Persistent Prayer Matthew 7:7-11

Persistence is one of the most important attributes that one can have in life.

It is not often the smartest or the most talented that achieve a desired outcome, but it is the one who strives for a goal and pursues it until it is reached.

This may sound strange to you, but former President Richard Nixon is a story of persistence.

The life of Richard Nixon is a complicated one. When people hear his name, the first thing that comes to mind is

Watergate. During his second term as president, it became known that his men broke into the

Democratic National Headquarters at the Watergate office building in Washington, D .C.

Their goal was to gain an illegal edge over Nixon's opponent in the 1972 election.

And some of you remember this. I don't, because I'm young, but when it became clear that Nixon acted illegally, instead of facing certain impeachment and probably removal from office,

Nixon resigned in shame. But before Nixon's legacy was forever tarnished, he was known for something positive.

And this is a lesson, and we can learn from even those who are very flawed. His persistence is what he was known for.

While we should not admire much of his life, we can admire his drive to keep pushing forward.

Nixon did not come from a well -to -do family. He was a self -made man and a go -getter.

He knew he had to work hard to get where he wanted to be. He went to college close to home so that he could work at his parents' family -owned business.

He did well in college, and then he went to law school, where he also did very well. After law school, he practiced law, but during World War II, he decided to serve in the military.

He served America as a Navy Lieutenant Commander in the Pacific Theater.

When he left the military, he ran for political office, where he was elected as a

U .S. Representative. Then in 1950, he won a Senate seat, and two years later, he was elected as Vice President, serving under Dwight Eisenhower from 1952 to 1960.

Nixon's goal was to become President, and this was built off of his strong desire to succeed that he had from his youth.

This desire led him from his humble beginnings all the way to the Vice President position.

In 1960, after a lengthy political career, he finally had a chance to become

President. But, as many of you know, he lost narrowly to a younger politician,

John F. Kennedy. It is well -documented that there was likely voter fraud as dead people in Chicago voted, and that's still a big story to this day.

He lost narrowly and in controversy, and this was quite a blow for Nixon.

He sat as the second man in power for eight years, and then lost the opportunity to hold the highest office in the land when it was right in front of him for the taking.

With this blow, Nixon decided to run for a lower office, thinking, well, of course I'm gonna win this.

He ran for Governor two years later in 1962. To many's surprise, and even his own surprise, he lost the race for Governor in California.

It looked like his political career was done. In fact, Nixon said in a press conference, famously, after he was defeated, you don't have

Nixon to kick around anymore because, gentlemen, this is my last press conference. But Nixon was persistent.

He was written off as dead politically, but in 1968, he ran for President again.

He won the Republican Party nomination and then faced off against pride of Minnesota, Hubert Humphrey.

Nixon narrowly won, as many of you remember, and after many years of wanting to be President, his persistence finally paid off, and he won.

Persistence is a quality that all of us should desire to have.

This includes our prayer lives. It includes all of our lives, but what we're gonna talk about today is that this includes our prayer lives.

God calls us to be people who are persistent. And maybe the most important area is in prayer.

The Lord works in great ways when prayer happens. The more we pray, the more successful we will be in this world for Christ's sake.

Jesus addresses this topic today in the Sermon on the Mount. So at this time, I encourage you to turn in a

Bible with me to Matthew 7. We will be looking at verses 7 -11.

If you're using a red Bible, in the pews, it's on page 965. This sermon is titled

Persistent Praying. We're gonna begin by reading the text together.

This is what Jesus says in verses 7 -11. As He's preaching to this crowd overlooking the

Sea of Galilee, He says, "'Ask, and it will be given to you. "'Seek, and you will find.

"'Knock, and it will be opened to you. "'For everyone who asks, receives. "'And the one who seeks, finds.

"'And to the one who knocks, they will be opened. "'Or which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, "'will give him a stone?

"'Or asks him for a fish, will give him a serpent? "'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 our big idea. And this is what the sermon is calling you to do. Knock on heaven's door continually.

Knock on heaven's door continually. And we're gonna see two reasons why in this text.

And we'll see those two reasons as we go through this text. But before we jump into the sermon text this morning, let me give you a little recap of where we were last

Sunday. We're always coming from somewhere and going to somewhere. So where were we? We looked at the famous passage in the

Sermon on the Mount where Jesus tells us not to judge, or God himself will judge us with the same severity.

But as we saw that we are not to pass judgment on others, we also learned that this does not mean not to carefully judge others.

Sometimes passing judgment is appropriate. We learned that we are to judge with right judgment.

What this means is that we are not to judge in the wrong way and that is by condemning others without first examining ourselves.

Jesus' point to the crowd is that the Jewish leaders and people like them would make judgments about others and then do the same things or even worse things themselves.

This is the very judgmental attitude that is ugly and that every Christian should avoid.

What Jesus taught is that one is to take the plank, that this giant piece of wood out of our own eyes, if we are gonna be able to take the speck out of another's eye.

And when this takes place, hopefully the other will receive the correction. But we must examine our own hearts before we do this.

Then at the end of the section in verse six, Jesus gives us permission to leave people in their hostile position toward the gospel.

This comes after sharing the gospel with them many times. And if they will not receive it, then what we are to do is move on from those people.

What Jesus says, you don't offer these precious jewels before pigs and dogs. And we shouldn't do that with the gospel when it becomes clear of their hostility.

Now we will begin at this time, digging into our text. But before we do, I want to address something interesting about our text.

When we read the Bible, as I said last week, we always need to look and see what comes before and what comes after.

In other words, the meaning of verses become clear based on context. Usually when we look at a new section, it is building off of a previous section.

We have seen throughout the Sermon on the Mount, this very thing. For example, after Jesus talked about praying, he then moved on to the related topic of fasting.

The times when you fast should always be accompanied with prayer. In this section that we've already read, we may wonder, why is this here?

He talks about judging in the previous section, and then he jumps to the topic of prayer.

This may give us a little shock to our system. Where did this come from? Everything that Jesus teaches on ties into the main theme of the sermon.

Jesus wants his listeners to make sure they are a part of God's kingdom, and to live on earth as kingdom citizens.

We have seen that throughout the Sermon on the Mount. He's saying, the kingdom is coming, live like kingdom citizens.

And one thing that kingdom citizens do, is cry out to their Father in heaven.

It's a mark of true believers in Christ. True people who are going to populate the future kingdom of Christ.

And we already spent quite a bit of time talking about prayer in the Sermon on the Mount. We spent three Sundays looking at prayer in the

Lord's prayer. And so Jesus is building off of his earlier conversation about prayer in this section.

He already taught us how to pray in the Lord's prayer. And now he's going to teach us something else about prayer.

And that's what we're going to see here. So let's dig into this in verses 7 and 8. We already read the text, but let's see what he's saying here.

Ask, and it will be given to you. Seek, and you will find. Knock, and it will be opened to you. Then he says,

For everyone who asks, receives. And the one who seeks, finds. And to the one who knocks, it will be opened.

In verse 7, Jesus gives three commands. Ask, seek, and knock.

This sounds like a great deal. If you ask, it will be given to you. If you seek, you will find.

If you knock, the door will be opened. Jesus is giving us an open invitation.

A wide open invitation to come to Him and expect a response from Him.

Think about that. When you pray, the Lord's going to answer. What could be more incredible than that?

Jesus does not say the word prayer in these verses, but He doesn't need to. We know what

He's talking about here. The definition of prayer is talking to God.

Having a conversation with Him. There was a Scottish theologian named

P .T. Forsyth who died 100 years ago. And this is what he said about prayer in his book,

The Soul of Prayer. He said, Prayer is the highest use to which speech can be put.

Let me say that again. Prayer is the highest use to which speech can be put.

We talk to our family, our friends, our co -workers, our neighbors, acquaintances, and strangers.

We use our words in singing. We did that today already, which is a very special way to use language.

But none of this compares to the highest form of language. Prayer. So do you spend much time taking part in the highest form of language?

I think at the end of our lives, none of us will say that I prayed too much. But what we will sadly say is

I should have prayed more. In fact, Billy Graham was asked at the end of his life,

Do you have any regrets? He said, I wish I would have studied the Bible more. And I wish I would have prayed more. Those were two of the things he said.

And I think if we're all honest, we could all say that right now. I need to pray more. And let me ask you another question.

And I'm asking myself as I'm asking you these questions. Do you expect an answer from God?

As Christians, we have numerous promises from God because of our relationship with Christ.

One of those promises we see is right here in verse 7. If you will just ask, then you will receive.

If you just seek, you will find. If you just knock, then the door will be opened to you.

You will notice as you look at verse 7 that the verbs seek, find, and open, and ask,

I should say, and ask, they're all in the future tense, which means that you will seek, find, and ask, and open, if you just go to God in prayer.

All you need to do is ask. One thing

I really enjoyed this summer was getting on my electric bike. And Brianna and I, you probably saw us zooming around the community pretty much every week,

I shouldn't say every week, pretty much every day, right? We were out there. And I would just show up randomly at Mark and Lori's house.

I mean, you could, and they were so kind to let me into their house. I would knock on the door and they would open it wide open and I would walk right through.

And they were generous. And I know, Mickey, this has been your experience, right? I mean, I just knock on his door. He lets me in.

God is a God who always opens the door if we come knocking, right?

He's like a good neighbor who opens their door to someone who is looking for them.

Now we can see how one could abuse this passage of Scripture here. So if we just go to him, he'll give us whatever we ask.

This passage has been abused by many people. James 4, 2 says, you do not have because you do not ask.

If I want a nice house on Twin Lake, will he give me that? If I want a

Lamborghini, will he give me that? If I want to be freed from a health issue, will he instantly heal me?

The Lord may heal you, but he may not. What I'm describing above is known as the health and wealth prosperity gospel, which is rampant in America and has been for a couple of decades.

If you follow Jesus, he will bless you tremendously in your physical life. That's what the prosperity gospel teaches.

Now it is true that there is a blessing that comes with you as you follow the Lord, but that's different than what they've been preaching for decades.

And that is that the gospel is, your life on this earth will be great. And they don't talk about suffering.

They don't talk about the sin that you have before God. They just talk about, these are the gifts that God is gonna give you.

And that is a false gospel. A few weeks back, we looked at how the Lord does provide and blesses people materially.

But the problem with this movement that is huge in America is that worship is directed towards stuff and not

Christ. This verse is not saying name it and claim it like many false teachers say.

James addresses praying for the wrong things in the following verse in James 4 .3.

This is what he said. You ask and you do not receive because you ask wrongly to spend it on your own passions.

You don't have a blank check to ask whatever you want before God. So what should we ask for?

We need to pray for what God wants. In the Lord's prayer, Jesus told us what we should pray for.

All those prayers as we pray with sincerity will be answered by the Lord.

I read this morning in the call to worship where Jesus said these wonderful words. Whatever you ask in my name, this

I will do. That the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask me anything in my name,

I will do it. In our passage, Jesus repeats in verse eight what he says in verse seven.

He did the same in the John 14 passage. He's emphasizing that when you ask the Lord, He will answer.

And when you say something twice to someone, you're saying it for emphasis. And that's what Jesus is saying here. He's saying this really happens.

You can really do this. So do it. All the promises of God are ours in Christ Jesus.

The Apostle Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 1 .20 that all the promises of God find their guests in Him.

A well -known retired pastor, John Piper, calls this God's blood -bought promises.

That's a good way of saying it. When Christ went to the cross and paid the penalty for our sins and rose victoriously from the dead,

He accomplished our salvation. Everyone here who knows Jesus Christ. And what

He did is He reconciled anyone that would believe in Him. And what this means is that you are

God's and all the promises in the Bible are yours. Think about how wonderful that is.

God's glorious promises are yours in Christ. If you pray to look more like Christ, God will answer that.

If you pray not to fear, God will answer that. If you pray for God to give you courage,

God will answer that. If you pray for God to provide, He will answer that. These are promises.

Now, if you pray for God to physically heal you, He may heal you, but He may not.

But as you pray, you can be confident that He will answer in some way. And how

He answers will be the best for you and others. In other words, He's not gonna leave you empty -handed when you go to Him in prayer.

One thing that you can be sure of is that He will bear you up through your difficulty.

But this is what Jesus is talking about. If we pray for things according to His will, that which is promised in the

Bible, He will answer these sincere prayers every time. He won't answer selfish prayers, but only prayers that agree with His heart.

Now, we have looked at the fact that those reconciled to God have a hold on God's promises. So if you are in Christ, you do have a blank check before Him, but the blank check comes from this book, the

Bible, and we need to remember that as we pray. Our prayer life is not meant for our selfish desires.

So we are to knock on heaven's door continually. And the first reason why is that you will receive when you ask rightly, when you ask rightly.

And now we have the second reason why we are to knock on heaven's door continually, and that is your

Father in heaven is more caring than any earthly parent. Your Father in heaven is more caring than any earthly parent.

We'll see this in verses nine through 11. What we are going to see is that He is going to argue in these verses from the lesser to the greater.

So I'm gonna read these verses again. This is what Jesus says. Which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone?

Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? 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 gifts to those who ask Him? So as Jesus is talking to this crowd, overlooking the

Sea of Galilee, there would have been fathers and sons in the crowd. There would have been mothers and daughters in the crowd.

And what Jesus says is, if your son asks you for bread, will you give him a stone?

Then He asks a similar question in verse 10. If he asks for a fish, will you give him a serpent?

These are two rhetorical questions, which means the answer is obvious.

There is no need for an answer. Of course, most fathers are not going to give a stone to a child.

When the child asks for bread, a good father will feed their child and not do any harm to their son or daughter.

It would be really cruel for a father to give a snake to a child when the child asks for a fish.

A fish can be cut up and eaten, right? You eat fish, you know what that's like. Well, snakes are something that you want to stay away from.

We had a snake in our front yard not too long ago, and when I saw it, I wanted to run from it.

And this was a gardener's snake, okay? And I can't imagine living among those dangerous snakes all over the world, ones that can really do you harm.

The winter does something good for us in that it keeps these slithery creatures away from us. But what

Jesus is saying is you are not going to give your child something that does not provide their need or something that is harmful to them.

You're not gonna do that. No good parent would do that. Rather, you are going to give them what they need.

You are going to provide for your child. My son, Isaiah, he only knows a few words right now, and one of them is yes.

It's really sweet when we ask him if he wants a certain food and he loudly proclaims yes. He doesn't use the word no yet.

Rather, he shakes his head like this when he doesn't want something. But Brianna and I would never give

Isaiah or Aletheia anything that would harm them. We are their parents.

We are called by God to take care of them, and we want to take care of them. We love them very much, and you are the same with your children or grandchildren.

But what Jesus says in verse 11 is something about each of us that should sting when we read it.

It should shock us as we read it. This is what he says in verse 11. How much, he says, if you then who are evil know how to give good gifts to your children.

So what Jesus is doing here is comparing imperfection with perfection. All of humanity is imperfect.

Jesus even calls each of us evil. We don't like to think of ourselves as evil, but he does it right here.

As we look at our lives, we think, I'm a decent father or mother. I'm a decent husband or wife.

I'm a good neighbor. I'm a law -abiding citizen. I don't swear. I don't get drunk on alcohol.

I help people out when I can, and the list goes on and on and on. Most, if not all of you in this room would be called salt of the earth people.

Obviously, that comes from Matthew 5, but it's used in secular lingo to describe people who would give the shirt off their back if someone needed it.

And people from Eureka are like that. I like, I mean, I'm drawn to people like, the people who are in this community because they are like that.

You go to other places where people aren't like that. People are friendly here. They help you out in time of need.

We are honest, good citizens. So is Jesus overstating this when he says, you who are evil?

And the answer is no, he is not. What he says is right on the money. Jesus said in Mark 10, 18, no one is good except God alone.

As Jesus is speaking to this crowd, some of these people would have been genuine believers and others would not have been.

But whether he's talking about believers or unbelievers, we are still talking about imperfection.

And when we talk about God, we're talking about something that is foreign to us, and that is perfection.

But there's one place in this world where we see perfection. And do you know where that is? The Bible.

This is the only thing perfect in the world right now. Everything else is stained in some way. Even believers who are growing are stained in some way.

And there's a reason that it's called the Holy Bible. And as Christians, we wanna be people who are growing and striving for perfection, but no one is perfect yet.

But as you read this perfect book, one day you will be perfect. When God brings you into his presence and makes you entirely pure.

And this is where we see Jesus' argument from the lesser to the greater. He says, if you who are imperfect, take care of your children, how much more will your father in heaven, who is perfect, take care of you?

When we see fathers and mothers in this world do what they are supposed to do, it's a beautiful sight to see.

There are many bad parents out there, but we also see many good parents.

And good parents are still imperfect. These imperfect humans answer their children in time of need.

This is what God does, and he does it much more consistently than even the best parents on planet earth.

In fact, God cares for his children all the time. And what

Jesus is telling us in this passage is to consistently to go to God in prayer.

Think of how many things we worry about and all we need to do is talk to the

Lord and we will be okay. In 1885, Pastor Joseph Scriven wrote the hymn,

What a Friend We Have in Jesus. And this is what he wrote. Oh, what peace we often forfeit.

Oh, what needless pain we bear. All because we do not carry everything to God in prayer.

And the song that Mark sang a few weeks back, and by the way, it's number three on the CD, if you own the

CD, Thank You for the Valley. I love this line. Thank you for every hill

I've climbed, for every time the sun didn't shine. Thank you for every lonely night.

I prayed till I knew everything was all right. And here's another way to say it.

I prayed and God made everything all right. And it might not mean the circumstances go away, but he puts you in a good place.

And that's what so often happens. So often our circumstances are a mess, but we have peace, we have joy, we have comfort, we have courage.

This is what the Lord gives us as we go to Him in prayer. And we have these promises in Christ Jesus.

Earlier in the Lord's Prayer, we learned from Jesus how to pray. And in this section of the Sermon on the

Mount, Jesus is telling us to come to God frequently with our needs. And one aspect of God's will for our lives is that we would continually go to Him.

The Apostle Paul wrote in 1 Thessalonians 5 .17, that this is the will of God for us, to pray without ceasing.

We can pray to Him as much as we want. And we should take advantage of this. Sometimes you need to talk to someone and you can't get ahold of them.

Maybe you have a dear friend who you go to in times of trouble, where you need counsel or you need encouragement.

And maybe you can't get ahold of them because there's limitations with humans. God doesn't have those limitations.

We can go to Him anytime we want. And get the very thing that we need.

That's what's so beautiful about this. We have a Father in Heaven who cares for us.

And He will answer us. Now this is easier said than done. We can know this, but let's pray that we live this.

Let me give an example of how this might work in our lives. Let's say you have a difficult conversation that you have to have with someone.

In this conversation, you have to say some things that are hard. Some things that may cause tension.

It might hurt your relationship and you have concerns over it. What you need to do is pray.

Pray for wisdom about what to say. James 1 .5. Pray for strength and courage.

Isaiah 41 .10. Pray that the Lord would soften the person's heart. 2 Corinthians 7 .7.

Pray for the peace of God. Leaving the path forward in God's hands. Philippians 4 .7.

These are all promises of God. And we can claim them rightly. Because all the promises of God are yes, in Christ Jesus.

And Jesus says, whatever you ask in my name, it will be done for you. So if we pray like this, the

Lord will answer. He answers these prayers every time. So as we conclude here, we are to knock on heaven's door continually.

And we've seen two reasons why in this sermon. The first reason why is that you will receive when you ask rightly.

The second reason why is that your father in heaven is more caring than any earthly parent.

And how wonderful that is. So we have learned how to pray from the Lord's prayer. That was about a month ago or so.

And here we learn to go boldly before God in times of need with our requests.

The author of Hebrews wrote this. In Hebrews 4 .14 -16. He says, since we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens,

Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.

Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

May this be the pattern of our life as we go through the life of faith. Now starting with next

Sunday and carrying on for the three following Sundays, we are going to see

Jesus show us in the Sermon on the Mount that there are two ways. And this is going to be

His closing, the next four sermons. What we're going to see is that He's going to really simplify things.

He's going to tell us there are two paths in life. There are two types of teachers.

There are true teachers and false teachers. And there are two types of disciples. True disciples and false disciples.

And then there are two foundations that we need to build on. A true one and a false one.

And so this is what we're going to see over the next several weeks. And I look forward to next Sunday looking at the two paths that Jesus lays before us.

Let's bow our heads in prayer. Father, as I mentioned, we can talk about this all day, but may we live this out.

May we claim the promises that You have laid before us. These blood -bought promises.

May we go to Your throne with courage and say, Lord, because Jesus did this on my behalf, because I am

Your child, Lord, I pray that You would give me whatever it is that I need that is according to Your will.

So, Lord, may You be pleased in the way that we pray. May we pray for the right things. And may we be amazed in all the ways that You answer us.