What’s The Catch? - Matthew 7:7 Series

Matthew 7:7-12 Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. 8 For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened. 9 "Which of you, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? 10 Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? 11 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! 12 So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.

Introduction: The problem of unanswered prayer

I think the first question that most people have when they read verse 7 is, “What’s the catch?” When deals seem too good to be true we naturally look for the catch. You answer the phone: “Congratulations! You have won a free vacation to the Bahamas…”, and the first thing you do is start hunting for the catch. And you finally discover that everything is free except for the airfare, and airfare is $3000. So by the time you pay the extra-high priced airfare, there is really no difference between this ‘prize’ and what you would normally pay if you found some deal online. And so you think to yourself, I knew once I read the fine print it would turn out to be nothing special. And that is how a lot of people feel about verses like Matthew 7:7. It is hard to get very excited about the promise that God will give us what we ask for when we all know from experience about the problem of unanswered prayer. No one can deny the reality of unanswered prayer. So when Jesus said Ask and it will be given to you, we all know there has got to be a catch. Whatever Jesus meant by that, the reality is we continually ask for things – the salvation of loved ones, money to pay our bills, a spouse, healing for our marriage, physical healing, wisdom – all kinds of things we have asked for and have not received.

So what is the catch? Many people read this verse and think, “I don’t know what the catch is, but whatever it ends up being, I have a sneaking suspicion that this promise is going to end up being nothing special. Whatever the explanation is for unanswered prayer, the bottom line is the reality that I’ve always known – I ask God for things all the time that I never end up getting, and that’s not going to change.” So it seems like there is not really much different between having this promise with whatever the catch is, and having no promise at all.

What the catch isn’t

So we have two questions: What is the catch? With that catch in place - is this promise really anything special?

God only “answers” prayers for things that are already going to happen

Some people teach that the catch is this – you have to ask according to God’s will, and God’s will is His unchangeable plan, therefore the only time a prayer is answered is when you ask God for something that He was already going to do anyway. They say prayer does not really change anything – it just helps align you with God’s will. But if that were the case then Jesus’ words are misleading, because He makes it sound like when God gives you the answer to your prayer it will be because of the prayer – not because He was just going to do it anyway whether you prayed or not. And besides that, the book of James says that the reason we do not receive is the fact that we do not ask. So prayer does change what happens. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective. The Bible is very clear that God acts differently when we pray than when we do not.

You have to believe hard enough that God will say yes

Another wrong answer to the question, “What is the catch?” comes from the health/wealth prosperity preachers. They insist that the catch is you have to believe hard enough that you will get what you are asking for. You have to convince yourself that God will say yes to your request, and if He says no it is because you did not really believe He would say yes. Every time you ask for something and don’t get it, it is because you did not have enough faith. But if you can just manage to convince yourself that something will happen – it will happen whether it is good or bad.