful to stop and think about that that God when he created you and I as much as some people can be hostile or angry or upset or confused about God.

But one of the things that in this great search we have to me in this great frustration and all the rocks we turn over trying to find him or to find something or trying fullness but to stop and realize that this way that God has created us shows his great jealousy for us his great love his great desire for us is in in such a way is it wanting us above all else to one day come back and long for him how much he wants us how much he searches for man and desires that something would happen in a man's heart where man would begin to want God as much as God wants man.

And he started a course after man had fallen once again wonderfully with Abraham. And you know that story you know so well and what a wonderful thing there when here a man there who had a lot and he had a lot of wealth and he had a lot of servants.

And yet there was this void in his life there was this emptiness he was subject unto it in there when Jehovah revealed himself to him and he said you come and I'll take you to a land that you know not whereof but I'll be there with you.

And there Abraham went out and he began to search for God for a dwelling place and with God ultimately to find that he was looking for a city whose builder and maker was God. He was looking for heaven he where there was something no matter what he had experienced in his whole life with all of his wealth and all of his 300 servants that he had as he was willing to pack everything up and all of his comforts and everything to go search and to find this voice that had spoken to him that he sensed that is exactly what I've been looking for my whole life.

He went out not knowing whether he went. And wonderfully though with all of his struggles all of his weaknesses all of his humanness all of his failings in a time you know that Abraham was as prone as any other to sometimes struggle with but he never lost that heart and that passion for God.

He'd been spoiled by it he had been touched by it and ruined by it. He'd been changed by it. And I'd love the story one time there in Genesis 14 when his nephew lot was taken captive by Kings and Abraham he gathers his his servants and goes out to battle against them and wins and gets his nephew free.

And the the Kings that were all taken captive he freed all of them from the other Kings that had taken them. And then he was offered the spoils of all of it you have just become you know the victor over all of this you get all the spoils of battle and Abraham could look at them.

He said no thank you and you keep him. You know he says lest you think you made me rich. Anything I have I don't need to get it from you. And it was a few verses later God in heaven watching this seeing something happened to the human heart seeing something literally begin to change within him where he was really truly seeking for another realm.

He was looking for another country. He was looking for another home home only found in heaven. And he'd been disturbed by the the voice of God and called by it and he couldn't let it go. And after this God turns to him and he takes Abraham aside after this earthly renunciation essentially that he had not even realizing the key to blessing because only a few verses later the Lord took him aside and he said to Abraham I am thy exceeding great reward.

Here was something that a lot of other people in all of history would think so little of but I wouldn't even bat a second eye at to think well what's the big deal about that. You know you hear a voice from somewhere in outer space or something that says I'm your exceeding great reward.

And you could have had this. What a fool. But not Abraham. He looked at these things. He says no I know I know who made me and I know my heart has been searching for 75 years everywhere else so far. And now I know I'm on a journey that's the greatest journey of all.

And I found him and I won't ever let him go or he me. But you see I believe that's precisely what God wants for every one of us. Believe that is precisely what God above all else desires. And what the Sermon on the Mount essentially is all about it's all about wanting to speak to somebody and whether he says oh how happy are the poor in spirit.

And those that would mourn over never produce a meekness within them and a hunger and thirst after God. And they'd be filled with him and they'd find a merciful heart and they'd have a pure heart and they'd have a peacemaker's heart in a heart there that just begins to be separated under God.

It becomes the salt of the earth it does and the light of the world as well as the journey begins to go on and the person begins to kind of go on our search for Canaan and the Old Testament was kind of geographical but today we aren't traveling you know from one country to another as much as God's wanting to take us in our heart from from one world to another.

The Sermon on the Mount as a Journey of Transformation

And the Sermon on the Mount is this journey. The Sermon on the Mount is wonderfully written and given to somebody there that looks at with the world in which they've been born into what they have seen and heard and understood of it and they're tired of it.

And they found a voice that spoken to them from heaven and says come this way I'm gonna take you on a journey you don't know where you're going but it'll be a city in a world in the life whose builder and maker is God.

And this is essentially what the Sermon on the Mount is all about. Is this wonderful step going through one country one border after another after another on this journey of the conversion of the heart the changing of the soul the restoring of human heart to back into what God created and what God desired and was jealous for the Sermon on the Mount is God's jealousy being responded to by man's desire back for God essentially is what you know is it's it's all about so wonderfully.

And in it there he teaches us he works with a heart in our tendency to anger and hatred or lust or our inability to maintain commitments or relationships or vows. And as we go from journey to journey one for you know heading towards this city this world that he has for us wanting to be converted wanting to be changed wanting to be restored in this process of it as he is taking us through it he wants to teach us there how to give and to serve and how to pray and how to set our lives aside in fasting and hungering for him and desiring him as he would desire us.

And then as we get here into chapter 7 you know he tells us you know judge not lest you be judged. He looks there and he says by the way anybody else are you. There's a lot of people on the journey a lot of brothers and sisters around.

You'll have all sorts of opinions about him. But I want you to know you're wasting your time judging them particularly most of all to him. As he looks he says I'm their advocate I'm their attorney don't bring anything to me you know about them.

I've already presented their case. I've already you know presented them faultless before the father I ever lived to make intercession for him and to present a faultless. So don't come to me with them.

And also I don't take much of their stuff when they come to me with you either which they probably do of course particularly our judgmental. But here you know as he goes on here into the context and this is I said this began is what is so important the context now of his Jesus is essentially starting to wind down the Sermon the Mount here in these closing verses these are spiritual primarily I do believe they have a you know a material aspect to them.

But I believe here Jesus is talking spiritually as he has been taking in the context in the flow of the Sermon the Mount isn't speaking here so much of materially needs. When he says ask and it shall be given seeking he shall find knock and it shall be open and he for everyone that asked us receive it.

And he looks there he says there is something I want to make a covenant with you that if you will begin to ask and you'll begin to seek and you begin to knock. He says I'm gonna I'm gonna tell you you're going to get something and but I don't believe it's primarily as I said here material.

He's already dealt with material things in the previous parts of the Sermon the Mount. He's already talked about you know that you know you're asking for your daily bread. He's already spoken of being concerned about where with all you be clothed and and what you'll eat and how you're you'll live and be taken care of and and your shelter and your food and all this stuff.

And he says your Heavenly Father knows what things you have need of. He's already dealt with the material world primarily here Jesus is he's closing it off. I believe what he's talking about here is far greater in scope far greater in promise far greater to me and wonder in its context when we look at it here because as I said I believe he's most of all wonderfully talking about spiritual here and of what it is that when somebody begins to have a longing in their life that they begin to realize above all else some of the great desires the God that man has created the God has created man for he has created you and I for way beyond just wanting another meal.

He's created I you and me for far more than simply having a roof over our head and in having clothes to wear and having friends and having a house or a car or a job and all of these other needs met. And when God created man those were just that.

That's just the trivia stuff that's just the things he's got to do just to maintain his children which he loves doing and he does wonderfully. But when but most of all God created man with a capacity like any other portion of creation that was a capacity to come to God and choose him and say I love you I want you.

And to fulfill the greatest of all commandments the love of the Lord is God with all your heart mind soul and your strength. And here when somebody begins to realize that I believe Jesus here he's saying you begin to ask.

I believe you know that of me you begin to seek you begin to knock. And I believe it's asking to me you know of just for nothing less than him himself. I believe it's a longing there to discover more and more of him his life his nature his character his gracefulness to me anybody would sit there and listen to this sermon and to have Jesus give it to you and to realize all the things he has been saying through it all of the promises all the hope all the majesty of it as he's looking at man through this ceremony and kind of step back a little bit and he's saying I love you.

I can change your heart. I can change your life. I can change your nature. I can change you back into what you were created to be because I'm the very one that created you in the first place. Do you want to go there.

I can change your your anger your hostility your covetousness your lust your frustration. You're all don't worry about fixing you. What I want to know is after I've been telling you I can do it do you want it.

Is it something there that's happening within you where you find yourself longing for these things I believe far more than just simply here you know of wanting to to say you know and to think about the Lord and say yes.

I now I wonder these things. But I think one of the things that you tend to do sitting there is you realize as you're listening to the Sermon the Mount after a while and saying yes thank you for that and please do this and please do this and please do this.

I believe they have a wonderful way of after we do this we realize you know you know what I really want I like listening to you. I want you. You know you've been offering me this and this and working on this and changing this and working on that you know thanks I mean from the bottom my heart eternally I'll thank you for that but at the same time just listening you and having you touch me having you change me having you work within my heart of my nature my character and taking out this this covetous heart of this angry heart or this hostile empty heart or this person that can't ever turn a turn you know it's this cheek or walk a second mile this man who can't do this.

And now I'm beginning to long to do these things. I'm watching you change my life. A man who never prayed I love to pray. A man who never thought he were wanted to give a thing away next thing you know something's happened.

I want to. I want to give. I want to serve and through all of these things that has a way in the heart where you realize you know is you've been doing all of these things. I realize I want you. I want to come home.

I want Canaan. I want this land that the man has been looking for and journeying through all of history and to me when somebody there when we look there and realize that above all else that Lord through my life and all the forgiveness you do and all the atonement you do and all the goodness you do all the work that you do it absolute is wonderful as it is it also ruins me because I want you.

I want you. I thank you for all you do. But more important than all of that I want you. Sometimes I think that one of the reasons in this day and age where Christianity seems to be so anemic on the whole sometimes it seems so so weak as I think as Christians oftentimes we spend far more time and energy and far more spiritual effort just on a lot of trivial things and trivial pursuits around you know in a sense in life so much of our life and our prayer is around God these necessities and Lord these relationships and Lord these people and Lord this job and Lord my health and Lord help me through this trial and amazingly he comes and he does it and he's working on this and he's helping through all of that.

But oftentimes while we're doing all of this we just stay on the immediate and rarely do our eyes get lifted up to heaven where we realize Lord I want you. I'll have these things forever until you come for me but I want you you know the story of course of Mary and Martha in there when you know in one time as Jesus is speaking and Mary is just sitting there drinking and everything Jesus has got to say she just lost in his love and in his words they're normally I'm sure a wonderful servant but she was just lost in it and you know Martha she's in the kitchen and Mary ought to be in there helping her and she peeks out no doubt through the door all the time and there's Mary just sitting there and probably her eyes aglow and her heart warmed and Martha's in there you know I need some help and she's probably banging some pots back and forth and you know and you know burning food in there and getting upset with Mary over the whole till finally she goes and interrupts the whole thing comes to Jesus said would you just tell her to get in a kitchen there with me you know sort of a thing and and and Jesus you know the response so well he says you know always tough to do he says but you know Mary she has chosen the better part you know when we're saying Lord help me with this and help me cook or get the pots or get people to help me with this.

He's looking there and he says Martha don't you realize there is another world a greater world than just simply coming and asking me to answer your prayers of getting stuff done and getting helpers to get this stuff done there's a better thing than that and that's just looking at being with me and sitting there and wanting to drink me in this is she had that is the better part.

And a lot of times Christians can go through a lot of their Christian life and never really seem to have the better part. And we think many times that we do but we don't. We're like my kids when they're little and you know we get some steak now and then but we get hamburger for the kids you know and they they didn't know the difference.

So today we just keep giving her hamburger as long as they you know dress it up put stuff on it and while we're doing steaks and you know all you won't like it was hard to chew with your little teeth you know or stuff or whatever else you know.

And then one day yeah well they're all the same barbecue same dinner same stuff I suppose meats meat and then one day they get a little piece and you go oh no who gave that kid the steak you know or whatever you know because they look over and says hey I want that that's that unfortunately I mean you hope that's about the age where it's time to move out you know or something but this this proves you're a man now you can eat steak and you can provide your own or whatever but the but when they realize it's the better part but a lot of people they're spending a lot of their life eating stuff saying boy if I just got my bills paid and I got my sins forgiven and I got through this trial and I and God comes and helps me with this thing and he resolves this thing.

I got the good stuff and I'd Lord please help in the kitchen I need something help here and oh I got help in the kitchen oh Lord I need a new car. Look at this I got a new car. Is God great or what. And all those are wonderful but it isn't the better part.

It isn't what it's all about. Like my father-in-law I remember the time we were having there having them over for dinner and we're sitting there having chicken and he's sitting there eating this. He's eating he says this is really good.

What is this. My wife says it's chicken. This isn't chicken. She said yes chicken. He says I look like chicken. He says it's just in me or say he's a good doctor. I mean this guy's got he had seven degrees and he's looking at it.

She says it's chicken. You know and things and didn't you cut one up sometime you know and your career out there or whatever but anyway but the it's chicken but but anyway he's looking and and he says she says it's that's dark meat.

And he says this is really he looks over his wife he's he says Marg this is really good and and he says this is delicious. I love this. He's anyway and he says Marg for 50 years you told me I didn't like dark meat.

You've been eating all the dark meat and I've been eating the white meat for 50 years and you could you see him with 50 years of thought in there I've been missing this for 50 years. And she says well I didn't think you did it so I've never given it to you.

But he says but you did. And she says well because you didn't do or whatever I do so I don't know what happened 50 years ago but I know what happened that night when he realized for 50 years you know he hadn't been getting a better part.

Well you know I think I am absolutely convinced that's the way a lot of Christians are gonna go to heaven. They're gonna go there and they're gonna look and behold and say I didn't know this could have been on my plate every day that I could have got up and you sat before him that I could ask and I could seek and I could knock instead of rattling on about all of this stuff I could seek something far higher and greater and more wonderful than any problem I'd ever have than any trial that ever came my way than any issue that came into my life.

I spent my whole life as a Christian eating off the wrong plate the child's plate when I could have eaten on the adult side of the menu anytime I could have had the greatest and and I believe here is Jesus.

You know he's he's looking there and he's saying there's a far one greater world if you want to learn what it is to knock and to seek and ask and to long for these things. And in first Kings you know the story I'll just read a little bit you know of it on how Solomon when now he's being taken over first Kings 3 walking in the statutes of David his father.

And he sacrificed and you know offerings and incense and high places there to God. And and there is he sacrificed a great high place a thousand burnt offerings did Samuel offer upon that altar. And then in Gibeon the Lord appeared into Solomon in a dream by night and God said what shall I give thee ask him Solomon what would you like.

And Solomon so wonderfully he responds he says well my father you know is a great murder. Yeah you've shown my father David great mercy as he walked before you and truth and righteousness and so on. He says Lord he says I'm a little child I don't know how to go out I don't know how to go in I don't know how to lead these people I don't know what in the world to do.

And he says would you just help me through this. It's all I want. Essentially in God is is seems to marvel at it. It says that the that his prayer it pleased God. It's almost like it stunned him when you look at it because God says because thou has asked this thing and it's not asked for thyself long life neither asked riches for thyself nor has asked for the life of thine enemies but has asked for thyself understanding to discern judgment.

He looks at him it's like God has just taken back as if you know every once in a while somebody's to ask me something like this but I'm just never prepared for it. You know it's almost like he says I'm so used I you know I want a long life I want the enemy of my enemies I want riches.

I want this. Oh hey speak to me again in a dream I'll be back tomorrow night and we'll finish it you know or whatever on how so much and have when God listens to somebody who he is so jealous for who he loves so much that essentially is saying you know I know there's a lot of things on this level but there's another level there's another plane and I want that.

Communion and the Desire for Christ Himself

And you know when we begin to realize that's what what good God is is all about you know I think sometimes here tonight is we've had communion together to stop and think of what is more precious in all the world than what you and I have just reminded ourselves of tonight of the Lord Jesus Christ coming into the world giving himself for us that taking all of our sins of all of our life away and blotting them away removing hell from us the judgment of hell the judgment of our sins writing our name in his book of life promising to come back for us so soon to conform us into his very image to share his life and his love and his nature and his person is glory with us forever and ever and ever.

And yet so often we go through and we've sinned and we failed in this area and that and we got an argument little fight here and we in Lord forgive me and all of that which is part of communion no doubt about it.

How wonderful that when somebody has something also happened communion where their eyes begin to well up and something happens is they're taking in the price and the cost is some of those hymns that we say when I survey the wondrous across you know my richest gain I count with loss and poor contempt on all my pride that I sit there and realize to think there is a being in eternity that has this jealousy this love this passion that he would do all of these things.