Ask

Sermon Transcript

High, low, water buffalo. That’s what our family calls it. When we sit down for dinner each person shares something great, something not so great, and something strange from their day; high, low, water buffalo. However, sometimes our kids decide to deviate from high, low, water buffalo and do “around the room” instead. Around the room is when one person in the family asks a question and everyone else has to answer it. A question that has been raised several times in various forms is, “If you had a billion dollars, what would you do with it?” Que Andrea and my lecture on using your money to serve God’s kingdom. It’s an interesting question though. Imagine Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, or Warren Buffet offered to give you anything you asked for. What would you ask? I can guarantee that the one thing we wouldn’t ask for is nothing. If Elon or Jeff said, “ask,” you’d ask. To our shock and amazement, in our passage this morning, the God who made Jeff, Elon, and Warren invites us to ask and promises that everyone who asks receives! Matthew 7:7 – “Ask, and it will be given to you, seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.”
January is prayer emphasis month for Citylight Church. Every sermon this month will focus on prayer, every Citygroup gathering will be devoted to prayer, each one of us is setting aside fifteen minutes each day to pray, and it will all culminate on January 31, when we all gather in this room for a church-wide night of prayer. And at the heart of a praying church is asking. Paul Miller says if you had to summarize all of the Lord Jesus’ teaching on prayer in one word it would be “ask.”
And Citylight, we have so much to ask our Father! Just think for a moment about all that we desire to accomplish as a church for God’s glory this year. Lord-willing, next week, we will both transition to three Sunday morning services and celebrate the transition of Citylight Delco from being a daughter congregation of Citylight Church to being an accredited, independent church. Lord-willing, Citylight worshiping in our new, fully-funded facility by Christmas 2024. Lord-willing, the Father will give us a clear vision for how to use the facility to let our light shine before our city so that people will both see our good deeds and give glory to our Father in heaven. Lord-willing, a team of 20 people living in NYC and committed to plant Citylight NYC by the end of 2024. Lord-willing, Citylight NYC will see its first convert to Christ this year. Lord-willing, Citylight Church will have a new executive pastor by July of this year. Lord-willing we will see more people baptized this year than any year prior in our history. And think of all that you have to ask the Father for this year. Many of us have significant desires to see biblical, God-glorifying growth and breakthrough in our marriages, our families, our careers, in putting sin to death, in rejoicing in the Lord greatly, in using our money to serve God’s kingdom, and so forth. We have so much that we want to do for God’s glory this year. Now listen to what Jesus says. John 15:5 – “…Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing. Apart from Him we can do nothing. That brings us to the big idea of our passage this morning: Ask. Look again at the very first word in our passage: ask! This morning we’re going to look at asking from three angles, three points: 1. Ask boldly 2. Ask persistently 3. Ask because you have a Good Father.
ASK BOLDLY
Matthew 7:11 – “Ask, and it will be given to you.” Ask boldly because Jesus makes an extravagant promise to you: ask and it will be given to you. Jesus’ extravagant promising fuels our bold asking. The engine that powers asking boldly, the key that unlocks asking boldly is believing Jesus’ extravagant promise that if we ask, it will be given to us. The key is the promise.
I love to hike just about anywhere, but I prefer to hike where there is a clear path. When hiking, if you stay on the path you’re good, but if you fall off the path on either side, it can ruin your day or, in some places Andrea and I have hiked, ruin your life. Asking our Father in prayer is similar to a hiking path. Paul Miller’s prayer path on screen. You’ll notice that a follower of Jesus can fall off on either side of the good asking path. On the one side of the path is asking selfishly. In James we read that we ask and do not receive because we ask wrongly to spend it on our lusts. Asking selfishly is when asking for good gifts turns into demanding that God do my will because I love what I am asking for more than I love my Father in heaven. Ask selfishly and it will not be given to you. Selfish asking is a real danger. However, after serving as Citylight’s lead pastor for a dozen years, I can say without hesitation that for the vast majority of us in this room, we are in far greater danger of falling off the other side of the prayer path: not asking. As James says, we do not have because we do not ask. Our primary temptation is not asking, not asking selfishly. Paul Miller describes our temptation well. “If you are not praying, then you are quietly confident that time, money, and talent are all you need in life.”
Honest question: why don’t you ask? Why don’t you boldly ask your Father for good gifts? I think there are a myriad of reasons why we don’t ask. Some if it is habit. We’re in the habit of functioning as though hard work, money and talent are all we need. There are other reasons we don’t ask boldly. It feels too selfish to ask boldly, even though we’re happy to work for what we want. We’ve grown cynical that anything will ever change, so we don’t ask boldly, which includes asking for specific change in ourselves, our family, and our world. Whatever your reason for not asking boldly, I think it would be helpful if we admitted that we’re stuck in a habit of not asking; imprisoned to foundational independence. Like Christian in Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress, we are stuck in Doubting Castle.
No matter why you’re not asking boldly, there is one thing that can open the lock and free us from Doubting Castle, and all our not asking: The key of promise. The one thing that will free us from cynicism, fear, and doubt so that we will begin asking is Jesus’ promise about the power of asking. Listen again to how our passage begins! Matthew 7:7-8 – “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. [8] For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened. Instead of endlessly qualifying Jesus’ promises about prayer, let them free you from not asking, free you from bad asking, and free you to start asking boldly. Jesus made his extravagant promise “ask and it will be given to you,” for one practical reason: to get you asking boldly. That’s why this isn’t the only place that Jesus made this promise! John 14:13-14 – Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. [14] If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it. John 15:7 – If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. John 16:23-24 – In that day you will ask nothing of me. Truly, truly, I say to you, whatever you ask of the Father in my name, he will give it to you. [24] Until now you have asked nothing in my name. Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full. Good asking begins with loving our Father more than what we are asking for, because he first loved us and gave His Son for us, and then asking boldly. Ask, ask boldly, because it will be given to you. Take him at his promise and start asking boldly. The second step on the asking path is…
ASK PERSISTENTLY
Matthew 7:7-8 – “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. [8] For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened. As we look closely at verses 7-8 we notice that “ask” isn’t the only command. Notice that Jesus says, “ask, seek, knock.” These aren’t, however, three different commands. Rather, each provides a slightly different description of what good asking is like. Good asking is like a child boldly a parent for what they want without pretense. But good praying is also like persistent seeking. When Andrea and I met, it was pretty much love at first sight…for me. I didn’t have the same effect on Andrea. But I kept seeking. I was persistent, I didn’t give up, and eventually my seeking led to finding an excellent wife. Good asking is like persistent seeking. Finally, good asking is like desperate knocking. I saw this video online of a young teenager running away from a bully toward either his house or the house of a friend and when he gets to the door he knocks incessantly knowing that whoever is inside can protect him. The door is opened and a large person protects him. That’s what good asking is like – it’s persistent, it stays at it, and it doesn’t give up.
The best way that I’ve learned to ask boldly and persistently is to make a prayer card. Several years ago, I learned to use prayer cards from probably my favorite book on prayer outside the Bible, A Praying Life by Paul Miller. Prayer cards are a simple tool for praying persistently. The card functions like a snapshot of a person, a situation, or a desire I’m praying for. I try to make my “ask” as specific as possible. I use short phrases to describe what I’m asking. Sometimes I put a Bible verse on the card to put the word to work in my asking. Sometimes I put a date on the card and even ask for a specific date for an answer. I don’t have to look long at each card. I get so familiar with them that just a glance reminds me to seek and knock and stay at it with persistence. The cards help me persistently ask big, bold, believing prayers for myself, for my family, and for our church family. They also help me track God’s story and thank Him for his answers. I brought my prayer cards with me as an example. Personal: Describe anger prayer card. I have others for Citylight. Describe NYC prayer card. To help you ask persistently, the set up team has placed five 3×5 index cards on your seat. These are for you. Take them with you. Make a few for Citylight Church. Write a big, bold, believing prayer for Citylight on each one. Make a couple for yourself and others. Bring them with you to CG this week. Citylight, ask persistently; seek and knock. That brings us, third and finally, to the ultimate reason why we ask boldly and persistently…
ASK BECAUSE GOD IS A GOOD FATHER
How can Jesus promise, “Ask and it will be given you, seek and you will find, knock and it will be opened to you”? How can Jesus make such lavish promises such that we should devote this year to growing as a praying church that asks boldly and persistently? Why should we ask boldly and persistently before we work for change, as we work for change, and after we’ve worked and our energy is spent? Because God is a Good Father! Matthew 7:11 – “If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!
The reason why we make prayer cards, ask boldly, and don’t give up is because we have a Father in heaven. He is in heaven: completely capable. He is our Father: full of compassion. We ask – boldly and persistently – because our Father is full of compassion, absolutely capable, and he loves to give good gifts to his children who ask. He loves it. My dear wife bought our children such wonderful Christmas gifts this year. It was such a delight to give the gifts to our children. Because we love them, we love to give them good gifts and watch our children enjoy them. And compared to our good Father, we are evil. How much more does he love to give good gifts to his children who ask boldly and persistently. Ask!
The wonder of the Fatherhood of God is seen most beautifully when we remember that He was not always our Father. We were not born God’s children, we were born his enemies. Ephesians 2:1-3 – And you were dead in the trespasses and sins [2] in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience—[3] among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. We are not all children of God. We are all by nature children of God’s wrath, destined for eternal destruction away from the comforting presence of God. But God, because of his great love, predestined to adopt us as sons. Ephesians 1:4b-5 – In love [5] he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will… We were dead in our trespasses and objects of God’s wrath, but in his great love, before he laid the foundation of the world, God predestined us for adoption as sons, heirs. If you’ve received the Lord Jesus Christ as your only hope in life and in death, it’s because God predestined to adopt you as His son through His only begotten Son Jesus Christ, by grace alone through faith alone. The God who created the universe has adopted you! He’s your Father in heaven. This is the heart of the gospel of Jesus Christ! In his classic work, Knowing God, J.I. Packer writes, “What is a Christian? The question can be answered in many ways, but the richest answer I know is that a Christian is one who has God as Father.”
The Son of God became man to make men sons of God. God is our Father and he’s given us wonderful works to do for his glory. Ask boldly, ask persistently, because God is our good Father.