Good morning, everybody. We're going to attempt to... Where was I? Oh, Matthew 7. 7 through 11. We're going to attempt to understand that today. As with our previous passage, Some do not see a clear connection necessarily with these verses in the preceding context, but I think anyone who's been digesting what Jesus has been saying thus far in the Sermon on the Mount can readily see a connection. I think people that struggle to see connections don't study the passage very well, frankly. For example, the requirement to confront sin in a brother which we saw in verses one through five, and to discern when and when not to share the truth, which is what we focused on last week in verse six, requires a kind of humility and love and wisdom that we don't naturally possess. So it's no wonder to me that Jesus reminds us next of the importance of persistent prayer. It seems to me that he assumes such prayer is necessary, given the responsibilities that he's been setting before us. That we can't possibly live out the kind of righteousness he's been describing, a genuine righteousness, a righteousness that is greater than that of the scribes and Pharisees. A righteousness which depends upon the work of the Holy Spirit in one's heart. In the first place, we can't live this out without continually relying on the power of the Spirit and without constant prayer, through such prayer that we receive the aid and pardon that we need in order to properly deal with others, whether they're our brothers in Christ or whether they're unbelievers. So I think all this becomes apparent as we read the passage before us this morning, or at least I hope it will. I'm gonna begin in verse one. and then read through verse 11, and then we'll pray and focus our attention on verses seven through 11. Our Lord Jesus says, judge not that you be not judged, for with what judgment you judge, you will be judged. And with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you. And why do you look at the speck in your brother's eye, but do not concentrate, or excuse me, consider the plank in your own eye. Or how can you say to your brother, remove the speck from your eye, and look, a plank is in your own eye. Hypocrite, first remove the plank from your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye. Do not give what is holy to the dogs, nor cast your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you in pieces. And we saw last week that Jesus is assuming that even if we do everything right and we confront a brother or sister with humility and love in our hearts, that doesn't guarantee that they'll respond in a positive way. And he's preparing us for a very negative response indeed. And there comes a point which he's teaching us, as we saw last week, you just don't continue to address those people. You move on. And all this takes a kind of wisdom, as we saw last week, that is not natural to us. So no wonder he goes on to say, in verse seven, 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 he who seeks finds. To him who knocks, it will be opened. For 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, we'll give him a serpent. If you then, being 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? Therefore, whatever you want men to do to you, do also to them, for this is the law and the prophets. Let's take a moment to pray. Holy Father, I first of all just wanna thank you for your great love for us, for sending your son Jesus to die on the cross for our sins, for his perfectly sinless life, for his resurrection, for his ascension to your right hand, and for his intercession for us even now. For all of us who know you, we just thank you, Lord, for what he's done for us. And I want to personally thank you, Lord, that though I came in here with a heavy burden on my heart and tired and worn out and a little bit grouchy, you lifted the burden from me. And I thank you for that. And you brought peace to my heart. And now I pray that you'll just help me to have focus and energy and strength and clarity of mind so that I can teach your word as it should be taught. and that you'll fill me with your spirit to that end. And Lord, I pray you'll fill us all with your spirit and with understanding so that we can grasp what our Lord Jesus wants us to learn from his words, so that we might become more like him. I ask these things in the name of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, amen. There's an August 1990, one entry of Today in the Word, which relates this story. Probably apocryphal, but it's a good story anyway. It says, among those in the court of Alexander the Great was a philosopher of outstanding ability, but little money. He asked Alexander for financial help and was told to draw whatever he needed from the imperial treasury. But when the man requested an amount equal to $50,000, today's money, he was refused, the treasurer needing to verify that such a large sum was authorized. When he asked Alexander, the ruler replied, pay the money at once. The philosopher has done me a singular honor. By the largeness of his request, he shows that he has understood both my wealth and my generosity. Now, whether that's true or not, I think it illustrates an interesting point and leads me to ask myself and all of you this morning, do we have a similar attitude when we approach God, the king of all the universe, in prayer? Do our requests honor him as the king that he is? Do they honor him as the creator of all the universe? Do they approach him as the one who is rich and can provide all that we need. Do they reflect both his great spiritual wealth and his generosity? Is one of the reasons perhaps that we don't pray and ask for more is because maybe we don't either believe that he can give it or that he wants to. These are the kinds of things I think we should think about as we approach the text this morning because they might get to the heart of why maybe sometimes we don't pray as much as we should or would if we really, really believe these things like we should. If any of us do struggle in this way, I hope this morning you'll get some help from our Lord Jesus as we focus our attention upon two essential truths that he teaches about prayer in this passage. The first is that we must be constant in our praying, and the second is that we must be confident in our praying. First of all, we see that we must be constant in our praying, in verse seven, when Jesus says, ask, and this is a present tense in the Greek, And I believe Jesus was speaking Greek, actually, when he said this. I know there are some scholars, probably not as many as there used to be, that claim that Jesus always taught in Aramaic, and that what we have in the Gospels is translations. And there are times when he did speak Aramaic, and the Gospels reflect that and translate it for us, things like Talat ha-Pum and things like that. Eli, Eloi, Lama Sabachthani on the cross. I believe he taught in Greek most of the time. That was the one language he could be sure everyone in every crowd would understand. And so I think when he chose to use this present tense, it was his choice, not a translator's choice. Even it was a translator's choice, it was getting at the heart of Jesus' intent, right? Talking about an ongoing, a persistent action. So it's not just the context that indicates he means an ongoing, a persistent action, but it's the very grammar that he's using that indicates that, is what I'm saying. Ask and it will be given to you. You could take it as keep on asking. Same thing with seek. Seek and you will find. Knock and it will be open to you. That Jesus wants us to be constant in our praying, praying with passion and persistence, can be seen in two ways, and I've already highlighted one of them. At first, it's in his use of this present imperative in each instance indicating this ongoing action, this keep on asking, this keep on seeking, this keep on knocking attitude that he wants us to have. And one other way we know that our Lord Jesus does indeed want these verbs to be taken this way can also be seen in the way he illustrates his meaning when giving an almost identical teaching on another occasion. And this is related to us by Luke. In Luke chapter 11, verses five through nine, where in this other teaching, where he uses the same kind of language, he brings it out even more forcefully in the context. When he says in Luke 11, beginning at verse five, Which of you shall have a friend and go to him at midnight and say to him, friend, lend me three loaves. For a friend of mine has come to me in his journey and I have nothing to say before him. And he will answer him from within and say, do not trouble me, the door is now shut and my children are with me in bed. I cannot rise and give to you. I say to you, though he will not rise and give to him because he is his friend, yet because of his persistence, he will rise and give him as many as he needs. So I say to you, ask, again that present imperative, and it will be given to you. Seek, and you will find. Knock, and it will be opened to you. There where he gave this teaching, he did it in a context where he made it clear that he intends us to be persistent. And the idea behind that teaching is even if our grouchy neighbor that we woke up in the middle of the night, who is our friend, won't give us what we want because he's tired and it's the middle of the night, if we keep knocking on the door and keep on asking, he's gonna get up and give us what we want. And the implication is a lesser to the greater argument. If our grouchy friend at midnight will give us what we need if we keep on asking, surely God who loves us will do so. Surely the God who never sleeps and is never grouchy at us will do so. That's the implication. So there can be no doubt that Jesus used the present tense in order to indicate persistence in asking and seeking and knocking, right? That's his intention. He doesn't want us to give up in our praying, to quit. Secondly, we see an emphasis on constancy in the progression of intensity in the verbs asking, seeking, and then knocking. But one commentator named Richard Glover suggests that a child, if his mother is near and visible, asks. If she is neither, he seeks. While if she is inaccessible in her room, he knocks. I think Glover gets the metaphoric language of Jesus about right here when he assumes that there's a progression here. First, we're to keep on asking, which is what we do when we're certain that the one that we're imploring is near and can hear us. The second word, to keep on seeking, which expects an action on our part, right? We have to actively look for the one we're imploring. This means that we're not just gonna ask God, but we're gonna want to be closer to him. We're going to want to draw near to him. In other words, you can ask something of someone that you don't even particularly like. that you don't particularly even want to be with. But Jesus wants us to be the kind of people when we ask God, we want to be with him. We're asking him because he's our father and we have a relationship with him. This is what seeking is about. You seek out someone you love and you want to be with. So he wants us to pray with an attitude, right, of a personal relationship is what he's saying. Third, we're to keep on knocking, which expects further action after having located the one we're imploring. It pictures us as persistently banging on the door to get the person's attention. There are times when, no matter how much we ask and seek to draw near to the Lord, there are gonna be times we don't feel like He's hearing us. It's not true. He's always hearing us. What do we do then? We're like the person who bangs hard. and doesn't give up. We just keep banging on the door. This is the kind of imagery Jesus has in mind. And he's telling us this is what God wants from us. I think all of this teaches us just how passionately we should persist in prayer. The more we may feel that God is distant because we've already been persistent in asking, right? the more we are to seek Him. And sometimes when we feel like maybe God's not hearing me, we quit praying. And Jesus says, no, that's the time to keep on praying because He wants you to. There's something good for us in having to wait on the Lord to seek Him. And God wants that good for us. Our Lord Jesus wants that good for us. And many of us don't find out how good that is because we give up too quickly. We don't know the joys of having had to wait on the Lord, maybe for a long time sometimes. And what comes from learning to wait on the Lord because we quit, we give up. He doesn't want that. He always has our best in mind. Every command our Lord Jesus ever gives us is for our good. It's out of love that he gives these commands. Remember what the author of Hebrews wrote to the Christians who'd been suffering, and they'd been suffering persecution for some time when he wrote them. Pastor George did a good job of bringing this out when he taught through Hebrews. Those of you who are here know how much joy there was going through that with him. But in Hebrews 11.6 he writes that without faith it is impossible to please him. For he who comes to God must believe that he is and that he is a rewarder of those who diligently seek him. The NIV here has earnestly seek. It's a little bit different word here than Jesus used. He used the word zetao, which means to seek. There's this word exetao that's used by the author of Hebrews. That ex on the front is a bit of an intensifier. And there are a number of lexicons that bring that out, that it means not just to seek, but to earnestly or diligently seek. The point here is that God, again, wants us to pray this way. When we pray this way, we're showing not only that we believe that He's there, but that He wants to reward our prayers. He wants to answer our prayers. Again, how little or how often How passionately we pray and persist in prayer indicates what we really believe about God. It's one thing, you can have a perfect theology. Your prayer life will show whether or not you believe it. And that's just the truth of the matter. Show me a Christian. who has perfectly orthodox theology and hardly ever prays, and I'll show you a Christian that doesn't really believe most of what he says that he believes. Because if he did, he'd pray a lot. And he'd pray with persistence. On another note, have you ever thought that what you pray about most may reflect what is most important to you? that what you persist in praying about demonstrates to God what you care most about. As David Gusek has put it, God promises an answer to the one who diligently seeks Him. Many of our dispassionate prayers are not answered for good reason because it is almost as if we ask God to care about something we care little or nothing about ourselves. He might be onto something there. When we stop to think about it like that, it can be very revealing and also very convicting, can't it? Perhaps each one of us should further ask of himself or herself, do the things I pray most passionately and persistently for reflect what God is most concerned about? If I added up all the prayers I prayed this past week, Would they, if I looked to scripture and looked at what God wants for me and what he cares about most for me and those around me, would they reflect his concerns or not? It's another very good question to ask ourselves, isn't it? As we think about praying, why we do or don't pray persistently. Kent Hughes makes a similar point when he writes this, we naturally persevere in our prayers when someone close to us is sick. If one of our children becomes ill, we pray without ceasing. Likewise, if we are in financial trouble, or if we are hoping for a promotion, or if we have a frightening or dangerous task ahead of us, we generally find it easy to pray. But do we persist in prayers for spiritual growth for ourselves or for others? Do we ask, seek, knock for a pure mind? Do we keep on knocking for a forgiving spirit or for the removal of an angry or critical spirit? I think that Christians usually do not. Consider what would happen if God's people understood what Christ is saying here and put it to work. I would argue that the kinds of things he's bringing up there are the very sorts of spiritual things that we ought to pray for the most and that we can be most confident that God will grant us if we pray for them. So I say the answer is an emphatic yes. We should pray for these things. And this leads us to our next main point. And only should we be constant in our praying. We've gotten into some of why we may or may not be constant in our praying about some things, but we also must be confident in our praying. As Martin Luther once remarked, we think that God is so great and we are so tiny that we do not dare to pray. That is why Christ wants to lure us away from such timid thoughts to remove our doubts and to have us go ahead confidently and boldly. We're just saying, and can it be, bold I approach the eternal throne and claim the crown through Christ my own, right? How can we boldly approach the eternal throne? Well, early in the song, it's because Jesus died for us, that's why, and he rose again, and we have his righteousness, clothed in righteousness divine. One of the reasons we like to sing that hymn is the whole gospel's in there, right? We should have confidence. I agree with old Martin. that our Lord Jesus wants to lure us away from such timid thoughts and to give us confidence to pray. Sometimes some of us don't pray confidently because we just think, you know, why would God of the universe wanna hear from me? We gotta go back and rehearse the gospel if we think that way. And we have to be reminded that we need the gospel every day to get our minds right. Jesus, I think, wants us to be confident of at least two facts. One, that God will indeed answer our prayers. And two, that he will always answer our prayers in a manner that is best for us. And first of all, we need to be confident that God will answer our prayers. And this should be evident as we read again verse seven and then verse eight, where he says, ask and it will be given to you. Seek and you will find, knock and it will be opened, For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened. So there you have it. Jesus has stressed it three different ways. Three different ways he said that we can and must be confident that God will answer our prayers. And then he repeated all three of these ways two times. The asking he repeats twice, seeking he repeats twice, Finding he repeats twice. God will, will, will answer our prayers. That's what he's saying. And we can be supremely confident of this. But this raises a very important question. And that is, will God answer any and all prayers? Will he give us absolutely anything we ask of him so long as we just keep on asking? Isn't that a good question? There are seemingly countless, name it and claim it, prosperity gospel preachers around these days that would say yes in answer to that question. But we're gonna see that a truly biblical answer is no. God, won't give us absolutely anything we receive or that we ask for. We won't receive anything, just anything at all. And we can see this not only from the immediate context of the passage, but also from the context of the rest of scripture. We're gonna see that Jesus is presupposing when he says this, that we're asking for the right kinds of things. We get yeses when we ask for the right kinds of things and nos when we ask for the wrong kinds of things from God. But remember earlier in the context of the Sermon on the Mount, what's informing what Jesus is saying here, if we take it in context? What are the kinds of things, given what he's already taught, that he expects we'll want to ask for if we have a righteousness that is greater than the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees? If we're the kind of people that are described in the Beatitudes, if we're genuine believers who care first and foremost about the righteousness of God being revealed in us, rather than being hypocrites and so forth. What are the kinds of things he's assuming we'll want to ask for? We'll back up to the prayer he gave us that was prayed this morning by our brother Marlon at the beginning of the service. In Matthew 6, 9 through 13, Jesus says, in this manner, therefore pray, our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. That's one thing he wants us to pray for. We should know that when we get to this teaching in chapter seven. Right? Your kingdom come. We should be praying for that. Pray for that, and you know God's gonna be answering that, yes. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. That should be informing all of our praying. And if it does, and we keep on asking and seeking and knocking, we're gonna find that we keep on receiving what we're asking for. This is all praying for God's glory as we saw when we went through the prayer. Give us this day our daily bread. Our needs, not our greeds as we saw when we went through that passage. Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. Debts there being a euphemism for sins. Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us. If we're praying that God will forgive those around us and forgive us and make us forgiving people, we can expect a yes in answer to that prayer. because that's what he wants for us. It's not like Jesus hasn't given us a clue here about the kinds of things we ought to be praying for and for which we can expect answers of yes, yes, yes from God. He's been very clear about the kinds of things we should be praying for. Oh, and do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. God wants us to pray that and he wants to say yes in answer to it. And sometimes we struggle and we have to keep on asking and seeking and knocking to find spiritual victories, don't we? But we can be confident if we keep on asking and seeking and knocking that we'll find them. For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever, amen. Back to the glory of God. If you're praying for his glory, you think he's gonna say no? I don't wanna be glorified in you? No, the whole point of our being saved is that he'll be glorified in us. So all prayer is to be focused ultimately upon the glory of God and the advancement of his kingdom. And even when we pray for our own needs, this should be in view of the glory of God and his will being done and his kingdom being advanced. I want my needs met because I care about God's glory, not just because I care about myself. That's the attitude we're supposed to have. This is the kind of praying that Jesus has in mind when we come to the verses before us this morning. Also, we've just read some things that he wants us to be praying about, I think, in verses one through six. Be not judged, for with what judgment you judge, you will be judged, and with what measure you use, it will be measured back to you. Why do you look at the speck in your brother's eye, but do not consider the plank in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, let me remove the speck from your eye, and look, a plank is in your own eye. What should we be praying for, asking for, seeking, knocking about? That we won't be hypocrites, that we'll have humility, that we'll be able to see our own sins, and then we'll correctly be able to see the sins in a brother or sister and actually be able to help them rather than hurt them. through our self-righteous, holier-than-thou attitude that we might be tempted to have? These are the kinds of things we should be praying about. Lord, give me wisdom to know when and when not to confront. Verse six, you're not cast your what is holy to the dogs or cast your pearls before swine. How do I know when those opportunities, how do I know when I should judge that I shouldn't confront anymore? I don't have enough wisdom to know that usually. These are the kinds of things I should be praying for. So we learn from the context the types of prayers we should be praying, the kinds of things we ought to be praying for. And so we should assume when we come to the passage before us this morning that these are the kinds of things that Jesus has in mind that we'll be praying when he says what he says. He certainly doesn't expect we're gonna pray like, Lord, make me a better sinner. Help me sin more. You think he's gonna say yes to that? You think Jesus had in mind you could pray for just anything you wanted to, and he's gonna say yes to it? Really? No. You have to lift this completely out of context to come up with nonsense like that. And of course, that's what false teachers do, and that's why there's so much nonsense out there like that. As we've already seen, these commands lead up to Jesus' teaching here on constant and confident praying. And he's given us commands that require self-examination. It's no wonder you can read the Psalms, Lord, show me my faults. Search me and try me and see if there's any wicked way in me. That's the way you gotta pray before you confront sin in someone else, right? Humility, sensitivity, love, great wisdom as well. These are the kinds of things that God wants us to pray for, and that we can pray for with confidence. If we want to be the kind of Christ-like people the sermon has demanded of us, and if we want God to meet our needs, both physical and spiritual, to that end, and if we ask him for such things, then we can be supremely confident that he's going to give us what we ask for. That's what we learn in the context here. But then there's the rest of scripture, which adds to this. If we didn't have any more Bible, we'd already know everything I just said, and we'd know how to properly understand what Jesus says. But we have a lot more scripture, and I'm gonna bring in a few passages from the rest of scripture. A couple of them from James, for example. James says in James 1.5, if any of you lacks wisdom, boy, we all do, Let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him. Now, in the context he's talking about asking for wisdom, he's talking about trials, and how we should count it all joy in our trials, and understand the purpose of our trials, and bringing about perseverance, and patience, and making them more like Christ. It's in that context he says we should pray for wisdom, right? But you could apply this to any context that you're in, right? One of the reasons James assumes that we don't go through our trials like we should and honor Christ in them like we should is that we don't have the wisdom to see our trials in the light that we should. So he teaches us that wisdom and he says that if you lack it, ask God and he'll give it to you. It's another way of saying, you'll understand what I'm talking about then, right? Go back and read James 1 and you'll see what I mean. In James 4, In verses two and three, he says, yet you do not have because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, he says, because you ask amiss that you may spend it on your pleasures. Jesus says, keep on asking and seeking and knocking and you'll receive, but not if you just want it for selfish purposes, not if you're just praying selfishly and all you care about is yourself. So James is saying there's two reasons we don't receive from God. One, we don't ask. It's not that we don't keep on asking, it's that we don't ask at all, very often, for what we ought to be asking for, like wisdom, to know how to get through trials and so forth. Instead we just complain or something, or get depressed. So that's one thing, you don't ask. But the other reason is that when you do ask, you're asking for purely selfish motives. You don't care what God wants. You want only what you want. Okay, well, you don't receive them. Now he knows full well what Jesus taught when he wrote this, right? And the fact that he wrote this shows that he understood full well what Jesus taught, in context, as we've already seen. Imagine the audacity and the spiritual blindness one must have to ask God to feed their own selfish, sinful desires and expect that he should do it. How can such people dare to think that he'll answer their prayers as though he is their great credit card in the sky or the divine government agency that exists to subsidize their sin, right? That's the way some people approach God. They don't give him even as much honor as that old philosopher gave to Alexander, if that story is true. E. Stanley Jones has observed, prayer is surrender. Surrender to the will of God in cooperation with that will. If I throw out a boat hook from the boat and catch hold of the shore and pull, do I pull the shore to me? Or do I pull myself to the shore? Prayer is not pulling God to my will, but the aligning of my will with the will of God. And there are some people who pray as though they're in a boat and they're pulling the shore to them, which is nonsense. I think that's correct, what E. Stanley Jones writes there. All prayer should be pulling us to God. And it coincides with what the Apostle John wrote in his first epistle. In 1 John 5, 14 and 15, he writes this. Now this is the confidence that we have in him, that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. Notice what he said, if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. It's right in line with Jesus' prayer. your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. That governs everything we pray for. John, who heard Jesus said that, is reflecting that he understood what he meant here, right? This is the confidence that we have in him, the kind of confidence Jesus was talking about in the text before us this morning. This is the confidence that we have in him, that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know that he hears us, whatever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we have asked of him. That's just another way of saying what Jesus taught. So one of the reasons I know that I understand correctly what Jesus meant in the context in which he said it, is James and John both understood it that way. So I have to be right. In fact, I already knew what they said when I studied that pastor. So they already helped me along the way to know what to look for. And of course, if we want to know what God's will is for our lives, then we have no better place to look than in the Sermon on the Mount or the rest of scriptures. Remember, at the very heart of the sermon is Jesus' command in chapter five, verse 16 of Matthew, let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven. That principle guides our prayer. We're gonna find that we have a very fruitful prayer life. Can any of us imagine passionately persisting in prayer that we might live lives filled with good works that glorify God and then having God say no? You think he'll ever say no to a bad prayer? Of course not. It's his purpose for us. It's the very best thing for us to live such lives, which leads to the next point. Not only must we be confident that God will answer our prayers, but secondly, we must be confident that God will answer our prayers in a manner that is best for us. I think that's implied in what Jesus says in verses nine and 10. Or, Jesus says, and you could understand that or this way, to put it another way, what man is there among you who, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or to put it another way, if he asks for a fish, we'll give him a serpent. Jesus is using these absurd examples here to drive home the point that it is absurd to think that God will not lovingly answer our prayers. That in answer to our prayers, he won't give us what's best for us. It's nonsense to think that. He's not gonna give us a serpent. He's not like the father who'd give a serpent to a kid who asked for a fish. If we're hungry and we want a fish, and our earthly father gave us a snake, he'd be a hateful, not very loving father, right? But God's not like that. He will do what's best for us, not what's worse for us. Kent Hughes, I think, may be on the right track in capturing the point of these examples when he writes this. In the Galilean setting for the giving of the Sermon on the Mount, the people were familiar with the flat stones by the shore that looked exactly like their round, flat cakes of bread, and with fish, more likely eels, that looked very much like snakes. Can you imagine your son coming to tell you he's hungry, and you give him a stone instead of bread? Here, son, enjoy, you say, mockingly as he cracks his teeth. Oh, you didn't like that? Here, have a fish, and you give him a harmful snake or eel. None of us would be so cruel. And it would be absurd to think so, but that's exactly the point Jesus is making. If it would be absurd to think that any of us would normally do such a thing, then how much more absurd would it be to think so of God? That's his point. It then goes on to say in verse 11, if you then, being 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? Not bad things, good things. If an evil human being can manage to love their children enough to give them good things rather than things that will harm them, then surely God, in whom there is no evil at all, will give his children only what is best for them, good things. And notice that Jesus assumes here again that we will be asking for and thus receiving good things, not bad things. It's not just that God will only give us good things. He's assuming that we'll only be asking for those things. as well, as we've already seen. This reinforces the point that we can have confidence in his giving us what we ask for when we ask according to his will. When we look again at the other occasion in which Jesus gave the same kind of teaching, we find that he offers an example of something good that we can pray for and receive from the Father. Go back to Luke 11, verses nine through 13. where Jesus says this. So I say to you, 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 he who seeks finds and to him who knocks it will be opened. If a son asked for bread from any father among you, will he give him a stone? Or if he asked for a fish, will he give him a serpent instead of a fish? Or if he asked for an egg, will he give him a scorpion? If you then being evil know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him? He doesn't say good things, he says the Holy Spirit. The supreme example of a good thing to ask for. Right? More of the Holy Spirit in my life. It's the best good gift we can ask of the Father and receive from Him. It's what we ask for every Sunday morning. Lord, fill us with your Holy Spirit so we can understand your word. Can't ask for anything better than that. The person who asks for the Holy Spirit, by the way, is the person who's really seeking God. that seeking part, because it's through the Holy Spirit that we come to know Him better. With the Holy Spirit comes a new heart, salvation through union with Christ, power to overcome sin. So when Jesus was thinking of an example of a good thing to ask for, They asked the Father for, with confidence that we can receive it. What better thing to ask for than the presence of the Holy Spirit? You can't get any better than that. Of course, those of us who know Christ have already received the Holy Spirit, because without the Holy Spirit, we wouldn't be Christians at all. But we can still ask for a greater filling of the Holy Spirit in our lives and for greater power to live for Christ and to overcome sin through the power of the Holy Spirit. And we can ask with the knowledge that the one who has saved us from sin and death will also give us all that we need to live for him. Remember what the Apostle Paul said in Romans 8, verses 31 and 32? after having described in his epistle the glories of justification and propitiation and redemption, sanctification and the progress of sanctification in our lives, and assured us that God has chosen us for salvation and will keep us to the end. He says in Romans 8, 31, what then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him, that is his son that he's given us, also freely give us all things? And in the context of Romans, what are the all things? All these promises of salvation, including the ultimate one, glorification. When one day we'll, in the resurrection, be like Christ fully. as far as human beings we can be. Over 200 years ago, John Newton wrote this hymn. Come my soul, the case prepare, Jesus loves to answer prayer. He himself has bid thee pray, therefore will not say thee nay. thou art coming to a king, large petitions with thee bring. For his grace and power are such, none can ever ask too much. He understood what Jesus was talking about. For those who have not yet come to faith in Christ, I pray that the Spirit will give you a new heart and bring conviction of sin and open your eyes to the truth of the gospel. And I implore you to think of the words of Jeremiah, Jeremiah 29, 13, and you will seek me and find me when you search for me with all your heart. Have you asked God to show himself to you? If you've not yet trusted in Christ, have you ever asked God to show himself to you? If so, then consider that he's answered your prayer by making sure that you are here today. That it's not an accident that you're here today. Where you can hear the truth. Jesus was born of the Virgin Mary. He lived as one who was fully God and fully man in one person in some mysterious way that we cannot fathom. He lived a perfectly righteous life. He never even thought a sinful thought, let alone said a sinful thing or did a sinful deed. There was no impurity or wickedness in him at all. He perfectly kept the laws, something we couldn't do for ourselves. And He died as the perfect sacrifice for our sins. He died in our place and God poured out His wrath on Christ. And when we trust in Christ, His righteousness gets counted as our own. In that happy exchange where He takes all our sins on Himself He puts into our account His own righteousness. And Jesus rose from the dead, and He is alive forevermore. And you know what He's doing for all those who know Him? He's interceding at the Father's right hand for them, always, as their Great High Priest. And He's preparing a place for us. So that when we die, or if He comes back taken to be with Him, or in the resurrection, will be made fully like Him and live in a new heavens and a new earth with Him forever, where there'll be no more crying, there'll be no more dying, there'll be no more sin, we'll finally be perfectly free from sin forever. That's the gospel. That's what God in his providence assured that you'd be here to hear today. So ask. Ask him to save you by his grace. And he will say yes. Seek him. You will find him. Knock. He will open the door of salvation to you. because you're asking and seeking and knocking for the right thing, you can be confident He will give it to you. Let's pray. Holy Father, I hope that I've been able to bring out what's going on here in this passage in a way that is in line not only with the context but the rest of scripture and with your mind, your heart for us. I hope that's been reflected adequately in my efforts to teach it today. I thank you, Lord, that even in our weakness, you are strong. And that if we just stick to your truth, you will speak through it. You will not cause your word to return void once you sent it out. And we thank you for that. Lord, I thank you for helping me today. I pray for everyone here that we might leave here encouraged to be prayer warriors, to ask for big things from you, the kind of big things you want us to ask for. And Lord, I pray for anyone who's not come to know you that today he or she will simply ask for the free gift of salvation in Christ. recognizing that they cannot earn it for themselves. It is a gift. And you're anxious to give it. We ask all these things in the name of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen. Thank you once again for your kind attention.