ASK, SEEK, and KNOCK
ASK, SEEK, KNOCK Luke 11: 5-13
Do you ever feel a wee bit impatient with God? Like, does it ever seem
like it takes too long for Him to answer your prayers? Certainly all of
us have had questions concerning prayer at some point in our life.
Like… – Is He really listening to me?
- Why do I have to keep praying for
something I have already prayed for when I know that God is going to
answer that prayer one way or another? Isn’t that unbelief Or…
- What about those times when we pray and waited for an answer, and yet
no answer is forthcoming? What are we to do? Now after talking about
prayer already, in
the Sermon on the Mount saying that we should not pray like the show off
hypocrites of that time, the Lord continues his instruction by telling a
story here in chapter 7 saying,
“Ask
and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door
will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; the one who
seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened. “Which
of you, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he
asks for a fish, will give him a snake? If you, then, though you are
evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will
your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!”
Luke records it a little different, Read: Luke 11:5-13 (click on link)
I like Luke’s account because he recalls
this story that Jesus told about the man coming to his friends house
with a request. Both accounts are still meant to teach the same lesson. So what is Jesus attempting to teach us by
telling us this story, this parable? Just like in Matthew 7, Jesus
instructs us to ASK, SEEK, and KNOCK. And if we approach Father God and ask, seek, and knock, something is going to happen. Those who seek will find. Those who ask will be answered, and those who knock, doors will be opened. But then Jesus goes on and tries to help clarify this by giving these two illustrations.
First of all, the one where a friend comes banging on someone’s door in the middle of the night.
“Then
he said to them, “Suppose one of you has a friend, and he goes to him
at midnight and says, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves of bread, because a
friend of mine on a journey has come to me, and I have nothing to set
before him…”
In order to understand this parable we need
to understand a few things about first century culture. First of all,
food was not as readily available as it is today. There were of course,
no 24 hour stores to run to. Therefore enough bread was baked each day
for the needs of that day. Now it was also an accepted rule of
hospitality that a visitor should be welcomed and cared for, regardless
of the hour of his arrival. In order to avoid the intense midday heat,
people often traveled in the evening and after dark. A traveler arriving
near midnight was not uncommon.
Here is the dilemma. This
poor unprepared host has a late arriving guest who is hungry after a
long and exhausting journey and it is his duty as host to provide a
meal, but he has no bread. And not to provide for his guest’s would not
only bring shame upon himself and his family but to the village as a
whole. But what was one to do if he had nothing to serve? Well he’d
probably go to a friend’s house regardless of the time and to ask for
his help. And this was possibly something they would all have considered
doing if they had to.
The rest of the story speaks of this tension, as Jesus continues the story in verse seven,
“…7 “Then
the one inside answers, ‘Don’t bother me. The door is already locked,
and my children are with me in bed. I can’t get up and give you
anything.’
Even today it is easy to understand this
man’s reluctance to help his friend. Anyone who has ever wrestled to get
children into bed, understands this man’s unwillingness to do anything
that will wake them. But since the whole family slept in the same room,
to get up and meet this man’s needs was a real inconvenience. The man
inside the house initial refused the request; friendship alone was not a
sufficient reason to upset the whole household. Ultimately, the
reluctant friend got up and gave his neighbor what he needed. Why? For
one reason only, the persistence of the man making the request.
Jesus is not comparing God to a sleepy,
selfish and angry neighbor. He is contrasting the two. He is telling the
disciples that if a neighbor can be persuaded to meet the needs of a
friend, how much more will your FATHER in heaven meet the needs of His
children.
And likewise the second illustration is similar.
“Which of you, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone? 10
Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? If you, then, though
you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much
more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!”
So what can we learn from Jesus here?
#1. I believe that Jesus
is letting us know, without a doubt that prayer is important.
Not just
prayers of thanksgiving and praise, which I believe that God deserves to
hear from us every day, Jesus lets us know that all right to ask God for things we need. As
a matter of fact it seems as though He
wants and expects us to ask. Doesn’t every father or mother expect their
children to ask of them? In doing so a child express their confidence
in their parent helping them with their need as well as show the comfort
they have in that relationship. Many times we won’t ask of strangers
but we have no problem asking of someone we love and trust. Same is
true when we ask of God. God not only expects his children to ask, it is
also a sigh of how much we love and trust Him.
#2. The second thing I see here is that Jesus seems to be
indicating that there should be some degree of persistence as one asks
of God.
It wasn’t because it was the man’s friend
at the door that he got up out of bed to give him bread. Rather the text
says in verse 8 that it was because of the man’s boldness or otherwise
translated, ‘persistence’ in other versions. It’s the only time the
original Greek word used here for persistence appears in the entire New
Testament. The Greek word carries the idea of “shamelessness.”
The text tells us that the man who came
making the request was without shame, persistent and bold, as he
continued pleading and pounding on the door until his friend responded. Maybe the reason for our failure in prayer
is that we have not been persistent enough. We haven’t been beating on
God’s door asking and seeking enough.
#3. And that leads to the
next thought. We may wonder, ‘What gives us the right to come boldly or
shamelessly come to God with our needs.’
Maybe this little story will
help:
A Roman emperor traveled down the
street in his chariot as a part of a parade, Cheering people lined the
streets while the legionnaires were stationed to keep the people at a
safe distance. The emperor’s family sat on a platform to watch him go by
in all the pride of his position. As the emperor came near the place
where his family was stationed, a young boy jumped from the platform,
burrowed through the crowd, and tried to dodge a legionnaire so he could
run to the emperor’s chariot. The soldier stopped him and said, “You
cannot go near him.” The boy laughed, then said; “He may be your emperor
but he is my father.” Then he ran into his father’s open arms.”
The writer of Hebrew reminds us as
believer’s that because our high priest Jesus Christ is seated at the
right hand of the Father in Heaven, we can “come boldly before the
throne of grace” (Hebews 4:14-16). We have no need to fear because we are children of the King of kings. Over and over we see that if Jesus wanted
to communicate anything it was that God is not some kind of distant, all
powerful, impersonal deity. Rather God is our abba Father who art in
heaven and Holy is his name. From the very beginning HE wanted sons and
daughters that would be His children.
Listen to what the apostle Paul in Ephesians 1:3-6
“All
praise to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us
with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms because we are
united with Christ. 4 Even before He made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in His eyes. God decided in advance to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ.
This is what he wanted to do, and it gave him great pleasure. So we
praise God for the glorious grace he has poured out on us who belong to
his dear Son.” NLT
As a son, and a daughter you have every right to plead to your Father in heaven, and I believe he expects us to do so.
I believe another thing we see here in the text is that…
#4 WE ARE TO PRAY EXPECTANTLY
From the first story we learned that God
does answer prayer, and from this second analogy we learn that His
answers are always good ones. Because God is a good God, a loving
heavenly Father, He can be expected not only to answer our prayers, but
in answer them in such a way that they will be for our highest good.
(Romans 8:28) The bottom line of the whole matter is now given in Matt.
7:10,
If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!”
Now I believe that as we keep asking and seeking, part of this seeking
is seeking to discover what God’s will is in the matter. I don’t think
God will put things into our
hands until we’re ready or He first prepares our hearts. God has a plan
and we need to accept His timing and plan. Someone has said it this
way,
“The greatest blessing of prayer is not just getting an answer but being the kind of person that God can trust with the answer.”
And sometime that answer will be a “NO.” Today I want to remind you that you have a Father in Heaven who does care for your needs. He wants you to ask, seek, and knock with persistence and expectation.
We need to be reminded that He isn’t being mean by having us wait for
what we ask for, nor is He being cruel by saying no. Rather, like a
perfectly loving parent we need to trust Him, not only trust Him in His
timing and but also trust His judgments as well. I pray that you can
have that kind of relationship with Him.
(Based a little on a sermon by John Hamby)
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