… But, anyway, we are kind of re-hashing because this is getting towards the end of the Sermon on the Mount and just to kind of review where we have been and what brings us to this point, starting in chapter 5- the Sermon started before that- but starting in verse 17, He starts to give this exposition of what righteousness is and how we can be righteous and how we can fulfill the law and whatnot. He has covered a lot of different topics; He has talked about different sin issues like adultery and murder, and He has talked about different interpersonal relationships- loving those around us, and loving those who hate you, and being generous to people, and whatnot; and then different motivations of what you should be seeking after – attaining wealth versus treasures in heaven – those types of things.
And kind of a big theme, or similarity, that runs through the whole thing is this heart issue and that a lot of it is based on your motives and not necessarily the very thing that you are doing. And so, I’ll get into that a little bit here on prayer today, but just kind of a background, remembering that that is what is kind of the focus throughout much of this sermon that He is giving is: what is going on in the heart rather than the actual actions or the words that you say, or things like that.
In this section, it’s talking about praying and specifically about prayers of supplication. There are lots of different types of prayer, but this is asking God for something. We can thank God in prayer, and we can praise Him, and we can repent and different things, but specifically in the context, He is talking about asking God for things. So, don’t think that because that is what I’m talking about, that those other types of prayers are not important. They are. But this is what the context is talking about.
All that is just kind of like a background for where we’re coming at this for today.
I’m going to just read the section. It is chapter 7, verses 7 through 12. And this is the NIV; Rob uses the NASB. A lot of people call it the “Not Inspired Version,” but that’s what I use, so bear with me.
“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! So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.”
So, let’s go ahead and pray.
God, thank you for this Scripture that we have to read and to study. Thank you that we can come to You with all of our needs; that we can seek You and find You and that You have promised to listen to our prayers. God, thank you that You are a good Father and You are willing to listen to our prayers; and I pray that right now, as we’re reading it and as we’re talking about it and studying, that Your Spirit will open up to us where each of us, individually, need to improve or to grow in this matter. Let your Spirit speak to us and draw us closer to You this morning. In Jesus name we pray.
Okay, so, at the beginning, verses 7 and 8: “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.” Seems pretty straightforward.
The first one we will just start out with: Ask. What does that mean? It means if you have something that you want from God, that you would like God to do for you, or you would like God to help out or teach you or whatever, you have to askGod. Simple. “God, please give me a job. I need a job in order to support my family.” Or “God, please save my friend, Susie, who is an unbeliever.” Whatever it is that we need from God, we need to bring that to His attention. And because that is the means- prayer is the means, a lot of time, that He has chosen to do things- God knows already what we need. We don’t have to tell him because He knows everything, but a lot of times God just waits for us to ask for what it is that we need. And that is the means in order for Him to be honored through the prayer and to be glorified through all this. So, that is a simple one. Just ask for what it is we need.
Now, seek gets a little bit more in-depth. This is speaking specifically about persevering. We have this thing that we need but sometimes God doesn’t answer us on the first time, so we need to seek Him in order for Him to respond or to find out the way that He is going to respond. It’s not enough to just ask God for a job sometimes. He works through practical means and not necessarily only through miraculous ways. It is possible that you need a job and somebody will just come knock on your door and give you this wonderful job that pays a lot and that does exactly what you want to be doing and that you love and is so fulfilling. It is possible that God could do it that way, but usually He doesn’t. A lot of times He will give you a job because you prepared for it. We need to go through the training and figure out how to- for example, I’m a pharmacist. I had to go to pharmacy school in order to be a pharmacist. Or, if God is going to give you a job as a farmer, you need to do some sort of training with that, also. You can’t just hop in a combine and start harvesting. There are steps that you need, to learn how to do what you’re doing. Or, even after you have your training, then preparing for a job interview; or there are certain resources that you need, like books or a phone or a car to get there. There are things that you need in order to do this job, so you have to be able to prepare for the job also. Or maybe you want your neighbor to be saved and come to know the Lord. It is not good enough to just say, “God, save Susie.” We should also go out and seek that salvation. We should try to teach her or show her the love of Christ or evangelize, or just show how great God is in your life or whatever. Part of seeking is not just asking God over and over and over, but also taking steps to make whatever it is your asking God for, to happen. We have all heard the saying: ‘Pray as if everything depends on God, but work as if everything depends on you.’ There is really a lot of truth in that; and I know that I have a name as being a Calvinist here, but it is really is important. God uses us, not just Him doing it Himself. There are means that He ordains in order for this to happen, so we need to work and try to make these things happen.
We need to also keep in mind that God does not always answer our prayers in the ways that we expect him to. You might pray for God to- using the job idea- you might ask God for a specific job and you might have one in mind. Maybe you want to go down and work for Schmick’s Market; you go there and apply for a job and lo and behold, God has a different idea. He might want you to go work at one of the restaurants in town. And so, you go and you apply for this job down here. You don’t get it; but then you get a job at this other place because God has a reason that He wants you there, for whatever reason that might be. God still gave you the job; He still answered your prayer. But it wasn’t in the way that you expected it to happen. Just know that part of seeking is not just seeking that one specific thing, but seeking whatever God’s answer is. A lot of times that answer is different than what you expect and you just need to keep your mind open and realize that God is still answering your prayer, even though it is not in the way that you expected it to. And if you think about it, those of you who are parents, your kids may have come and asked you for something. For example, maybe Jed comes and asks me to go ride bikes with him. Well, what if I want to do something with all of our family; and two of my boys- well, one of my boys now- doesn’t ride a bike yet, very far away from the driveway. And so maybe I say, “Let’s go play Frisbee instead, because everybody can play Frisbee but not everybody can go ride bikes.” I’m still answering his question: ‘Will you hang out with me?’ essentially, it’s just not in the way he expected to.
One example of this in my life is: when I was a sophomore in High School, just shortly after I was saved, I was praying to God pretty intensely, or fervently, because I wanted to do what was right in this matter. It was coming up towards Homecoming time and I was a sophomore in high school. I didn’t have a girlfriend but I wanted to go to the dance, and I kind of had two girls in mind that I was thinking about taking. So I was trying to decide: should I take Sarah or should I take Angie? I didn’t know which one; I kind of had a crush on both of them – whatever – and I didn’t know which would be best. I was trusting God to give me the answer: which one should I take? And, lo and behold, I’m praying; and clear as day He tells me, ‘Take Karissa.’ So, here we are, 20 years later – I obeyed; I took Karissa. I was thinking to myself, “What in the world? Why would I take her?” We were not that good of friends yet. We were friends at this time, but it wasn’t long before this that I was pretty annoyed with her and she was not too impressed with me. But here we are, 20 years later, and we are still together. Praise God.
By the way, she probably forgot this, but last week was 20 years after our first date. So, praise God.
Another analogy for seeking is with marriage, or any other relationship. I say marriage because a lot of people here are married, but if you want to have a good relationship with your wife (I’ll just say wife because I’m a guy) and you want to have a good marriage and you want to love each other and you want to get along well and whatever, you don’t just sit down in the living room on your couch someday and say, “Want to have a good relationship with me?” or “Can we have a healthy relationship?” or “Can we get along?” or “Please give me satisfaction in our marriage.” This is kind of how we pray to God sometimes, like, ‘Please give me this, do this for me,’ this type of thing. But, if you want to have a good relationship with your wife, you have to find out what makes her tick. For example, Karissa; she really is blessed when I write her a note, or if I were to plan a date or things like that. And if I know these things bless her, and she is having a hard time or our marriage is going through a turbulent time or whatever, and I write her a note or I take her out on a date or I give her some alone time and just take the kids out and give her a few hours by herself; I know that when I come back, or when she sees that, she is going to be blessed; it’s going to help our marriage get better. So, seeking out what makes that marriage better is what will actually make the marriage better. It’s not just asking and expecting her to do what I want her to do without putting in some sort of effort.
Prayer is the same way. We need to not only ask God, but we need to seek out the thing that we want God to do for us or to help us out with.
And then, knock is the third one. There is some difference of opinion of what this is talking about when it is talking about knocking. In my opinion, it is coming boldly to the throne of God. When you ask, when you seek God, it is coming towards God without doubt, without vagueness; with trying to realize that God wants to hear from us and that we are actually pursuing that thing. We don’t need to worry about whether the thing we ask is too trivial or if it is something that you can do yourself. A lot of times we just don’t ask God because we think, ‘I don’t want to bother God with this thing,’ whatever it might be. But God wants us to come to Him and He wants us to come to Him boldly. He wants us to come to His door and knock on the door; not just walk by and like, ‘Oh I tried.’ But, you didn’t actually ask, you didn’t actually seek Him. You didn’t actually come to God. You just kind of made it- ‘Oh, there’s this thing out here, God…’
God doesn’t always answer on the first time, but He has promised that He will on His time. He will answer our prayers and do what is right- what’s best for us. Not necessarily the thing that we ask for, but what is best for us.
One example that is relevant to this comes from Luke 18:1-8:
“Then Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up. He said: ‘In a certain town there was a judge who neither feared God nor cared what people thought. And there was a widow in that town who kept coming to him with the plea, “Grant me justice against my adversary.” For some time he refused. But finally he said to himself, “Even though I don’t fear God or care what people think, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will see that she gets justice, so that she won’t eventually come and attack me!”
And the Lord said, ‘Listen to what the unjust judge says. And will not God bring about justice for his chosen ones, who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off? I tell you, he will see that they get justice, and quickly. However, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?’’
There are three things that I want to pull out of this regarding knocking and coming to God boldly. One is: the widow was persistent. She kept coming to him, kept knocking on his door, coming to his desk and saying, ‘Please help me out with this situation.’ It’s an example that is completely contrasted to God; God loves the person and is willing to do it and that is the point that he makes at the end: this judge didn’t care about the person but he still, even though he did not care about her, he still wanted to respond and give her the thing that she wanted, just because she was persistent and would keep on coming back and back and back and back. We see that all the time in our lives. There are certain people who are just persistent and will keep on asking over and over and over and over until you finally give in. And that’s kind of the attitude that we should have with God. Be persistent, keep on coming to Him and don’t feel like this thing is so small. She was not an important person in the world; she was just a widow and was probably marginalized by society and really had no influence to make this happen. But her persistence was enough. If we, also, come to God with that same persistence, He will answer our prayers.
And finally, for the [fourth] thing is the answer (notice at the end) to the pleading chosen ones is – will not happen until the Son of Man returns. And so, she is wanting this response and then when Jesus is giving the summary, or the theme, behind the whole parable, He is saying, ‘God will give justice to His chosen ones.’ Notice that it comes when the Son of Man returns; it is not necessarily right away. People are coming and praying to God for justice and help and it is not necessarily happening in their time frame and, in this example, it happens at the end – when the Son of Man returns. For most people, it’s not even going to be in their earthly lifetime. But God will do it in His time.
Luke 11:5-8 is kind of parallel passage to the one in Matthew that we are covering, but it has a little bit more to it, so I wanted to bring that out. It says,
“Then Jesus said to them, ‘Suppose you have a friend, and you go to him at midnight and say, “Friend, lend me three loaves of bread; a friend of mine on a journey has come to me, and I have no food to offer him.” And suppose the one inside answers, “Don’t bother me. The door is already locked, and my children and I are in bed. I can’t get up and give you anything.” I tell you, even though he will not get up and give you the bread because of friendship, yet because of your shameless audacity he will surely get up and give you as much as you need.’”
Again, the boldness of the man who came in the middle of the night is what compelled the first guy to get up and actually give him the thing that he wants, too. So, when we knock we need to come boldly before God and ask Him for what it is that we want.
When we pray, we need to do it not doubtingly or vaguely and we need to name the promise. For example, if we have somebody that we want to be saved from their unbelief – we want them to become a believer – we don’t come up and say, “God if you want to, I know that you can save Susie. Would you consider doing it please?” We want to be specific. Or we don’t want to say, “God, save everybody in the world. You can do it, so go ahead and just do it.” We want to be specific about one particular person. And if there is a promise in the Bible about what we are asking, we want to name that promise. Rather than being doubting and vague we can say, “God, you have said in your word that you want everyone to be saved. I love Susie across the street and I know you do, too. Save her from her sin.” And then you go out and do the thing we have talked about: seeking and trying to present the gospel. But we want to be specific when we pray. That’s part of coming boldly to the throne of God. Not willy-nilly and not doubtingly and not vaguely, but just speak specifically what we want God to do for us.
Then verse 8 is kind of a repeat of the same as verse 7: “For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.”
Basically, trying to reiterate and make more firm the truth that when we ask or seek or knock, God will give us those things.
Verses 11-13: “Which of you fathers, if your son asks for a fish, will give him a snake instead? Or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? 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 the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!”
It’s clear that God is a good Father. God wants to give us these things that we ask for; or give us good things. And He is contrasting it with an earthly father because God is greater than us. God is more knowledgeable, God has more recourses, God is more loving. God is able to give us the things that we ask for. Our earthly parents – ourselves – we are not always able to, but even in the example given here, we are not going to give something to our children if it is not going to help them or be good for them. We are not going to give them a snake instead of bread. We are going to give them the thing that we want, and if we can, we give them more than what they are asking for. It’s just innate in us, it’s our nature; our instinct is to try to provide well for our kids and God is the same way. He instinctively wants to give us good things. That is the point on that.
So, let’s kind of get to some practical application here. It’s clear that God wants to give us good things; sometimes God doesn’t give us what we ask for. Why is that? It seems like that kind of gets glossed over and skipped over in Bible studies and preaching or church or whatever. We only want to say how God is giving us the thing that we ask for, and it is hard when He doesn’t give us the thing that we ask for. But the Bible talks a lot about God not giving us certain things, we just don’t like to admit that sometimes. One example of when God doesn’t give us something is in Romans 5:4. It says, “…suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope.”
Sometimes we ask God to take some affliction away from us and He doesn’t do it. And the reason why is because that affliction – that thing that we are going through is preparing us for something in the future. And we don’t always know, during the time, what that thing is, or even that God is doing that. We just see it as ‘God not answering my prayer.’ But, really, God is answer our prayer.
One example in my life: when Karissa and I first got married, I was in pharmacy school and Karissa had just moved from Springfield, Missouri, up to Omaha where we lived, so she took a new job. And we were broke as a joke. I worked 15-20 hours a week – didn’t make much money – and Karissa took a job that was completely commission – all sales – and she absolutely hated it. She worked hard at it too, let me tell you. She worked a lot of hours; she was up at 5:00 in the morning, every morning, and there until the evening. And it just didn’t go well; she hated every minute of it. And we didn’t make much money either. We just didn’t have any money for quite a while when we first got married; and not only that but we had bad financial sense. We bought things that we shouldn’t have bought, and ordered things and whatever – what little money we had we were pretty much wasting. And I was donating plasma, got $55 a week, because I would go in twice a week and donate plasma and so that $200 a month was a big deal to us. We were pretty low on the cash. As the years went on, we started to learn different financial principles and how to do a budget and different things. I was a long process, but eventually we got to the point where we could financially be more stable. And then, once we moved here, we took this Financial Peace class – you guys have all heard of Dave Ramsey, probably – took this class and we really learned a lot in that class as far as money management goes. Then, at that point we really started to try to push things along and get our loans paid off and get all of our budgeting under order and just our daily finances in control. It took us a couple years but finally we got all of our student loans paid off. It was like a game to us. We would try to see how much we could pay off; to see how much of a sum we could pay off every month. It was a lot of fun.
But through that we learned how to live on not very much money, because even though we were making more money once I was out of school, we were still living on not very much and so, once we got everything paid off we were like, ‘This is a good learning experience for us,’ and we made this commitment that if we ever had opportunities to help people out financially, that we would; but the first thing, whenever we help somebody, would always be to help them get on a budget and teach them the principles that we learned, because those are the things that helped us out. We would not have known that had we not gone through it. If God had just magically given us a lot of money, we would have never learned how to budget. We would have never learned how to live on less than what we thought we needed. Praise God; He has taught us, but that is how God works a lot of times is He says, ‘No, you can wait for this. I’ve got a lesson I’m teaching you in the meantime.’
Another example comes from James chapter 4, verse 2; of when God doesn’t answer our prayers. It says- 2b, I guess- “You do not have because you do not ask God.”That’s pretty straightforward; that was one of the first things that I talked to you about this morning; is that God uses prayer as a means to answer our prayers and to give us things. If we do not ask God, then a lot of times He just won’t give us the thing that we need, just waiting for us to seek Him because He is more interested in our relationship with Him and our faith and our growing as people – as Christians – than He is in us having really a lot of luxuries. In America today we have so much more than we could possibly need; and we call a lot of the things needs that are really wants. A lot of these things that we think we need – that we don’t actually need – God is willing to withhold those until we are willing to seek Him and try to put it in a place where He can receive the glory for it.
And then, in verse 3, it says, “When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.”That’s a big one, I think, in American culture, too. Just the same way we think a lot of things are needs that are not, we are motivated by wealth and health and prosperity and whatever, rather than a lot of things that God actually cares about. So, rather than asking God for things that will bless others or to honor Him, we just ask for things that will just make us look good; to make us look successful or to – whatever. We see God as like a Santa Claus and that is not the case.
The reason that we ask for things really determines, a lot of times, whether God is actually going to give it to us or not. We have already seen, in Matthew, Jesus has talked about prayer once before when He gave the Lord’s Prayer, and the things that He asked for in that prayer are: bread, to forgive our debts or trespasses or sins, and then to lead us away from temptation so that we won’t sin. Those things are the things that Jesus perceives as viable as needs, and not a lot of the things that we are praying for. And the things in James: he is talking about using for our own pleasures. These things are really for pleasure; those are things to give God the glory. He also has talked about storing up treasures in heaven rather than treasures on earth.
So, what is that we should ask for? Should we ask for wealth? Should we ask for a new car? Should we ask for friends? Those things, in themselves, are not evil, but what is the motivation for wanting those things? Jesus talked a lot in his sermon about heart issues and it is the same way with what we ask for. And I think that motivation question is a good filter for whether it is something we should we asking or not. Is the purpose of us asking that- for example with a new car: is the purpose of getting a new car so that you can look successful or wealthy or to keep up with your neighbors or to have a shiny new vehicle? Or is the purpose of the new care to bless others? Or bless your family? Or is the purpose to have a reliable vehicle so that you don’t get stranded in the middle of nowhere – that’s kind of a safety issue. Or, if you are praying about your kids’ salvation – you want your kids to be saved. Is the purpose of it so that they will come to know the Lord and know those benefits? Or is the purpose so that people can look at you and say, ‘Oh wow, that guy is a really good parent. He has good kids.’? So, if it is that you don’t want to be embarrassed, that is probably the wrong motivation in order to pray for your kids, so God is not going to bless- hopefully He will still save them, but not because of your prayers; probably because of somebody else’s prayer.
The other thing is that this whole sermon is coming back to ethics and motives and so it’s kind of all on the same lines. God is more interested in whyyou do something rather than whatyou do.
That is not to say that we should only pray for super holy things, like, “God, bless this pen to your glory because what I write with it will honor You.” We shouldn’t only pray for those things. It’s fine to pray for once, but put it through that same filter of what the motivation is. Why do I want this new car? Why do I want a new job? Or whatever it is. If it is only for my own satisfaction and my own pleasure, then God is probably not going to give it to you, for that reason. But if it is in order to bless others or if it is to honor Him, then hopefully God will bless you with that answer.
It’s kind of like giving. In 2 Corinthians 9, Paul talks about giving generously to those in need. The result is an “abundant blessing in every good work” and to enlarge the “harvest of their righteousness.” What the people receive is definitely good and definitely important but it is not more money. We do not give in order to get money in return, even though you hear that in this prosperity gospel that you hear all over the place – that if you give to the church, that God will give back to you more. And that is not the thing that God gives back, usually. It is usually some sort of “harvest of righteousness,” as Paul calls it. It’s the same way in our prayers. We don’t pray just for the sake of gaining material wealth or possessions. We pray in order to honor God or to help those around us.
The next one is in James 1, verse 6-8 and James has a lot to say about prayer. He says, “But when you ask, you must believe and not doubt, because the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. That person should not expect to receive anything from the Lord. Such a person is double-minded and unstable in all they do.”
Again, we talked about doubt a little bit earlier. This is another reason why God might not give us the thing that we want, is because we do not actually believe He is going to give it to us.
If we’ve got a broken light switch at our house and I ask Karissa to switch out the light switch- and granted, Karissa has never done anything with electrical stuff so she’d have to learn how to do it, but it is a simple process. She could easily YouTube it and figure out how to do it and do it- but if I ask her, “Karissa, can you change that light switch? As if you could even do it.” She’s going to look at me like, ‘Well if you ask me like that, I’m certainly not going to do it, because you don’t think I can.’ And it is kind of a slap in the face. It’s the same way with God. If we don’t believe that He can actually do it, He is probably not going to, because He does things through faith.
1 Peter 3:7 says the way that we treat our wives can hinder our prayers, and then Proverbs 21:13 says, “Whoever shuts their ears to the cry of the poor will also cry out and not be answered.”So, both of those are dealing with the way that we interact with other people. And I want to point out, in both of the sections on prayer in the Sermon on the Mount, after the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus says, “For if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.”And then in verse 12 of chapter 7: “So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.”
So, why is it that Jesus talks about forgiving people and doing to other what you would have them do to you? Why is He talking about ethics right immediately after talking about how to pray? At first glance you’re like, ‘This is completely off the wall. It doesn’t flow; it doesn’t go together at all.’ But I think it is because Jesus thinks that thatis an important part of prayer; that if you want God to answer your prayers – if you want God to hear you – you have to be treating people right. There has to be nothing between you and somebody else that is causing some sort of room for separation. I don’t have the reference in front of me, but Jesus talked about ‘if your brother has something against you, go and be reconciled to him and then come and bring your sacrifice to God.’ God does not want us to have issues between us and other people and then come to Him and say, ‘Hey, let’s take care of this thing,’ He wants us to take care of the issues with people first and then come to Him, because our faith is a faith of action. We have to actually live it out, we have to actually work things out with people around us. It’s not just about pursuing heaven; we’ve got real work to do here on earth.
And that is important, and that is what Jesus obviously thinks in summarizing both prayers. That is what is the key to having a successful prayer life, is having successful relationships with those around us.
And this isn’t a new idea. Isaiah 1:15-17:
“When you spread out your hands in prayer,
I hide my eyes from you;
even when you offer many prayers,
I am not listening.
Your hands are full of blood!
Wash and make yourselves clean.
Take your evil deeds out of my sight;
stop doing wrong.
Learn to do right; seek justice.
Defend the oppressed.
Take up the cause of the fatherless;
plead the case of the widow.”
God is saying, ‘I’m not going to listen to your prayers because you are not living rightly with those around you. Rather, seek these people, take care of the people that need help and then once you’ve done that, then I’ll listen to you.’ It is not like we’re doing it in order to get these things; it is just part of who we are as believers. We take care of those around us, and then, because we do those things- and not necessarily because of it- but we don’t have that hindrance anymore between us and God, because we have everything right with those around us.
And then Isaiah 58:1-10
“Shout it aloud, do not hold back.
Raise your voice like a trumpet.
Declare to my people their rebellion
and to the descendants of Jacob their sins.
For day after day they seek me out;
they seem eager to know my ways,
as if they were a nation that does what is right
and has not forsaken the commands of its God.
They ask me for just decisions
and seem eager for God to come near them.
‘Why have we fasted,’ they say,
‘and you have not seen it?
Why have we humbled ourselves,
and you have not noticed?’
“Yet on the day of your fasting, you do as you please
and exploit all your workers.
Your fasting ends in quarreling and strife,
and in striking each other with wicked fists.
You cannot fast as you do today
and expect your voice to be heard on high.
Is this the kind of fast I have chosen,
only a day for people to humble themselves?
Is it only for bowing one’s head like a reed
and for lying in sackcloth and ashes?
Is that what you call a fast,
a day acceptable to the Lord?
“Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen:
to loose the chains of injustice
and untie the cords of the yoke,
to set the oppressed free
and break every yoke?
Is it not to share your food with the hungry
and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter—
when you see the naked, to clothe them,
and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?
Then your light will break forth like the dawn,
and your healing will quickly appear;
then your righteousness will go before you,
and the glory of the Lord will be your rear guard.
Then you will call, and the Lord will answer;
you will cry for help, and he will say: Here am I.
“If you do away with the yoke of oppression,
with the pointing finger and malicious talk,
and if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry
and satisfy the needs of the oppressed,
then your light will rise in the darkness,
and your night will become like the noonday.
There is a ton of things in here in order to live rightly with those around us; to live righteous lives. It is not talking about – as far as God hearing our prayers – anything about sacrifices. It is not talking about giving to the church. It is not talking about saying the right words or going to Sunday school or singing in worship service or anything like that. It is talking about not exploiting those who are your workers, or not having strife, or feeding the hungry, or removing the chains of injustice. There are a ton of things and God is looking for us to take care of those who can’t help themselves; who are oppressed or marginalized or whatever it is, and if we do those things then He will listen to us. Jesus kind of summarized all of the law and our requirements – as far as ethics go – in two statements: Love God, and love your neighbor. And all of this is part of loving your neighbor.
At our house, a lot of times we want to get things done, so that we can have fun. We might make an announcement: “Hey, we’re going to do dinnertime early tonight so that we can get all of our chores done and then we can have a game night tonight.” Game night is one of the most fun things that we do at our house; we always have a great time. Sometimes we might play Memory, or we do puzzles, or we might do board games like Go Fish or Uno. The kids really have a good time with it, but the rule is that we have to get our work done, and then if we have time, we will do game night. So we try to get done with dinner early and then get cleaned up. Usually there is not a lot to clean up, but if not everybody is helping – not everybody is working hard to get cleaned up – then it might take an extra half hour, forty-five minutes, to do that, and then there is not time. When we are cleaning up, we are not doing it in order to gain this reward of game night. We are doing it because it needs to be done; because we’re part of this family that needs to take care of our house and whatever, and then we have this consequence of being able to – or benefit I guess – of being able to do game night afterwards. But, if we don’t get things done, then the consequence is that game night never comes around.
It is the same way with praying. If we are doing these things that Jesus has asked us to do – loving God and loving our neighbor – and then we pray, then the benefit is that God hears us. But if we are not doing those things and our neighbor or our brother or whoever, has something against us, and we are not living the way we ought to, then God doesn’t hear our prayers. That is what is pretty clear through scripture. All that is to say, we kind of bring it around full-circle, when we pray, we need to ask God for the things that we need, for the things that we want. We need to seek an answer, which might be seeking for- the answer might be different than what we expect it to, or it might be the same and it might just take several times waiting for God to answer it the way we expect to. And then we need to knock boldly on God’s door and not timidly, not doubtingly. But to specifically and with confidence know that God will answer us and God will respond to us. And then if God is not answering our prayers, we need to kind of ask yourself, “Why is God not answering?” Is it because He is saying ‘yes’ in a different way and we need to find out what that way is? Or is it because- is there something hindering our prayers? Whether it is a sin in our own lives or we are not taking care of those around us like we ought to. And finally, if we have the wrong motives, is that hindering our prayers?
So, hopefully, we can take these things and apply them to our own prayer lives and have our own vibrant prayer life and be prayer warriors – as they call it – because we know that God wants us to pray, He wants to answer our prayers, He wants to give us every good thing and He wants us to live our lives in a way that is not hindering that from happening.
So, let’s pray:
God, thank you for this gift that You’ve given us to be able to come to You and ask for things and to know that You will hear us, to know that You love us and want to give us the good things that we ask for, whether it is the way that we want it or in some better way. We trust that You will listen to us and help us out with the things that we ask for. Pray that each of us will go home and really work to kinder our prayer lives to build that relationship with You and to see how great You are and how powerful You are to be able to answer our prayers. I pray that we can honor You with the things that we ask, not for our own selfish ambition for Your glory and for the blessing of those around us. In Jesus name we pray. Amen.
Gospel of Matthew
Chapter 7, Verses 7-12
Chase Crawford, Elder
smh