Hope Church LV Sermons
Out of Context :: Ask, Seek, Knock
Well, I want you to take a moment this morning, and I want you to think about time in your life when you have been misunderstood, a time in a conversation with someone or the audience that you were speaking to, that you said something and it was completely misinterpreted. Maybe it's when you were teaching a class, maybe it was a conversation, maybe it was an email or a text message, maybe you were preaching a sermon, but whatever it was that you communicated was misunderstood and you were misquoted and taken out of context. It can be frustrating. It can be difficult when your true intentions are not clear, and when someone takes the very essence of what you're saying and communicates them in the wrong way. But this issue of being misunderstood isn't new with our generation. It's been happening throughout history and it has even happened when it comes to the teachings of Jesus. As a church family, we are studying straight through the sermon on the Mount in the gospel of Matthew. And this weekend, we are in part two of a three-part series within that study called Out of Context. And we are looking at some of the most misunderstood teachings of Jesus. And last weekend, Pastor Vance kicked us off in a great sermon about what it looks like to rightly judge our brothers and sisters in Christ. And if you were not able to be here last weekend, let me strongly encourage you to stop by and get the DVD or go on our website and check it out because it was a powerful teaching about what it really looks like to judge people, rightly. And there were some major things we talked about last weekend that I want to recap for us as we jump into the text this morning. One of the things we talked about last weekend is that there is both a right way and a wrong way to judge people. That we are not to look at Matthew chapter 7 and say, "Well, Jesus said not to judge, so judgment cannot be a part of my life." That's wrong in taking the Scripture out of context. There is a right way and a wrong way to judge. But we also talk last week that you and I, as Jesus followers, we have an obligation to our brothers and sisters in Christ. We are not to go to them in a time of struggle or difficulty and point out what's wrong with their life and then just walk out on them. No, we have an obligation to walk with them through those situations, to walk with them through those difficulties. But we also talked last week that you and I have an obligation to the gospel. That as we navigate through life under the leadership of the Holy Spirit, we should be sensitive to God's activity around us and know when we should or should not share the message of life with someone else. There's a powerful time as we looked at Matthew chapter 7 verses 1 through 6. So this weekend, we're going to look at the second confused or misunderstood teaching of Jesus. So look with me in Matthew chapter 7 and I want to start reading in verse 7. And if you do not have a copy of God's Word, we're going to put it up on the screens for you so that you can follow along with us. Matthew chapter 7 verse 7 says this, "Ask and it will be given to you. Seek and you will find. Knock and it will be open to you for everyone who asks, receives and he who seeks, finds. And to him who knocks, it will be opened. Or what man is there among you who when his son asks for a loaf will give him a stone. Or if he asks for a fish, he will not give him a snake, will he? 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 what is good to those who ask him?" This morning, I want to ask and answer three very, very simple questions that I believe will give us some clarity into what this scripture means in its context and what was really inside of the heart of Jesus as he sat on the hill that day and he shared with his disciples and here's the first question. How is this scripture, how is this principle often taken out of context? What are the ways that people take this teaching and misinterpret it and share it in an inaccurate way? Well, if you have any background in religion or in teaching from different churches, you have heard people use verse 7 and 8 to teach what is called a prosperity theology. And here's the essence of that. That because of verse 7 and 8, you and I have a blank check before God. And that because he decided to put those verses in the Bible, regardless of how we feel in the blank, he has to give us what we ask for. In recent years, it has been packaged as this. Name it, you guys know it. Name it and claim it, whatever it is in your life that you think you need, if you'll just tell God, ask, seek, and knock, he will give you whatever you want. That is one of the major ways this scripture is taken out of context and people hear that and get really excited because we're really, really selfish. And they rush in and they ask God for something and they wait and they wait and they wait and it never comes true and it never happens. And then they label God as unfaithful, all because they heard the teaching of Jesus out of its, out of its context and it's wrong. And that's one of the major ways that this scripture has been interpreted. I want to give you a clarifying statement this morning to really help us get our heart around what we're tracking with. And here's the clarifying statement that's going to be on the screen. We do not have the authority or ability to tell God what to do. You and I, as humans, as creation, as people, do not have the authority nor the ability to tell God what to do. There is such a sense of arrogance in thinking that I can take two verses of the Bible and somehow pin God in a corner and get whatever I desire. We don't have the power to do that. We don't have the wisdom or the strength much less the right to do anything like that Psalm 1 of verse chapter 24 says this, "The earth is the Lord's and everything in it. The world and all its people belong to Him. He's the Lord. We're the slave. He's the king. We're the servant. He's the leader and we are the follower and even, even if He gave us the opportunity to ask for whatever we wanted because of our humanity and because of our flesh, we don't even have the ability to know what's good or right. Left to ourselves, we will always choose what's evil and what's dark. But for the grace of God, we would be sinking in a pool of sin." Martin Lloyd-Jones says it this way in his commentary and I love this perspective. He says, "I thank God that He is not prepared to do anything I may chance to ask Him." And I say that as a result of my own past experience. In my past life I, like all others, have often asked God for things and have asked God to do things which at the time I wanted very much and which I believed were the best things for me but now standing at this particular juncture in my life and looking back. I say that I am profoundly grateful to God that He did not grant me certain things for which I asked and that He shut certain doors in my face at the time I did not understand. But I now know and am grateful to God for it. The idea that is often miscommunicated out of these verses that God in some form is a genie and a bottle that we can look to and get what we want is absolutely inaccurate and is taking these scriptures out of their context. And before you have this thought of, well then why should I ask God for anything? You have to understand what God has done in His sovereignty. What I am saying here does not mean that we are never to petition God. That is not what it means. There is still a vibrant place in the life of Jesus Father for prayer. And I want you to look at this key point and we don't have time to spend time here but I just want to make this clear. Look at this key point. This is why us petitioning God is important because God in His sovereignty has chosen to limit His activity to the prayers of His people. Huge difference. The attitude there is not God. I want you to give me what I want. No, the attitude there is God. I know you will respond when your children call out to you and in your sovereignty and grace you give us the opportunity to position you and you respond to our prayers. Big difference. But the teaching of a prosperity theology is exactly why we must always interpret scripture in its context. And last weekend, Pastor Vance gave you two basic steps to interpreting scripture and I just want to fly through these real quick. But these are just good principles not only for preaching a sermon but for your own personal Bible study, for your own personal devotional life, two basic steps very quickly and then I want to get to our second main question. First of all, is we interpret scripture. We are to always interpret scripture in its immediate context. We are to always interpret scripture in its immediate context. The scripture was written and given to us in this form for a very specific reason. And it is wrong for us to take one specific verse of scripture and put it on an island and then interpret that scripture all by itself. When it comes to studying the Bible, context is key. And we need to remember that as we navigate through the scriptures. But here's another basic step as we seek to interpret the scriptures. These interpret scripture in light of the whole council of scripture. Every verse is in a paragraph that is in a chapter that is in a book that makes up the word of God. And if there's any principle that you are looking into and that you are studying, there will be other places in this book that support that's principle because scripture will never contradict scripture. And those are huge and those are principles we are going to apply as we unpack these verses this morning. Here's our second major question. Not only how is this principle often taken out of context, but secondly, what did Jesus really say here? He's preaching the greatest sermon in history. But what did he really mean? What did he really mean? Well, the totality of these verses is speaking towards how you and I can rightly relate with other people, both believers and with non-believers. And we've already said that it involves a right judgment, not having a critical spirit. It involves us being people of transforming grace, us examining our own hearts before we ever speak into the life of another. But how does that link up with these verses here in Matthew 7, 7 through 11? Well, Martin Louis Jones goes on to say in his commentary, he says this, "The effect of all that Matthew 7, 1 through 6 has upon us is to reveal us to ourselves and to show us our terrible need of grace. He has held us face to face with a tremendously high standard by which we shall be judged. Immediately we realize that we are humbled and begin to ask, how can I possibly live up to such a standard?" Not only that, we realize also our need of cleansing. We realize how unworthy and sinful we are. And the result of all this is that we feel utterly hopeless and helpless. We say, "How can we live the Sermon on the Mount? How can anybody come up to such a standard we need help in grace? Where can we get it?" Here's the answer, ask, seek, knock. And I believe in these verses this morning, Jesus gives us two right responses, two ways that you and I can respond to verses 1 through 6, and I want to give them to you this morning. Here's the first one. The first right way to respond is that my desire to rightly relate with others should lead me to a deeper pursuit of God. The desire that we have as believers to relate, to rightly relate to other people should drive us, should lead us to a deeper pursuit of God. I don't know about you, but for me, when I think about living my life and not having a critical or a judgmental spirit, when I think about having to be honest with myself, when I evaluate my own life, when I think about walking with people who are going through some struggles, when I think about a right stewardship of the gospel, it's pretty overwhelming to think about all that actually happening and leaves me in a place of saying, "God, there's no way. There's no way I can live out these principles. There's no way this could happen." And Jesus says here, "In that moment of desperation, when you're thinking, what in the world am I going to do?" He says, look at verse 7, that our desire to rightly relate with people should push us to a passionate pursuit of God. And in just a moment, we're going to look at these words specifically, but that's the big umbrella that we have in verse 7. Jesus is saying, "When you know you need something bigger than yourself, passionately pursue God," and you can imagine that a disciple sitting on that hill and like, "I don't even know what that looks like. I don't even know how that's going to happen. Let me give you this statement that hopefully for us will clarify when we say pursuit, what do we mean? That involves spending time with a person and is more important than anything else in my life. That's what we mean when we say pursuit. When we say we are to passionately pursue God, we mean that we are to passionately pursue the relationship that is above every other relationship in our life. And Jesus says here, "When you pursue me in that desperate moment of your life, I will fill you and give you everything you need to live out the principles I've called you to." He says, "You can't, but I can." And we see this throughout the Scriptures, even in Jeremiah in the Old Testament we read in chapter 29, he says, "You will seek me and you'll find me. When you passionately pursue me with all of your heart." And then in verse 7, here's what he gives us. He gives us three ways to pursue him. The first one is by asking. He says, "I want you to pursue me." And the first way he shows us we can do that is by asking. And asking here is centered around our communication with God. The word means to request, to call for. It's the idea of an inferior approaching a superior or a beggar approaching a giver. This is us pursuing God by spending moments with Him in communication and in prayer. Of speaking to Him, Him speaking to us one way Jesus gives us in verse 7 that we can passionately pursue God is by asking. Here's the second way he says we can pursue Him by seeking. And we're asking is centered around communication, seeking is actually centered around worship. The word means to be about something, to desire it, to inquire for. The idea here is that we are chasing after thinking on the things of God meditating on His character, on His goodness, on His righteousness, on who He is. We are seeking Him. It's another way you and I can pursue Him. And then He comes and He gives us a third way that you and I can pursue God and that is by knocking. And with asking it is centered around communication, with seeking centered around worship, I believe that knocking is centered around obedience, that you and I would evaluate our lives and ask this question. Is there anything God has already told me to do that I haven't been obedient in? We are to look around our lives and ask the question is there anything God has already made clear to me that is His will for my life, His desire for my life that I'm not currently fulfilling and that we would have a heart attitude that says God in whatever way I need to engage I'm willing to do that. John MacArthur said in his commentary, "It is not faith but presumption to ask the Lord to provide more when we are not faithfully using what He has already given." I believe that's the essence when Jesus says knocking, that we are to put forth energy to look around and say God I'm asking you for this, I'm seeking you for this, but Lord is there anything in my life that you've already made clear that I have not been obedient in? This may mean you being obedient in something He revealed to you as you examined your own heart. This may be something He made clear to you six months ago. This may be a next step you need to take that you know is just a healthy practice for a faithful Jesus follower. But the things He lays out for us here are forms, are ways that we can pursue Him and all of these words are in the present tense meaning we are to continually be asking, we're to continually be seeking, we're to continually be knocking. And this aligns with so many teachings that He's given us in the Sermon on the Mount. He's already said in the Beatitudes, blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness. He said in the Lord's Prayer, we're to ask Him, God your kingdom come, your will be done. He says at the end of Matthew chapter six, seek first the kingdom. This idea of a passionate pursuit of God. Now notice what it doesn't say. He doesn't say in the moment of desperation when you're thinking, Lord there's no way I can live up to the Sermon on the Mount. He does not say try harder. He does not say recommit your life. He doesn't say engage in more church activity. He says pursue the relationship. And as a result of that relationship, He will give, He'll let us discover and He'll open up opportunities, which therein is a big principle. The most important thing that you and I bring to enter relationship on earth is our intimate love relationship with God. The best thing you can do for your marriage is passionately pursue God. The best thing you and I can do for our relationships with our friends, with our kids, with our family, with our co-worker, the best thing we can do is pursue intimacy with God because it's out of that relationship that God will reveal His best, His wisdom and His direction for our life. And it's very important here that as we look at verse 8 that we are encouraged. Because in verse 8, He says, listen, everyone meeting my family, my children, those who ask of me, I am ready and waiting to lavish my life and my righteousness on them. Because in verse 6, He just said, do not give to certain people. But in verse 8, He says very clearly, when they ask, when they want the things of God, when they want my life in them, when they ask for it, when they seek it, when they pursue it, I desperately desire to give it to them. I believe that's the first response Jesus lays out here, that in that moment of desperation, our desire to rightly relate to others should lead us to a deeper pursuit of God. Here's the second response I believe Jesus shows us in these verses. Secondly, He says, as I pursue Him, I can have absolute assurance that His plan for me is good. Because I continue to pursue the relationship regardless of what may happen, what He says or what He does. You and I can have absolute confidence that His plan for us is good. Many people look at verse 2 and they hear this idea of God being a judge and they think, man, God's just out to get me. I mean, He's just looking for a reason to pin me to the wall, but Jesus changes the attribute of God that He's talking about when He gets to the section we're looking at this morning. He moves from judge to God being our Father. And He says, ultimately, at the end of the day, you can trust that what God desires for you is good. Look at verse 9 through 11. He says, "Or what man is there among you who when his son asks for a loaf or give him a stone or if he asks for a fish, he will not give him a snake, will he? If you then be evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give what is good to those who ask him? I love hear how he ties it back to the simplicity of a family relationship because all of us can relate with how a child looks at their dad." John Piper said this, "God only gives what is good for his children to his children." And to help us get our heart around this, I want to give you three characteristics of a good Father, and then we'll get to our last question. Three characteristics that if a Father, if a dad is good and wanting good things for his children, what are some things that are true in that relationship? Here's the first one, a Father always leads his child with the long-term plan in mind. A dad will always make decisions for his child with the long-term plan in mind. We've all seen kids who believe with passion that at 9 o'clock at night they need to have ice cream for dinner, and they believe it. They're not thinking about them going to bed in 30 minutes. They're not thinking about the sugar or the calories they know right now you want ice cream, but a Father steps in and said, "No, you're not going to have ice cream for dinner because the child is not just thinking about right now. He's thinking about the next morning and the next 10 years and the next 20 years of that child's life and the same is true with our Heavenly Father. How many days have you and I prayed to God and asked God to give us that next promotion or that next job or that next relationship or, Lord, I believe it's your will that I win the lottery this year or whatever it is in your life and it never happened. You know why it probably didn't happen because God just doesn't operate off right now. He operates from eternal perspective and he sees the first day just like he sees the last day and he will always make decisions for his children and lead his children with the long term plan in mind. Here's the second characteristic of a good father. A father always desires to give his child what is best. He's inside of every dad who's a good father to want to give his children the absolute best. It's what swells up inside of a dad and if that means time then he's going to make time. If that means gifts he's going to get the resources to provide those gifts. If that's doing whatever his child desires so that child will be happy so that that child will experience the best and for most fathers they have a conversation with their child where they say you know what I don't just want you to have what I have. I want you to have more. I want you to have the best because that's just what swells up inside of a father who loves his child and the same is true for our heavenly father. He desires the best for us. Now the best doesn't always look the way we think it needs to look. It doesn't always flesh out the way we think it needs to flesh out but ultimately God desires what's best for us. He desires to see us conformed to the image of Christ and to work all things for that good purpose because ultimately that is what is best. There's one more characteristic of a father. A father always protects his child. He always does. Many of us have seen it happen on the playground in elementary school where one kid starts throwing rocks at another kid or starts calling a kid some ugly names. What does the kid say? You better stop or I'm going to tell my dad. Why is that? Because in a dad for a child there's security, there's protection, there is strength and the same is true for our heavenly father. There are things that we set out to do that God will not let us engage in because he knows it's not good for us and he says listen don't hurt yourself. That's the whole essence of the Ten Commandments. God's saying listen I want to protect you. Don't hurt yourself. He desires to protect us. On Wednesday mornings we have a teaching team meeting and we really put together a lot of the stuff that you guys hear on the weekends. A lot of the sermon we're able to package together and put together as a team and this Wednesday we were sitting in the room kind of wrestling with these principles here about God being our heavenly father. It was really cool for me to sit in the room and begin to hear the dads talk about situations with their children. Tom began to talk about a time when his kids were just unhappy and he talked about just this desire inside of him to see them experience joy and to do whatever he needed to do to see his kids be joyful and then Scott began to talk about his little baby and he said man he can't even talk yet and there are nights when I put him to bed and I see his eyes looking up at me and my heart just swells and I think there's nothing in the world I wouldn't do for you as my child. And then Joe began to talk about a time when one of his daughters was going through some rough things at school and she was suffering through some stuff and he talked about this unsettledness in his heart until he could take care of the problem that was going on with his daughter. And then Aaron talked about a time when one of his children was being mistreated and what was in him to want to go and step in and intervene so that his child in no way would experience pain. That's the stuff that's inside of a dad. Only last year my wife and I had been married for just about two years and we found out that she was pregnant and it was a lot of emotions all at the same time. We were happy, we were excited, we were thinking do we even know what to do? You know the whole thing and so we began to tell people and people were pumped for us and I began to think like wow I'm going to be a dad, I'm going to be a father and you begin to have all those different emotions and so we went home and went back to my hometown in Tennessee. We told my family, we told my parents and we came back and we're sitting about eight to ten weeks in the pregnancy. We're sitting at home and I'm sitting on the couch and I hear stars say hey Travis I think there's something wrong and so immediately you know I get up and I'm looking to see what I can do and she says I think we need to go to the hospital. So as quickly as we could we got to the hospital and we wait and we wait and we wait and I'm frustrated because I'm thinking man we need to figure out what's going on and so finally we get in the room of the doctor and my wife's on the bed, I'm sitting in the chair beside her, the doctor's here kind of analyzing what's going on and he looks over and says hey Travis, sure what you were thinking is true and sure you've actually had a miscarriage and you can imagine all the stuff that goes on in my heart and of course sure is emotional and I'm sitting there and I've relived that moment a lot over the past several months and I was thinking about it this week and in relation to this text and you know I really believe if we'd been sitting in that hospital room and the doctor had looked at me and said hey Travis, there's a way we can save this child but you're going to have to suffer, you're going to have to experience some pain and maybe you even are going to have to give up your life but this child will be okay, I assure you the father in me said this, where do I need to sign? Because anything I can do to protect my child, to love my child, to give what is best for my child, to see my child experience joy and success in life as a dad, I am willing to do it. And the same is true of our Heavenly Father because here's the deal, whether it be me or Tom or Scott or Joe or Aaron, if that's us and we're evil, we're fleshly, we're human church, how much more must our Heavenly Father, long and desire to give us good gifts. Because we pursue Him, we can have absolute assurance that His plan for us is good, we can know that this morning. Here's our third major question and then we're done, I know my time's gone, come on. Last question, how does this apply to my life today? I've got several here but I'm just going to give you one for the sake of time, how does this apply, what does this mean for us, I've got one take away for you. In every area of my life, I need wisdom that can only come from God. In every area, there is wisdom that you and I need but it can only come from God. We don't need our best thinking, we don't just need God involved in the major areas of life, in every single aspect of your life, relationships included, you and I need wisdom and only God can give it to us. There is nothing that He is going to call us to do, that He does not desire to fill us with His life in order to accomplish. But here's how you're going to discover that wisdom by pursuing Him. And by on a daily basis, having a passionate pursuit that says God, if it's up to me today, there's no way my life is going to honor you and impact eternity. So God, for every aspect of my life, I want to pursue you. I want to pursue the things of God and Lord, would you reveal to me your life, your wisdom, your direction for these circumstances. And here's what verse 8 says, it says He will. He longs to. He desires for us to ask, seek and knock. What does your pursuit look like? Not what are you saying it looks like, or the people around you think it looks like, but you know for you, when it comes to your passionate pursuit of God, what does that look like? Because I assure you, if we are going to rightly relate to other people, it starts by us passionately pursuing Him and out of intimacy with Him, He will love people, He will walk with people, He will share the message of life with people through us. I believe that is what Jesus meant that day. When He taught this sermon on the side of a hill, that is this teaching in its context. Let's pray this morning. We're not going to stand and sing this morning, our team's going to come, but I really want you today to have a few moments just to pursue Him. Maybe that is asking, maybe that is worshiping, maybe that is you looking around every aspect of your life and asking in the question, "God, there are some things that you have revealed to me that I have yet to be obedient in." Maybe you are here today and you don't have a relationship with God. You are hearing us talk about this pursuit, but you have never heard that before, but you know that you need it. Listen, as I have already said, God loves you, and He sees past the issue of sin in your life, and He's even taken care of it. He's sent a son to down a cross so that your sin that separated you from Him could be paid for and taken care of, and He stands ready today to give you life. We've got some pastors here at the front, some prayer volunteers around the room, and they're there because they'd love to talk to you. They would love to share with you how you can begin an intimate love relationship with God. I encourage you, if you're a believer, as we sit and we just listen to the powerful lyrics of this song that just say, "He loves us." We could take a lot of hope in that, knowing that as we pursue Him, a God, a Father in heaven who cares and loves us, He desires to use us on the globe and to rightly relate with other people. Even as we just meditate on you and we communicate with you and we search our own hearts, God, would you just speak to us? Would you show us what is the right response that you are challenging us to this morning in life of this passage of Scripture? We love you, Father, and we're listening to you in these moments. [MUSIC PLAYING]