“ASK AND YOU WILL RECEIVE?”
Wednesday Evening Prayer Mtg.
May 15, 2002
Pastor Todd G. Leupold
I. OPEN
Prayer can seem like such a funny thing. . . How often do we vacillate between turning to God to save the world and not bothering to pray for even the simplest things, because we wonder if He is even listening, or cares, or will/can answer?
Just the other day, one person alarmingly declared that our country is in even worse shape than he had suspected. His evidence: “Every time I call Dial-A-Prayer I get a busy signal.”
We laugh, but we can sometimes feel that way when we pray to God, don’t we? It IS okay to admit it. And we react to this in all different kinds of ways. Sometimes we blame God. Sometimes we blame ourselves. Either way, we think that something is wrong.
It is at this time, as well as others, that we turn to texts such as Mt. 7:7-8. Unfortunately, we often misinterpret or misapply verses such as these - and the tragic results can be unfairly blaming ourselves or God, or even losing faith. Therefore, let us spend the rest of our time together looking more closely at these verses and their context.
II. DIG
Question: What do you of when you hear these verses? What do they mean to you?
Question: Are all of your prayers answered as you ask them? Your questions and searching?
So, then, what is Jesus saying here? Surely it must be Truth, but how? It cannot be denied or explained away, that Jesus IS here telling His disciples to ask in order to receive, to seek in order to find, and to knock in order to have the door opened.
A. Exaggeration.
To understand one aspect of this better, I would like to read you something that Dr. Robert H. Stein wrote in his book, Difficult Passages in the New Testament. {Read highlights on pp. 87-88.
Exaggeration or hyperbole is a common tool used by Jesus to emphasize an important truth. The important truth here is that God IS always receptive to hear and consider our prayers, petitions and our seeking. Even further, it IS His desire to bless us abundantly and see us happy and fulfilled. Jesus’ hyperbole here stresses these points.
But it is ALSO His desire to see us safe, being ever more conformed to His image, and living a life of loving Him and others!
C.S. Lewis illustrates: “…It is not unreasonable for a headmaster to say, ‘Such and such things you may do according to the fixed rules of this school. But such and such things are too dangerous to be left to general rules. If you want to do them you must come & make a request and talk over the whole matter with me in my study. And then - we’ll see.”
There ARE qualifiers and these are evident within the context of this Sermon on the Mount and throughout Scripture.
As Lonni Collins Pratt writes, “Prayer is more than petitions and praise. Prayer is what human beings were made for - communion with God. We miss something vital to the substance of what prayer is when we overemphasize God’s response to our petitions. .
Frogs need water. Roses need sunshine. People need the Lord.”
Sometimes, without realizing it, our prayers, while well intentioned, are actually hurtful for us, someone else, or God’s will. God sometimes uses His discretion to compensate.
Also, our prayers may be contradictory with someone else’s or just too powerful and not in His will and nature. If God did not use discretion, and automatically granted everyone’s prayers it would be an activity too dangerous for man.
B. Context I: Mt. 6:10,33.
Let’s look at some context. The core of Jesus’ sermon of the Mount, of which these verses are but a part, is Jesus’ teaching His disciples what it really means to be a disciple - that is becoming and acting as righteous people. Consider these key verses:
[Read Mt. 6:10,33]
The purpose of prayer is not to get whatever we want. Prayer is not an exercise of our “controlling” God. Prayer is a means of directly communicating with the Almighty, Creator of the Universe!
Leonared Ravenhill writes: “Prayer is not an argument with God to persuade Him to move things our way, but an exercise by which we are enabled by His Spirit to move ourselves His way.”
Context II: Loving Others
Another important context of these key verses, is to realize that these verses appear in the middle, and as part of, a discourse on how the disciple is to act toward and love others!
Read Mt. 7:1-2, 12.
If I were to summarize Mt. 7:1-12, then, it would be this:
Disciples are to do for others as they would ask, seek, and knock for God to do for them.
Jesus here is referring to our asking, seeking and knocking, as it pertains to our relationship with others and our own righteousness - as both of these pertain to the Kingdom of God!
So what IS God’s attitude and response to our prayers?
Read Mt. 7:7-12. You see, the two relationships of asking what you want of others and to asking what you want from your Heavenly Father follow on a continuous line.
And surely He will hear us, and surely it is His great desire to bless us and those for whom we pray!
So why don’t we always see answers?
Most of the time it is not so much a matter of our prayers not being answered as it is us not recognizing it when it is! Or not recognizing His greater vision and will. His answers aren’t always clear-cut. Nor are they always answered in the exact way & timing we imagined. But remember, God knows best!
How many of the disciples would have recognized a bloody, lifeless body suspended on a cross as the answer to Jesus’ prayer, “Father, the time has come. Glorify your Son, that your Son may glorify you?”
And sometimes we just need to continue in our prayers and be consistent! It is important to note that the main verbs in verse 7 (Ask, seek, knock) are all in the Present Imperative Form. This means that they are spoken with a strong emphasis and without limit. Literally, it should be read: “ASK and keep ASKing, SEEK and keep SEEKing, KNOCK and keep KNOCKing!”
Sometimes our prayers aren’t answered simply because we give up on them if they aren’t answered immediately or within our set time frame. But maybe, to best answer it, God will first wait for other circumstances or factors. Or, perhaps God just chooses to wait to see if we really believe that He can &/or will answer. If we have faith, we’ll confidently wait while continuing to pray.
During his lifetime, George Muller recorded more than 50,000 answers to prayer. Yet, He prayed for 2 men daily for more than 60 years to be saved. One of these men was converted only shortly before Muller’s death and the other about a year later.
This same George Muller once observed: “The great fault of the children of God is, they do not continue in prayer; they do not go on praying; they do not persevere. If they desire anything for God’s glory, they should pray until they get it.”
