Ask, Seek, Knock

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Preacher: Ross Macdonald Scripture: Matthew 7:7-11

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Well, this morning we are back in in Matthew and we're heading toward verse 12
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Next week, but this morning we're going to do verses 7 through 11 These all belong together and in fact verses 1 through 12 belong together as we've said now for several weeks verses 1 through 5 really speak to how we relate to one another as Fellow believers, how do we relate to one another inside and verse 6?
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Which we looked at last week is how we relate to those outside Do not take what is holy and give it to dogs.
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Do not take pearls cast them before swine We spoke about that verse last week and now here with verses 7 through 11
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How do we bring all of this to a relationship above? verses 7 through 11 point us to our
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Heavenly Father and the way that we are to ask and seek and knock the way that we are dependent upon him
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And we might think we're moving into a entirely new section or topic moving away from how we relate to those inside outside to now
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Focus on prayer, but verse 12 pulls us back in to show somehow verses 7 through 11 belong to everything
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We've seen now for several weeks Verse 12, of course is the golden rule so called and so we want to stay in Context with what we've been seeing from verses 1 and following but this morning our attention will be
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Matthew 7 beginning in verse 7 Ask and it will be given to you seek and you will find knock and it will be open to you for Everyone who asks receives and he who seeks finds and to him who knocks it will be opened
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But what man is there among you who if his son asks for bread will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will he give him a serpent if you then being evil know how to give good news
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Yes to your children. How much more will your father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him?
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these verses Begin and end with that verb ask ask and it will be given
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Your father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him So asking is a another way of talking about prayer.
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And of course prayer has been a theme in the Sermon on the Mount Prayer was a Theme of those who are seeking and hungering and thirsting after God And in chapter 6 not only do we have commands about how not to pray
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But we have the model prayer the Lord's Prayer and chapter 6 and then here and chapter 7 we're returning to this matter of prayer and this matter of prayer follows again,
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Matthew 7 1 through 6 and As William Hendrickson says I think very helpfully the
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Lord has been admonishing his listeners to abstain from judging others That's verses 1 through 5 but also to judge that's verse 6 not to be hyper critical
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Verses 1 through 5 but to be critical verse 6 to be humble and patient verses 1 through 5 but not too patient verse 6
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You see these things require wisdom No wonder then that God is going to have to give us the very things that we need
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As James 1 would say if any of you lacks wisdom let him ask of God and it will be given to him
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Very much in line with what Matthew is getting across here We lack the ability to know exactly how to fulfill kingdom righteousness in these ways
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Holding together Matthew 7 1 through 5 in verse 6 is so hard that it's just it's just above our own wisdom
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Above our own discernment. We need God's help We need to ask seek and knock for God to equip us to fulfill this kind of righteousness to live in these kingdom values and so we're
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Commanded exhorted to ask and to seek and to knock that we might fulfill not only
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Matthew 7 1 through 6 But indeed all of the things that have been laid out for God's people in the
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Sermon on the Mount There's something that immediately speaks to prayer as we'll speak to this morning
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But also trans then transcends that to talk about everything in the Christian life that requires
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God's gift God's provision God's grace So I want to break this passage down and approach it with really three three questions
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Who how and why? Who we ask how we ask and why we ask that's essentially all
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I'm going to do this morning We'll begin right there with who who we ask in verses 7 8 in particular
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Ask and it will be given to you Seek and you will find knock and it will be open to you for everyone who asks
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Receives and he who seeks finds and to him who knocks it will be open The big thing we want to see here is that Jesus is reminding us again of the very things
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He's reminded of us us of in chapter 6 as well as in chapter 5 That we are
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God's people and we have a unique relationship to God through Christ by the Spirit Which is we have been adopted as sons and daughters of God.
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He is our father who is in heaven That's a generic way that all human image bearers relate to God as creator and perhaps in a lower case
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F sense there is a general fatherhood of God to man but that's more speaking of the fact that he is a creator of us as creatures in The adopted sense in the salvific sense only those who have trusted upon Jesus Christ for salvation
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Can rightly call God their father in heaven? God is only known and called upon as father through the
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Son and By the Spirit as Paul says it's by the spirit of adoption that we cry
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Abba Father and so this is something that requires the the triune work of God that by the
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Spirit I would be brought to Christ and through Christ I would be able to behold and know the father as my father and the father would behold and know me as a son
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For some of you as a daughter and this all relates to how we pray Who we ask who do we ask not the creator in abstraction?
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Not the blind watchmaker of deism Not not the universal
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God as creator, but in the intimate dimensions of the Christian life I Ask my father who is in heaven
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Now there's an order to this asking notice what's being said in verses 7 and 8 we're to ask but more more than just asking we're to seek and More than just seeking we're to knock and each one of these words is telling us something about prayer
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If we begin with asking we could say that seeking is putting some activity to that asking
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I Asked but I don't become passive. I don't become slothful. I ask and I seek
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I Asked and I prepare Not only do I ask and I seek but I also knock that's to say
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I persevere If you've ever stopped by our house, you're gonna have to persevere and knocking for a while You might persevere until you decide to leave
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Depending on when you come that knocking is speaking to this continual Urgent act and so there's asking and then there's acting and then there's an emphasis on that acting.
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There's an urgency to it Ask first of all ask implies that there's a need
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This is the most basic thing about prayer you pray because you have a need You ask because you need something you ask because you do not have as James reminds us
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And we asked sincerely We're not to ask routinely in the way that the hypocrites prayed in chapter 6 were to ask sincerely
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Simply as children ask their parents and so the question is do we really hold the things that we're asking for?
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Or do we just ask for the things that we're supposed to ask for? Doesn't take long to learn
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Christian ease in the Christian life You know the kinds of prayers are supposed to pray the kind of things are supposed to ask for The question here is do you really feel that need?
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Are you really asking him sincerely? As Charles Simeon reminds us if our hearts have not felt what our lips are expressing
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Our prayers are not acceptable to God We worship God in vain when we approach him with an empty
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Expression empty speech and our hearts are far from him And so the issue is when we're asking
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God do we actually feel that need do we own it? Do we hold it? Desires as Simeon says desires in the soul
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Will be counted as prayers even if they're not expressed in words That's a beautiful thought just pause there
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Desires of the soul groanings of the spirit are counted as prayers even if they never make it out of our mouths
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That's how faithful God is to us, but the flip side Words without desire are just a mockery of prayer
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Empty phrases empty speech asking for things. We don't really feel the need for we're just supposed to pray in these ways
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We find a challenge but also a great encouragement here We are to ask our
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Father who is in heaven as Paul would say to the church at Philippi make your requests known to God Yeah, this is a fundamental aspect of prayer
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This is an invitation for children to acknowledge their need and go and ask it state it
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When a child is hungry They ask They do more than ask they whine
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They ask they're hungry. They'll keep reminding you. They'll keep knocking They'll act if you're not hearing they're gonna start climbing through the cupboards themselves
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And so it is with prayer We we let our requests we let our needs be felt and then known to our
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Almighty Father who cares for us And yet we rarely take this up to him We don't actually feel the weight of this exhortation.
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So we have a sort of formulaic pattern of prayer requests and petitions We actually have become dull to the hunger pains as it were
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So rather than a hungering and asking and seeking and knocking we just let our spiritual stomachs groan and grumble
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We said oh and yeah, by the way, please Please provide some bread for me today and we just sort of go through the motions of it
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I don't think it's gonna happen. I know I should pray not expecting anything. You see this is very far from the heart of prayer
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Jesus is reminding us of who we are children in need of our father's care
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As he's also reminding us of who God is our Heavenly Father who knows exactly what we need even before we ask and yet We ask that's the relationship between chapter 6 and chapter 7.
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He knows what you need before you ask but ask ask
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What does James 4 say? There are really two and only two reasons
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That we do not receive the things that we ask for Jesus is saying here in Matthew 7 whoever asks will receive
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Whoever seeks will find whoever knocks will find it open unto them There's only two reasons why
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James says the things that we ask we don't receive Well, the first is we don't ask
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You have not because you ask not we just don't ask we just don't pray we wait We seek we strive
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We read books and blogs and listen to podcasts where we do all sorts of things
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We arrange all the altar stones what we prepare everything, but we don't ask
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We are the great prophet as it were on the mountain We arrange the altar stones and do everything in order the last thing is
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The very first thing that we're to do we're to pray and call upon God that fire may fall So, that's the first reason we simply don't ask and what's the first thing that Jesus tells us ask ask
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And what's the reason that we may not receive the things that we ask? Well James says because you ask amiss in other words, you're asking for the wrong things or you're asking in the wrong way
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You're asking amiss This is not a blanket statement that makes
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God into some divine Coin -slot machine and a prayer of faith pulls the lever and gets what it wants
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This is not the name it claim it prosperity teaching that this heresy that plagues especially the global south of Christianity No, this is nothing like that at all the one who has been shaped and framed and trained by the values of the kingdom is going to ask things in light of that and And the one who has understood the
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Beatitudes and has sought the Lord not in hypocrisy But in sincerity is gonna be the kind of person that is seeking the kingdom of God and its righteousness
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And so what do you think the asking -seeking looks like for that person? That person is asking the very things of the kingdom and Jesus says the one who asks and seeks these things
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They will not be withheld You you may have to act and you may have to persevere but it will not be
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Withheld from you and James says yeah, and if you're not the kind of person seeking the kingdom and its righteousness
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You're asking amiss you're asking out of your flesh or for your flesh and God is good to not answer those kinds of prayers.
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These are the two and only two reasons That the things we ask for are not received
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We either don't ask or we ask amiss either asking for the wrong things or asking in the wrong way
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Beside that we are called to make our requests known ask is the great command
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It begins in verse 1 and ends with verse 11 What is the hymn the line from the hymn that we often sing thou art coming to a king?
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large petitions with you bring if you were as often took place in the ancient world if you were part of an
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Embassy to some ruler or some King you had a group of your finest elites your greatest orders and statesmen
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You're going to make some sort of treaty or negotiate some sort of contract that you wouldn't come with something scratched out on a post -it note when you were finally given audience to The king and all of his splendor with the array of all of the the rulers and counselors and magistrates
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Surrounding his throne you wouldn't show up and go. Where is that? I had it on a napkin somewhere
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Oh, yeah, could we have some of this? No, you'd have this large petition It would have been scrutinized
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Would have been felt. Is there is there anything that we can dispense with what's absolutely necessary?
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What are the things that we must persevere in that we cannot leave until we've obtained That's the idea large petitions with you bring but listen to this
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Why his grace and power are such None can ever ask too much
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There's no end to the scroll of the Christians petition. Not when you're going to this King Because he has infinite power infinite resources infinite wisdom
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Jesus said ask Do you ask for holiness?
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I think that some of the most radical Changes that take place in a believer's life or toward the beginning of their walk with the
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Lord Now we like to attribute that to everything being new It's the green recruit who you know, it's just fresh off the the sands of Paris Island and he comes to the front line
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He's doing everything by the book. He's got his uniform in exactly the right position his insignia exactly where it's supposed to go
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He's understood exactly how his bags are to be packed and then all the guys around them have their stuff hanging off and they're using
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Things in the way, they're not supposed to be used and have all sorts of things that are not allowed in the book And they're just staring at him sideways
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You're a rookie. Aren't you doing everything by the book? It takes some time for that vigor and excitement to wear away
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That's not the right view. I Think sometimes we think well, you know, it's all new and exciting and the changes are so big and that's why it seems to be
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So quick and so sudden and so powerful, you know as you persevere it's not going to be that easy now, that's all true but listen,
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I Think we can learn something from Matthew 7 here I think one of the reasons that the changes are so abrupt so powerful so moving in those early times as believers or some of the sweetest times we've ever had is those times as young believers of The times when we're asking simply
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God make me more holy God, there's so much.
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I don't understand about your word. Help me understand it God, I've lived my whole life without faith.
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Give me a great faith now God I've I've seen my temper my anger.
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Oh Lord now that I know you give me a quiet and gentle spirit you see it's just the simplicity of Asking and then when you press on 5 10 15 years in the
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Christian life you stop asking for these things You certainly stop seeking them in the way that you did when you first came to the
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Lord and maybe you lose heart and knocking Or more to the fact we tend to seek and knock without ever asking
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We consign ourselves this is going to be Grueling out of reach spend the rest of my life and Jesus is saying did you ask?
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Did you ask? You've done everything but asked didn't you ask it may be that you must seek it may be that you'll need to knock
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But have you asked? Let me let me state it plainly
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Do you ask for God to deliver you from temptation? That's in the
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Lord's prayer Look at how many requests how many childlike dependent asks are made in the
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Lord's prayer Lord Keep me from temptation today Lord, there's things in my mind.
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I don't want in my mind Cleanse my mind today ward Lord, there's ways.
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I'm thinking I know aren't right ways. I'm feeling that are crooked Lord straighten that out Help me today
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Lord. Do you ask for victory? Do you ask for progress and sanctification?
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Do you ask for health and provision do you ask for a greater love? Do you ask for fresh influences of God's grace?
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Do you ask for joy? Lord, I feel cast down today
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Lord. Give me some joy Lord warm me up today I'm like a zombie right now emotionally
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Lord Help me to be sensitive help me not to be dull. Do you ask?
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brothers and sisters Well asking is where we begin. It's the thing that we cannot skip it's what
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Jesus returns to but asking is not the only thing we're also to seek and Seeking implies a certain activity
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We're to seek the kingdom that involves all sorts of activity that involves self -denial that involves picking up a cross
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That involves exercising great faith encourage That involves being salt and light in the most difficult and dark relationships in places of your life
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There's all sorts of things that go with seeking so we don't ask as some sort of passive formula as some sort of coupon code to be scanned for the
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Christian life asking almost always comes with seeking and Then knocking as we said implies perseverance, you know
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When when the metaphor of the door is used in Scripture in relation to prayer It's often used in terms of mission or kingdom expansion
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Paul several times in his letters speaks of his mission in terms of prayer as a Door that needs to be opened or a door that has opened and so I'll say to the church it
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Corinth in chapter 16 a pray that a door would open to us an effective door would open and the second
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Corinthians we read Basically, that's exactly what happened. He says in in chapter 2 verse 12 a door has been opened unto us for the word or he's asking believers to pray like in Colossians 4 pray that a door would open for the word so that we can speak the mystery of Christ What he's encouraging them to do is view the mission view the expansion of the kingdom as though it's coming against closed and bolted
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Doors and he's saying keep knocking brethren keep knocking that the door may open wide for the
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Word of God Now we know this knocking in our lives in times of intense trial or When we're perhaps concerned to thought about the health of a loved one
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When someone very near to us is sick, we know exactly what knocking in prayer looks like don't we?
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We find ourselves ceaseless in prayer praying often praying continually For things outside of that for things that don't seem to be urgent.
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We don't knock hardly at all And Jesus is saying that we need to capture something of the urgency of knocking
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Only the one who asks and seeks and knocks will find the things of God opened supplied
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Given to them freely. That's a point. We're going to come back to at the very end this morning this idea of knocking
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But let me get back to the original point who who are we asking who are we seeking whose door are we knocking upon?
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It's our Father who is in heaven Jesus is talking about our need our dependency as children
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Not everyone is a child of God only those who are again born of God are children of God John 1 12 to all who did receive him that is
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Jesus those who believed in his name he gave them the right to become children of God and It's these children of God who
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Because they've come to know God through Christ by the Spirit feel their need for him They see all that is missing in their life all the needs and fears and hopes that they have and they
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Instinctively go to call upon their father So if you do not belong to the
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Father through the Son by the power of the Holy Spirit that this verse is not for you This call this exhortation this promise this encouragement.
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It's not for you You pray to a brass sky outside of Christ It's only those who know
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God who rightly call him father and he rightly owns them as his own
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But have these great and precious promises that his ear is ever open toward them he knows their need and Therefore all who ask will receive all who seek will find whoever knocks in this way to them
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It will be opened. He's seeking to overcome our hesitation our slack our fear
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He knows that somehow we feel asking and seeking and knocking might work for others
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But it just is not going to work for us. And so he reminds us you're not viewing him as your father in heaven
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You're viewing him perhaps as some arbitrary Unknowable God that's so distant from you.
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He has not a passing concern for you the reason we ask The reason we seek the reason we knock is because of who we ask.
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It's our father. It's our father Well, secondly, how do we ask?
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Verses 9 and 10 the two big things. I want to see in here are we ask by faith and Then we ask in such a way that we submit to God's response.
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That's a very very important point So faith and submission in prayer Listen, what man is there among you who if his son asked for bread will give him a stone or if he asked for a fish?
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Will he give him a serpent? Something about the character of God the goodness of God that affects how we ask we know why we ask
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But now how do we ask and how do we respond to the answer that is given?
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Well, of course everyone asks Everyone asks for help Spurgeon I this is a wonderful little insight from Charles Spurgeon the great preacher of the last century
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He said by instinct man first turned to God in paradise and Everything that Adam needed was supplied to him and there was a sense where he was constantly in communion with God always talking seeking asking
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Now As a result of the fall though a sad discrowned monarch there lingers in our memory shadows of what man once was a remembrance of where our strength was once found and Therefore no matter where you find a man, you will meet one who in his distress will ask for supernatural help
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Why is it that atheists as it were cry cry out to God and foxholes Or men on their deathbeds in agony feel this instinct to plea with God There is something within man this
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Supernatural instincts to ask for supernatural help and a man prays an atheist prays in this way because there is something in prayer
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There is something to asking God we instinctively almost subconsciously Recognize that there is a
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Relationship we have to the one who made us and we are dependent upon him and we must call we must ask
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We must seek him. There's something to prayer Spurgeon goes on when the
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Creator gives his creature the power of thirst It's because he created water to meet that thirst when he gives his creature the power of hunger
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It's because there's food to correspond to that hunger So when he inclines all men to pray it is because prayer has a corresponding blessing
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Associated with them. We know that that blessing that answer is only found through Christ It's only those who can come to God as father
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Which means it's only those who have faith in God They pray by faith they ask in faith they know
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God by faith Have faith in God The writer of Hebrews defined what faith is for us now faith is the assurance of things hoped for the conviction of things not seen
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By it the men of old gained approval They know that God was they knew
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God they walked in reverence with God They trusted in the promises of God. They walked in the service of God faith
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Is that kind of confidence that kind of conviction? I can't see it, but I live in light of it
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I can't fully understand or know it But my whole life is as it were entrusted thrown upon it and faith is the key to the life of God's people
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We remember times where Jesus did not perform many miracles. Why? Because the people lacked faith
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Other times Jesus required those whom he healed to have faith.
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Do you believe I'm able to do this? We learn that in order for anyone to be pleasing to God they must have this faith
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The one who would ask the one who would seek the one who would knock it is impossible to please
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God without faith And so the one who asks the one who seeks the one who knocks
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Knows something about God by faith and they know that God is a rewarder of those who diligently search him
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So the question is do we pray in faith? There's a way that we are to ask right as it again going to James We have not because we ask not that's the first and main problem.
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We're just not asking second problem is we ask a miss Well, let me introduce a third problem when we do ask and we ask rightly are we asking in faith?
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That's what James 1 6 says. Let him ask in faith without doubting The one who doubts is like a wave of the sea driven tossed by the wind
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Let not a man suppose he'll receive anything from the Lord if he's a double -minded man unstable in all of his ways
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There's a faith that means I'm not asking to hedge my bets. I'm not seeking as if it was 50 -50
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I'm not knocking as though. I hope I got the right God, you know, I'm just praying for the man upstairs Whoever that man may be that's not what we're talking about.
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It's a double -minded man. That's an unstable man There's not a man who's asking and seeking and then
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Leaving that prayer closet and going to do the very opposite of the things that he allegedly prayed for This is not that kind of instability that double -mindedness that doubt
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This is a prayer born of conviction of confidence even in things unseen. That's the man who asks in faith.
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That's the man who receives This is a calling for faith not only in the power of God, but in the goodness of God faith in the wisdom of God This teaching does not mean if we pray and our faith is so ironclad
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So strong that we don't even let a doubt begin to enter into our mind Then then that quality of faith is going to secure whatever we're asking for.
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No Absolutely wrong. It's all about mustering up enough faith to get the things that we want.
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That's all asking a miss That's not even the right conception of prayer nor a faith. We're not talking about a new technique in prayer
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Lloyd -jones and writing on this topic in his studies in the Sermon on the Mount He was lambasting in his days as a boy who grew up during the
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Welsh revivals of 1905 and 1906 Seeing the Spirit of God poured out upon hundreds and thousands of people at meetings and then he saw as a young adult the same those same people trying to remanufacture that kind of effect
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And so they say we're gonna go to the same place Does anyone have an old Bolton from that we're gonna do the same hymns
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We're gonna have the same people take the same role. We're trying to Remanufacture this outpouring of the
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Spirit of God and and Lloyd -jones was saying you cannot do it The Spirit is sovereign in this way
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It's not mustering up the right order. It's not putting the stones in the right arrangement.
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It's not having enough faith It's not putting God at your whim the
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Bible rejects that kind of thinking entirely God is not some genie in a bottle that our means of grace can rub and manipulate according to our desire.
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I Give you an example Paul prays for thorns to be removed and they are not
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That wasn't because he was lacking faith Let me give you another example a church a
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Herod seeking to imprison those who are who are spreading the contentious Gospel of Jesus Christ in the midst of the
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Israelites the Jews and Herod captures them including Peter Peters in prison in the church as they're gathered and they're praying for Peter in Acts chapter 12 and God miraculously
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Breaks open the chains Converts these jailers as it were under the gospel that they're later executed by Herod Peter going out to the the gate knocks on the gate and the servant girl
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Leaves that prayer meeting hearing the knocking and she goes to the gate and I think she's seen a guy it's Peter We're just praying
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And she goes in Peters out there She's lost her mind stop interrupting us we're praying for Peters release he's been released
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Quiet woman. Hey, we're praying The church prayed for Peter and he was delivered
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The church prayed for Stephen and he was martyred This is not about our will
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This is about God's will If you abide in me and my words abide in you
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Ask whatever you wish it will be done for you. That's a beautiful little statement there in John 15 7.
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What does it presuppose? The one who is abiding in Jesus Christ and Jesus Christ's words are abiding in him
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It's going to ask and desire things in a certain way What kind of wish would you have if Jesus word was abiding in your life fully
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Well, let me ask it a different way is a thought experiment The Son of God was given the
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Spirit without measure Because the fullness of the Godhead dwelt bodily in him.
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So Jesus had the indwelling Spirit of God without measure without limit If ever there was one in whom the
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Word of God dwelled richly it was the Word incarnate And he asked whatever he wished and it was done for him
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But how did he ask? Father glorify yourself.
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I've come to do your will Father take this cup from me, but nevertheless not my will your will be done
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It's presupposing something about the one who's asking seeking and knocking what does it mean for that word to abide?
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Whatever we ask first John 3 says whatever we ask we receive from him. Why? Because we keep his commandments and do the things that are pleasing in his sight again the same thing
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What does it presuppose about the one asking seeking knocking? They're asking and seeking and knocking upon the ways of God.
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I want to hold to your commandments And so I'm asking Lord help me and God's supplying
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God's opening God's answering I want to be pleasing in your sight Lord help me to submit to your will and so God is answering
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God is giving This is the confidence he says later in 1st
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John 5 that we have before him if we ask anything according to his will He hears us so the fact that People are praying
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Doesn't mean we can be automatically assured that his will is the very thing we're asked for It's in praying that we understand the will of God and then we respond to it in the same faith.
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We ask We respond to it in submission the faith that asks for God's will in prayer is
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The faith that submits to God's will in answered prayer Very very important.
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We understand this. Let me just say it again The faith that asks for God's will in prayer is the faith that submits to God's will in answered prayer
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Do you see? So this is not let go and let God This is ask seek and knock
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This is not I need to start working and only then will I definitely receive the thing that I'm asking for That's not a upgrade to prayer adding works to your faith.
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That's a degradation As an old preacher said the meaning of prayer is not that I force my will upon God But that I bend my will to his that's the meaning of prayer
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Now what man is there among us who if his son asked for bread gives him a stone or if he asks for a fish
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Gives him a serpent Well, if you've understand the goodness and the power and the wisdom of your father who is in heaven
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You'll recognize that often in your life The problem is you're asking for stones instead of bread.
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You just are too naive too immature to realize it Often we're saying father feed me the rocks and the pebbles and the gravel
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Lord can I have a scorpion for a pet, please? I promise. I'll take good care of it We often fail to discriminate between stones and bread in an underhanded way
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Jesus is reminding us reminding us of that if you being evil Father is good
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We're not able to discriminate what is purely good from what is purely evil in the way that God can
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Because there's darkness that runs its way all through our lives all through our flesh, but in him there's no darkness at all
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No shadow, no turning So we're not able to discriminate in the way that our wise heavenly father is able to discriminate
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He discerns what is actually bread for us and what is actually a stone what is actually a meal versus what is actually toxic or poisonous
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We do not share in God's wisdom Knowing what is ultimately good for us because sometimes the best things for the
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Christian are the hardest and the most painful things for the Christian No Christian praise for valleys
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If you know enough as a Christian to pray Lord, make me more holy sanctify me in answering that prayer
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God will often take you through the valleys of the shadows of death He's answering that prayer and we're going this is all stones.
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This is all scorpions This is all darkness and no light We haven't understood.
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These things are right. The father has infinite wisdom. We don't know what is a good gift
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We're not able to distinguish that between things that seem good to us and our flesh for our needs for our comforts for worldly desire
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The father will give us good gifts that accords with an everlasting. Hope an everlasting comfort the light of true life
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He's able to give water that will cause us never to thirst again What does he say to the woman at the well in John 4?
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He says woman if you had asked of me, I would have given you the water of everlasting life
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Just again, all you have to do is ask a couple weeks ago we were with my parents and they had brought some little gifts out for the kids and all the all the girls were very excited as they went through the bag and it was something that in my in their
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Grandparently wisdom was needed bigger clothes for growing kids We tend to be ignorant to these things.
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And so our kids sleeves are like that, you know pants are high waters So you go around the grandparents are going yeah, let's go to Kohl's and we'll get some some outfits
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Well going down the line, of course, the girls are thrilled They open up the bag and they're pulling out sweaters and coats and they're beaming and in Callum's mind.
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He's going Oh, I'm gonna get something that I want too So he's thinking dinosaurs so he goes to his bag and It's just throwing out the clothes
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And he gets to the empty bag and he goes where's the dinosaur? Where's the dinosaurs? What's all this garbage? It's like it may not be what you wanted, but it's actually what you need
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That's how the father gives good gifts to his children. It's because he's wise. It's because he's good.
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He has Unscrutable wisdom. Let me ask you a question Have you learned to bless
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God in your life for unanswered prayers I have
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Here's something that you can take home with you you can say Lord Thank you for not giving me a lot of the things
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I've asked for because I look back and see The very things
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I was asking for would have ruined me Ruined me ruined the things that I have right now that I love
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Thank you for not giving me those things Thank you that you're so good that you withhold In wisdom the things that would not be good for my soul not good for the ones that I love
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Not good for my walk with the God that I love Can you look back and see how often you've asked a miss?
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I look back to things. I was praying for even earlier this year Thank you.
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God. I Was knocking knocking knocking. Thank you for not answering the door.
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I Can see now your wisdom You're asking a miss you're asking for the wrong things
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And this brings us third and lastly to why we ask Again, he's our wise
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Heavenly father. We're as children dependent upon him trusting him so this picture of dependency this reminder of faith and perseverance if You then being evil know how to give good gifts to your children
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How much more will your father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him?
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That this relationship of dependency in light of our father's goodness it helps us to grow in our faith
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The fact that we know him to be good we've proven him or and or that he is good We've tasted and seen his goodness
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It helps us to submit ourselves in humble trust to the things that are painful when the cross is heavy and hard to bear
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We're reminded of the goodness and the patient wisdom of our father who is in heaven I know many of us in this room are bearing crosses this morning as I as I mentioned during the prayer time for the past several days at this preaching workshop with his brother who who
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Just to introduce himself couldn't hold back a face full of anguish and tears Does it introducing himself along the row of I have these kids and these are ages
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He has to speak about his daughter and bury his face in the in the in the absolute torment of that grief and yet I can see in him that faith just radiating
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Because he recollects himself and if it's not just a word or a testimony for others
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It's just a reminder for himself. But but God has been faithful. God is good Just pray pray for my wife pray for our marriage, but most of all pray that God would be glorified.
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I Look at that and I go wow in that cross that's almost unimaginable to bear
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The Lord hasn't given you an ounce an ounce That would drag you into the depths away from him.
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He's he's so measured the weight That though it brings you to the very lowest ebb of your life
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It keeps you that much closer and dependent upon him. That's the that's the father's wisdom
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These these things these experiences this this tasting and seeing God's goodness and faithfulness
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Becomes a ballast in the storms of life When demands and pressures and crosses and trials are like storms were meant to be driven toward prayer not away from it
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We're meant to be more childlike in our cries and our dependency and our hunger pains rather than trying to fend for ourselves and scavenge
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So what's your instinctive response when when trouble comes when the day of darkness comes?
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when the prowling lion leaps When temptation mingles and has its way
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When things that you thought were rock -solid Crumbled like powder between your fingers.
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What's your instinctive response? Oh What peace we often forfeit
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What needless pain we bear we were bearing pain how much of that pain is needless for this reason?
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We're not carrying everything to God in prayer So you don't resort to prayer as the nuclear option that's not what
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Jesus is saying in Matthew 7 listen It is not a good testimony in your life. If you're like I can count on one hand
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The four times throughout my Christian life that I've really prayed fervently to God's like that's it.
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How long have you been a Christian? You should have this exercise of prayer Prayer is not the nuclear option
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It's like you fend for yourselves and do everything you can and then when there's just absolutely no Hope you look at prayer like this glass emergency case and you smash it open and say well now
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I guess I'll ask God No, don't end where you're supposed to begin Remind yourself of the father's care the father's wisdom
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He knows what is good and evil in a way you never possibly could so you submit yourself to him And in that way in that kind of childlike faith and dependency you're learning to trust the way of your heavenly father
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He's appointed the way you ought to go an old
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Puritan described prayer as the the lungs of the Christians walk I don't know if anyone else had this in middle school, but I remember in middle school for Physical ed we we would always have the sort of dare programs and you know, these are your lungs, you know healthy
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These are your lungs on cigarettes and one of the ways they they tried to scare us out of cigarettes to great effect
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Was they gave us those little coffee stirrer straws heard about two millimeters diameter
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And they said at the latest stages of lung disease from smoking. This is what it's like to breathe
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So put this in your mouth and only breathe through it and so we all stood there and we're kind of chuckling and smirking
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Lindsay just said now just get up and walk to the other side of the room and Kids were gasping and turning blue and passing out
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It was incredibly hard to breathe through that little straw while we were going above And the point was
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I'm never touching a cigarette for the rest of my life. That's horrific Well, if if our lungs
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Correspond to prayer in our spiritual walks with God, what's our breathing like? Little prayer is a little straw.
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We're not gonna get very far. Are we? We're not gonna make it If we make it we'll be dizzy disoriented fainting turning blue We'll be holding and dragging on to others.
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Maybe even dragging them away You see how important prayers? prayer forms the lungs of our spiritual walk
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God forbid that There are things in our prayer lives That are hindering our breathing fit things in our approach to God that are preventing us from prayer
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Prayer is as we've said many times prayer is like The the first thing to go when you're struggling as a
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Christian and one of the last things to return that true sincere fervent continual prayer
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It's the little canary that the coal miners used to take into the coal mines And if the canary died that was a little newsflash.
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It's time to get out of the mine If you're a Christian here this morning and your prayer life has shriveled up has become so complacent and inconsistent
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That is a warning that you are about to suffocate spiritually The ways that we begin to fend for ourselves turn us away not only from prayer, but they turn us toward something
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They turn often toward a sort of hardened conscience and with that usually is a sort of self -righteousness
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So rather than asking and seeking and knocking we become puffed up conceited if not critical then hypocritical
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Now why is that true because that's the context of Matthew 7 Judge not others that the difference between judgment and judgmentalism.
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Here's how do you view outsiders? And then what's your prayer life? Like are you asking seeking and knocking?
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If we hold all that together you can quickly see that the the fervent prayerful righteous person is
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Going to relate to those inside and outside in a radically different way than someone who barely prays at all
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Someone who has formulaic prayers empty prayers insincere prayers They're gonna have a very distant relationship from God and they're not going to be very fatherlike in mercy toward those inside or outside Do you see these things are held together?
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What is the fruit what is the evidence of someone who has a Very wide snorkel in terms of their breathing through prayer that they love the brethren and they even love their enemies
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That is a prayerful person Luke 18 shows us this doesn't it?
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Luke 18 this Context the beginning of Luke 18 is really interesting because there's two episodes that relate exactly to what's taking place in Matthew 7
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And Luke 18 Jesus says I'm gonna give you a parable so that you know
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How to deal with those who are self -righteous and despise others how to see the difference
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That's verses 9 and following the beginning of Matthew of Luke 18 He says I'm gonna give you a parable so that you don't lose heart in praying
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These are the same things that we have in Matthew 7 Those who are self -righteous and despise others
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That's Matthew 7 1 through 6 and then not losing heart in prayer. That's Matthew 7 7 through 11
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And so you have the persistent widow knocking Not leaving until she's received that which is she has sought and then you have the
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Pharisee and the tax collector You remember that Pharisee? He's praying but what's his prayer?
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I'm so glad I'm not like him He's judged him. He's condemned him.
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I you know, isn't it? Great. Look at all that I've got going for me Look how look how humble
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I am. I'm actually thankful. Thank you God. I'm not like him that scum. I'm so glad I'm so happy with myself.
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That's the that's the Pharisee. What's the tax collector doing? He's a beggar
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He's crying out to God be merciful to me What difference do you see between those two men
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The sinner is Asking seeking knocking he's crying out. He's praying
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God be merciful and what happens the doors opened What he sought for he finds what he asked for is given.
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He goes home justified. What do you notice about the Pharisee? He never asked for anything
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He never asked for anything he just said I'm glad I'm not like him
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He never asked Why didn't he ask? He didn't need anything he didn't need anything
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I Made it. I'm good. I'm great Look how great
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I am compared to him You can see how prayer your approach to God and prayer
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Will either draw you toward humility and meekness and the values of the kingdom the way you relate to those inside and those outside or It'll turn you away from sincere prayer from a knowledge of God your father into the self -righteous judgmental puffed -up hypocritical
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Pharisee Let me close with with this It's a distinct privilege to know and to call upon God as father
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It's in light of our father's goodness that we ask and we seek and we knock if you're struggling in your prayer life
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I would I would begin there. You do not have a right understanding of God At least in this moment in this season in your life.
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You're not viewing him rightly You're not approaching him you maybe you're approaching him as a judge as someone distant abstract from you
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You're certainly not approaching him as the father who's disposed to give you something good bread because you're hungry
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Clothing because you're you're needy. Do you see? What's your conception of the guy that you're asking seeking knocking?
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I would start there. Listen to what Augustine says What would he not now give to sons when they ask?
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When he has already granted the very thing namely that they that they are able to call him father as sons
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Do you see what Augustine is saying? If he's already given freely The ability for you to be a son.
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Why would he then withhold? anything from you He's made you his son, so why is he gonna starve you if he's made you a son he's going to feed you you have but to ask if You're asking and he seems to be moving away from you
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Then you have but to seek if you're seeking him and he seems to go in a closed place in your life in your circumstance
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Then you have but to knock but you ask and you seek and you knock until it's open This is what it means to relate to God not only as a father
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But the Lord as the lover and physician of our souls. He calls us to a plain simplicity a dependency
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Tell me how it is with you. I don't know why we sometimes perform to God in our prayers
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It's not the embassy that it's strategized about what petitions to bring and how to polish the rhetoric of presenting them
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It's it's more like the king knows everything about every single person in that embassy everything in that country
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What are you sharing with him that he doesn't already know but ask him Ask him in other words
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Disarm yourself from all your little protections and excuses your defense mechanisms
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He sees you as you are. So own where you are as C .S. Lewis wisely said don't pray where you ought to be
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Pray where you are really important You're coming to me my son.
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You're coming to me as if you're over here when you're there Well, I have no answer for you Until you ask me from where you are
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I have no answer for you until you seek me from where you are. I have no answer for you When we consider prayer
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Let us remember who we're praying to not only our father in heaven who knows between good and evil that which is ultimately for our
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Salvation that is ultimately is good The kinds of things that we will confess at the end of our lives through many thorny difficult ways and dark valleys
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We will be able to say with with a hand a nail -scarred hand wiping away tears. Lo you have done all things well
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So you pray in light of that this seems to be the very opposite of well right now, but a day is coming where I will somehow see and Spontaneously praise you that you have done all things well and then be reminded of this brothers and sisters
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The Lord does not command prayer for his own sake as though he needed our prayers He commands and attaches promises to prayer for our sake.
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God is trying to elicit our prayers He's trying to provoke us and encourage us to prayer. Listen, just ask he's doing it in the most basic simplistic way
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He knows how because he knows how bashful how reticent we are to actually approach him in these ways
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And so he doesn't attach this whole doctrine You know this complex elaboration on what prayer is and how to get there and the kinds of qualities he wants to have in the person pray saying just Ask and you'll get it just seek and you'll find it.
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He's so zealous to have you come to him as your father He doesn't like to see his children starve or slink away naked and ashamed
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What earthly father wants to see their children in that state? How much more so an infinitely holy and good father who's full of abounding love mercy and long -suffering
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Well, if you know your father's character in this way Let me close with this.
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I said would return to it and I'll close with this. This is from Martin Lloyd -Jones This isn't from his studies on the
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Sermon on the Mount, but a little book. He wrote called joy unspeakable a tremendous book Anything Lloyd -Jones wrote is is tremendous
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But he was he was really emphasizing the point of knocking There's this ascendancy to the order of asking and seeking and knocking and that that Ascendancy stood out to Lloyd -Jones to say that the knocking is perhaps the most important part of it all
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And so he's talking about praying with importunity, which is an old Fancy word for urgency.
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So I'll just where he says importunity. I'll say urgency for the sake of making making sense
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Listen to what he says There are statements in Scripture which seem to suggest you have only to ask and you will receive so many people say
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But I have asked and I have not received and they do not understand why
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I'm suggesting that the answer is there's greater content to the word ask than we tend to think and our
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Lord suggests it by including ask seek knock True asking
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I suggest is actually the knocking That's very very insightful
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Lloyd -Jones is essentially saying you have not asked until you've knocked In other words asking is not casual
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You suddenly feel like it and so you you make your request and then you forget about it the next day
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That's not true asking that's not true seeking in true asking in true seeking.
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There's an urgency There's a refusal to be content with anything less than the answer and that's where the knocking comes in You don't merely shout from a distance and then hearing no response turn away
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You go on and you approach nearer and nearer and at last you're there and you're hammering on the door
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The trouble is this that we're all half -hearted and so our Lord is speaking about the need for urgency So that if we're almost casual as it were and we just ask
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God for for this or that blessing and nothing happens We ought not to blame God We shouted and we forgot what we shouted
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We asked and we forgot what we asked for and why we even asked it in the first place We no longer even sure if we even want it.
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That was yesterday. Today is today But we've not fulfilled this passage. We've not really asked.
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It's not just ask. It's not just seek It's ask seek and knock urgency Jacob wrestles and he says
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I won't let you go not till you bless me. That's knocking God is our father and he doesn't give us the blessing.
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We want immediately not always By withholding the blessing he's searching us.
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He's examining us. He's making us examine ourselves We're realizing these terms and these conditions so that he can deepen the whole of our walks with him
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Do you understand what's being said there? Let me put it in the words of David Gibson David Gibson reminds us
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Coming to God in prayer is not like stepping up to the microphone So that God can hear our prayer requests
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Coming to God in prayer is more like him putting a stethoscope on your heart So that while you make your requests known he's examining.
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How's your breathing? What's your heart like? What's going on in your walk? Have you understood my calling in your life?
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Are you living by grace through faith in the Son of God? Prayer is not a microphone brothers and sisters
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It's a stethoscope and the physician of our souls puts that stethoscope upon our lives and he says now breathe
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Now pray Ask what kind of things are you asking and why are you asking them ask and how are you asking to what end?
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Are you asking? Seek show me how you're seeking. What are you doing to seek?
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What are you carrying? What are you denying? What are you humbling yourself and repenting of in order to seek is
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Is the kingdom of God some easily accessible tunnel to you? Or is it so preciously rare so costly that few find it.
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How are you seeking? How are you knocking? I didn't tell you to stop breathing. I didn't tell you to stop searching
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You see prayer is that by which not only do we make our requests known to God but it's that by which
01:02:05
God reveals his person his character his will to us and there as Spurgeon says if faith asks it will receive and If hope seeks it will find and if love knocks
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The door will be opened faith hope and love Asking seeking and knocking and as Paul says the greatest of these is love
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Do you love your father who is in heaven? Who did not spare his only begotten son, but gave him freely for your salvation
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Do you love him? And so you run to the door and you don't stop knocking though Your knuckles are bloody and bruised you don't stop knocking out of love out of hope out of faith
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Until you've done that brothers and sisters you have not learned to pray. Amen Ask and it will be given to you seek you will find
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Knock it will be open to you If you being evil know how to give good gifts to your children how much more infinitely more
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Well your father who is in heaven give good things to those who just ask him
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Let's pray father.
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Thank you for your word Thank you for the Many ways you encourage and comfort your people
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Lord And I know if no one else in this room Lord, at least I am very convicted about this this matter of Asking by faith of having the stethoscope of prayer placed upon my heart
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Lord And so I humbly and I simply ask Lord help me Help me to pray
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Help me to pray and seek and knock in all the ways that I'm not praying and seeking and knocking Forgive me
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Lord for trying to defend for myself or scavenge or create things in my own strength For doing all that ought to follow asking but never asking
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Lord help me help each one of us here Help us to remind who it is that we're praying to our
01:04:15
Father in heaven How could we ever doubt that all your ways are good Lord forgive us? Do we blame anything anyone in our lives as being obstacles or thorns?
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Aren't we ultimately just blaming you Instead of submitting to you and turning things over to ask seek and knock all the more.
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Oh Lord, forgive us help us to have a Great confidence and faith in your sovereignty and take everything that comes from your hand
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Both good and ill in this life is that which pertains to our ultimate good for you or the God who works?
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Both good and evil together in such a way that you are glorified May you be glorified and if there's one who's not a son or daughter adopted by your grace
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But a stranger to your grace one who cannot pray in this way Because they do not know you in this way. You've not made yourself known to them in this way
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Might you go knocking on their heart even this morning? Might you go seeking them that they may be found for the
01:05:10
Son of Man came to seek and to save that which is lost And may you knock at the door of this church
01:05:17
Knock Lord and may we open and invite you to come and give us the spirit of prayer for if the fervent prayer of a righteous
01:05:23
Man avails much how much more the fervent prayer of a church? Let us be a praying people we ask