MK040 Sermons
How to Ask (Audio)
to a room and you start talking then you realize nobody's listening to you. It's me like that's the story of my life you know. And then you look around and everybody's on a device of some kind. Everybody's heads down like this and nobody's paying any attention to you. You know I think one of the things that's become increasingly common in our culture and even in our homes in our lives is that we just don't feel heard. We just don't feel heard. Earlier or last summer during my sabbatical I had the opportunity to be at some training in North Carolina and one of the exercise that we had to engage in is we had to spend a half an hour sitting with two people that we didn't know very well. Talk about something that had happened in our lives and for for 30 minutes they had to sit and listen to us and ask us questions about whatever this event or situation was. And they couldn't give advice. They couldn't tell us what they thought. They couldn't share one of their own experiences. They couldn't pray. They just had to sit and listen to us for that long of a period of time. And after I experienced that I realized how rare that was and how unusual that is to have someone give us that give me that level of focus and that level of attention for an extended period of time. And as we're gonna talk about this whole subject of listening this morning I found myself wondering how many of us have ever had that happen. I've ever had it happen. I mean when was the last time that parents you sat with your kids until you fully understood what they were talking about and they felt not only heard but understood. Not so you got it and you made sure they knew what you were talking about but so they felt heard and understood. You know spouses when was the last time you sat with your spouse and you stayed there until they heard and understood exactly what you were talking about and what the concerns of your heart were. When was the last time you sat in your boss's office and you talked with him and and he wasn't shuffling through three or four other things and busy and distracted he or she and they just said all that science said tell me what's going on and they sat and they heard and they understood what was going on in your life. When was the last time you had a close friend that wasn't just trying to tell you what was going on their life but was willing to sit and listen and understand what was going on in your life. Maybe more importantly is when have you had a sense that God was paying attention to you and listening to the things that were going on in your heart and in your life. This week we're going to continue our series entitled sitting at the feet of Jesus and if you haven't been here with this last fall we started this series and continue we're getting close to the end here just a couple weeks but we've been trying to learn from Jesus what his what a relationship with him is all about. You see when he came and he started healing people and and people started following him he put things on pause and he preached what's called the Sermon on the Mount and in this sermon he said I want to explain to you what this life with Jesus is all about what following Jesus is all about what life in my kingdom with me is the King is all about and so he tells in the kingdom of heaven my kingdom it's near it's close it's gonna happen but before that he uses this phrase he says repent repent it's kind of a staggering phrase because he says it to good people to religious people and the word repent means not you add more things on to what you're already doing for God but repent means you stop doing something and you turn your attention to something different and so each week as we've un as I've unpacked one of these concepts that Jesus was talking about my challenge and the challenge you consistently has been what is it that I'm doing that God is calling me and inviting me to turn away from and Jesus is inviting me to begin to do as someone who wants to follow him and wants to be a part of his kingdom. Last week we looked at the subject of judging others a statement that Jesus made which is used against people of faith over and over again and that's this statement don't judge don't judge and Jesus actually did say that Matthew chapter 7 verse 1 and we looked at it last week that what often happens and if you look at this chart that what happens is we we see someone do something and that an action takes place then we evaluate that is that good or bad and then the next thing that we do is we assign a motive this is why they did that and then we cast judgment on them for doing that and unfortunately our culture says you need to be tolerant which says you just observe and you can't say anything or speak in anything but we live in a culture with rules and there is a sense of morality in our culture where people do say things are right and things are wrong and so that doesn't even fit with the world that we live in but Jesus suggested a different approach he said before you have that conversation he said I want you to look at your own life in the mirror I want you to pay attention to the big things in your life and in your heart and as you begin to do that consistently and over and over again what's going to happen is there's going to be a shift in your heart and a shift in your mind from a signing motive to extending grace that you encounter something that you see and you observe is not right is not appropriate towards you or towards someone else you're going to us instead of signing motive you're going to say maybe there's more to this story maybe I need to listen maybe I need to ask some questions and maybe then instead of casting judgment I'll be able to extend love and if you were here with this last week I'd encourage you to go online and listen to the message as I talked about that last week but this week Jesus moves into some verses that are a little more familiar and especially one at the very end that we're gonna see and in these verses it appears that he's talking about prayer and I think that's a component of it and prayer was really at the heart of the Jewish community the book of Psalms was known as their prayer book most Jewish people had the whole book of Psalms memorized and they would stop for prayer three times a day and they would pray through or recite one of the Psalms it was part of what they did all the time over and over again and so for Jesus to talk about prayer was not something new and in this section it kind of appears that he's talking about prayer but before we look at that I want to challenge you to consider a different perspective because whenever Jesus tells us something that should be true about our relationship with God he said that should be true about our relationship with other people there was not a dichotomy between this is how you relate to people and this is how you relate to God they were inseparably linked in Matthew chapter 6 Jesus said if you forgive men on earth then your Father in heaven will forgive you in Mark chapter 8 Jesus said if you are ashamed of me here on this earth I will be ashamed of you in heaven in first John 4 John says if you don't love your brother here how can you love God who's in heaven and in James chapter 4 he says if you are humble before God you won't judge other people in your life you see the message of the Bible is very very consistent you can't say that you have this kind of relationship with God and yet treat other people in a completely different way Bible says our heart is deceptive and it means you're lying to yourself say I love God and God's the most important thing if I can't stay on that person I don't want anything to do with them God says that can't exist can't exist you see life in God's kingdom life in Jesus's kingdom it's not just something we do that doesn't have relationship to the rest of our lives it's a little bit like when I was in high school one of the foreign language that I took was German and I can say a couple numbers in German you know I'm fine that's about as far as I can go maybe and a whole talker I don't know why I don't remember that word means woodcutter you know but that's about it that's all I know in German you know I never used German never spoke German never went to German never done anything you know we all have those things in life where we're like what's the point of this I really don't get it you know and sometimes we can approach God's word like that and and and this truth that Jesus has to say well well that's kind of good and I'm not really sure where it'll work or how I'll use it but I'll just kind of follow it away and that's not what Jesus presents Jesus says that you can't act one way in your relationship with God in another way here and have this big gap in the middle they are connected and so what if the first part of this passage where he talks about ask and seek and knock is not just about our relationship with God but is about how we interact with one another how we interact with one another you see a prayer if talking to God is simply an extension of the way we talked to other people and talking to God is about what is happening in our lives here together maybe those things should go together instead of being totally separate concepts say I'm not sure John what do you mean by that let me ask you this if you are judgment judgmental towards other people and then you go and ask them for things how likely do you think they are going to be to grant your request probably not very likely what if your interaction with people is not one in which you are you are gracious in how you pass along the truth of God's word and the things that are important to them but you just kind of dump this on everywhere you go and then you go and I have tried to have meaningful dialogue with these people do you think they're gonna be open to that and I'd suggest probably not say so why is Jesus telling people to do this why is he telling him to do this one thing I've discovered is there's one of the common struggles that I interact with people about is their desire to please people and feel accepted by people it's a very very common struggle and one of the ways that struggle lives out or fleshes itself out is that in conversation in a dialogue we assume what we think the other person will say and do and then we carefully and in a calculated way enter conversation engagement and dialogue with them Jesus says why did you just ask why don't you look for it why don't you maybe say can I come in can we talk you know we have this state this phrase and Johnny and I try to remember the first service and we kind of butchered it so I won't try to say it but the the Tim has been reminding us and kind of quoting in the office to us as a staff and and the phrase is something like this you know don't say no for someone else let them say it for themselves that's a little closer Johnny I think you know you say what what's that mean well a lot of times we assume for people what we think their response will be to a question to a conversation to a situation and we don't give them the dignity of choice what God's created us being in his image often I'll say to people when they're talking about something difficult I'll say why don't you just knock on the door and see if they're willing to open the door maybe they will maybe they won't but let them choose let them choose and maybe what Jesus is inviting us into as maybe he's inviting us into a way of relating to other people a way that values the dignity of people a way that doesn't attempt to play God in their lives and assume things for them but simply to just ask simply to be curious and seek or maybe to knock and see how the door gets opened I also think this is talking about prayer remember our relationship with people is the way our relationship with God should be and so Jesus invites us into the same kind of relationship with God now what this passage doesn't do is this passage doesn't offer guarantees about your prayers it doesn't this passage for me this week and as I spent time with it has pushed more questions to the surface than answers and so if you walk away with a lot of questions you're in good company but I hope this passage will give you a sense of encouragement about how and the way in which we bring things to God the first thing he says is you should just ask you should just ask and for some of us that's easier than others for some of us it's really really hard you know when I think about this in relationship to kids they want something they just ask they don't assume mom and dad can't or won't or they don't deserve it at that moment in time do they they just ask and if they don't get it what do they do the second time ask what do they do the third time ask and ask and it doesn't really matter where you are what's going on if they're your child and you're their parent and and they need you for something what will they do they'll ask now it didn't happen in this service it happened in first service but some of you know my daughter was stuck in North Carolina last week in the midst of one of those storms and she's trying to decide what to do and it tried to to text her mom who was sitting in the service but she didn't have her phone owner near her charge I'm not sure which of the above you know try to text her brother what he had his cell phone turned off which in church was actually a good thing but her father did not and so my cell phone rang and it was my daughter last week and a bunch of you asked me after church why didn't you answer your daughter's call you know middle of church when you're standing up here you know but she didn't think twice it because she needed her dad to answer questions so what did she do she simply tried to ask regardless of what situation I was in and Jesus invites us to do the same thing unfortunately for some of us we've asked we've asked got a lot and we've asked him often and he hasn't answered we find ourselves wondering why bother Jesus not only invites us to ask but the second thing he asks us to do is to seek seek and even though he asks us to do that and says if you seek you will find the problem is there's so many things that I want to try to find answers for that that the Bible doesn't really tell me about that you know I need an answer do I take this job or do I take this job and it doesn't tell me do I make this financial decision or this one do I stay in this relationship or do I end it and move on do I have that hard conversation or do I not and it's hard because the Bible doesn't always give us the most specific answers that we're looking for and some of us have had situations in our lives where we saw God we prayed and we had this clear sense that this is what God wanted us to do and we took that step and it was an absolute disaster like well that was really helpful you know how do you seek how do you seek some of us take a quick glance ah not here move on others of you are a little more persistent I know it's here I left it here I saw it here the other day last week and you keep looking you keep digging you try to find it even though sometimes you do and sometimes you don't last thing that Jesus calls us to do is knock calls us to knock when someone knocks at the door you know we wonder who is it who is it if you're on the other side the door and you look through who I'm not answering that you know sometimes they don't knock they just stick things in your door you know it happens on Sunday afternoons around here sometimes someone tries to get a hold of us on our phone and we decide whether we're going to take that or not but Jesus invites us to knock and notice he says the door will be opened he doesn't say the door you want opened will be opened and this leaves us with all kinds of questions because we're no we're supposed to ask we know we're supposed to knock we know we're supposed to seek but sometimes God doesn't take us down that road that we want to go the truth is for you if you stop asking if you stop seeking if you stop knocking then ultimately what it says about you is that you don't believe God cares about your concerns and that may be a hard one for you to swallow this morning the truth is if I've stopped asking if I stop seeking to stop knocking then ultimately I don't believe God cares about my concerns because if I believe that he cared about me I would keep asking seeking and knocking even if I didn't get an answer or the answer that may be uncomfortable see the truth is Jesus is not here trying to guarantee us that he will answer our prayers the way we want them didn't even happen for Jesus remember when he was in the garden and he said God if there's some other way I know this is the way you have for me I know this is the path of the cross there's some other way please show me that other way I'd like to go over here and take this path and ultimately he submitted his will to God's will but sometimes even he didn't get what he wanted this passage may be more about asking us this question do I believe that God is good even when he doesn't give me exactly what I want do I believe that God is good even when he doesn't give me exactly what I want when life is hard when life is difficult when we face loss the two questions we ask ourselves over and over and over and over again his number one is God good and number two is he faithful and what I believe Jesus is speaking into is God's goodness in this passage and he focuses on that by in verse 9 look what he says there in verse 9 he says this he says if a son which of you if your son asks for bread we'll give him a stone or if he asks for fish we give him a snake it's interesting because as he's as he's exhorting us to ask the seek and knock he doesn't say and if you do this this is exactly what will take place you'll get what you want which is often what motivates us to ask seek and knock in the first place but he takes us to remind us about the character of God he gives us a picture of God and he reminds us of what it's like for us as parents if one of our kids asked us for something to eat something they needed would we give it to them absolutely but do we give them things that can harm other people you know kids stones in the hands of a child nothing good comes out of that doesn't nothing good you know it gets thrown somebody gets cracked in the head something gets broken you know somebody's crying somebody stones in the hand of a child are never never good you know and they says how about fish you know they asked for fish would you give them something that they can eat something nutrition or would you give them something they could scare them and could cause harm to them no of course of course we wouldn't and so there's this truth there's this reality that God is a good God and the Bible's repeatedly says that over and over again look at the verse on the screen Psalm 8411 says for the Lord God is a son and a shield gives us life protects us he bestows favor and honor no good thing does he withhold from those whose walk is blameless as they have 49 15 says they will need their hunger nor thirst nor the desert he to a son beat down on them his compassion on them will guide them and lead them beside the springs of water I think if we read the Bible we find these statements over and over and over again about God's goodness and he reminds us about it here a lot of dads and moms in the room here today how many dads and moms if your kids ask you for something that they needed how many of you want to provide that for them let me see your hands nearly everyone in this room puts their hands up everyone right that's what we want to do that's at the core of who we are but how many of you every time give your kids something good after they've been acting up whining complaining and causing fights with their siblings I don't see any hands how many of you give your kids what they want every time when you've had a bad day and and work has been brutal and you're feeling exhausted in your weary see any hands you know Jesus goes on to say in the next verse verse 10 verse 11 he says 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 I don't like to admit it but Jesus calls us all evil in this passage the truth is sometimes I give my kids what they want to get them to do what stop asking right might not be good for them but it's good for me right sometimes I don't give them what they maybe should have because I assume that they don't deserve it I may or may not be right or wrong and sometimes I'm wrong if we're really honest and we ask ourselves painfully hard questions we can certainly see things in our lives where our relationship with their kids even though our desire is to give good things to them that we don't we don't comes out of our own selfishness our own sinfulness our inability to know everything sometimes just to keep our kids happy with us because we're not willing to parent them and Jesus says if that's the way you are how much more will your father in heaven give good things to those who ask you know I don't think Jesus in this passage is trying to make you feel guilty to start praying but I think what he's trying to do is he's trying to give you a perspective that will challenge you and challenge me to pray more to pray more I don't think it's hard to say to people you know I should be people most people think oh yeah I should be praying especially people of faith I think most people admit I'm really not praying as much as I should but most of us aren't motivated to do that it's interesting Jesus approach is not to make us feel guilty about what we're not doing but to say you have a father in heaven who is waiting to give good gifts see you we just ask we just seek we just knock he's just waiting what's keeping you from doing that I read a couple thoughts on what's keeping us from doing that the first one is that we want to do things ourselves we want to do things ourselves some people ask me from time to time you know John should I talk to God about everything I think it's reasonable to talk to God about everything but I don't think you have to wait for God to do everything I mean I think if you know how to tie your shoes in the morning you probably shouldn't ask God should I tie my shoes in the morning you know should probably do it if you know how to cook dinner and it's time to make dinner and there's food there I don't think you should ask God should I make dinner tonight I think you should go ahead and do it now if there's no food there you might have to ask God about that but I think the struggle for many of us especially in the community what living is we're far too good at doing so many different things that we don't ask God for his help and other things it's probably not a week that doesn't go by that I don't have a conversation with someone and say you are really good at doing a whole bunch of things but on this arena of your life you can't do it by yourself you need God's help so why do we struggle to go and get to God about things I think a lot of us just try to do it ourselves we just try to do it ourselves I think the other reason that we don't go to God more consistently about things is because we have a sense that God has let us down let us down God I prayed you about this this this health issue and my my family and myself and this person that I love and you didn't come through I'm I'm not sure I can accept that you're a good God you didn't come through here I don't know if I should even bother ask you about this God how could you allow this to take place in my life this horrible injustice this horrible thing that took place how could you allow that to take place why should I even ask you to stop it over here when you didn't stop it over there I think a second reason we don't go to God very often is because we have the sense that God has let us down that we ask he wasn't listening we saw it but he didn't really give us a plan that worked and we knocked and he didn't open the door you know there's all kinds of other issues related to this well you know maybe God it wasn't God's timing and you know maybe God just said no then and yes later and I think all of those things are true it doesn't make it any easier as I was preparing to speak on this subject it was I don't know how else to describe it it's just been a wrestling for me internally because I know that God is good but I don't understand why God hasn't done something about certain things I've been praying about not even things for me things for some of you that I think that I know are good things like God why why haven't you done anything here I mean showed up and what Jesus says to people who are going to follow him for people who are part of his kingdom he said part of what your life looks like is you ask and you seek and knock in personal relationships and you do it with me and you don't do it because you're one and answer you don't do it because you figure you've done enough so God owes you you do it because you know you have a father in heaven who's good and who always will do what is best for you Jesus closes with this maybe one of the another very well-known part of the sermon on the mountain verse 12 take a look at how he closes he says so in everything do to others what you would have them do to you for this sums up the law and the prophets anybody know what this is traditionally called the golden one golden rule right golden rule do to others what you want done what you what you want them to do to you and this can come across if you think about it come across a little sounds like a little selfish you know I'll scratch your back you scratch mine you know what is Jesus really saying to his followers here well it's really kind of a parentheses the backside of parentheses that he started in Matthew chapter 5 when he said I didn't come to destroy the law and the prophets but I came to complete them and then he says let me sum this all up in one statement you know the religious leaders and churches in general are really good with adding lots of layers to everything you know making things really complex and Jesus said I want to shrink this down I want to make this really really really simple he did that in Matthew chapter 23 when he said the two most the two commandments out of all the 600 that matter that are that they tell you that matter there's two that are most important and the first is to what love who love God with everything you have and the second is to love who your neighbor as who yourself Paul thought this was exactly what Jesus was saying look what he said in Romans chapter 13 it's gonna come up on the screen there Romans 13 there we go the commandments you should not commit a adultery murder steal covet whatever other commandments some of them up in this one love your neighbor as yourself and then Galatians chapter 5 he says the same thing he says for the entire law is filled in this one command love your neighbor as yourself and what Jesus is saying is not selfish or narcissistic but he's saying what you would normally do for yourself what you would normally want done for you then I want you to treat other people in the same way with the same kind of love that you have for yourself so what would it look like for you to treat every person that you cross paths with in this way every person you cross paths with why don't you take a moment think about every person you cross paths with this morning people in your own household maybe you stopped and got gas and went in paid for it you went to Dunkin Donuts talk to the person on the drive-through or in the store people when you walked in here this morning on a normal day who else would that include it might include your boss might include your co-workers might include strangers might include people who you never met before and you may never see again might include friends and people who are here and what Jesus is calling us to do is kind of a summary to this whole section he says what I want you to do is I want you to relate to others and treat others essentially the way God's treated you think about it for a moment going all the way back to the beginning of chapter seven if you were about to be if you were in a situation where someone was saw you do something what would you want to be extended to you suspicion or grace probably grace if someone was going to present something to you would you want it pushed on you or gently offered likely gently offered if someone was going to ask something of you would you want them to simply ask and make that request or would you want them to assume that they know what you're thinking that they know what's best for you and that they'll only ask you if they think you can handle that Jesus says what I want you to do in relationship to each other as I want you to treat one another in the exact way that you want to be treated as we close this morning I want us to think about these two things that Jesus has said the first one really relates to our interaction with each other and our interaction with him in prayer I want to invite us all to bow our heads and just take a moment to talk to God and ask him for something that's on your heart right now maybe it's something that you've been asking every day every week every month every year for a long time and you ask again maybe it's something you gave up on you stop knocking because God didn't open the door you wanted maybe it's directional no matter in your life in which there's two paths in front of you and you don't know which one to choose maybe it's peace because life is pretty turbulent right now maybe it's courage to face a wound from your past that you've been ignoring and as you talk to God remember that he is your father and invites you to bring these things to him you you (silence) (silence) (silence) (silence) (silence) (silence) (silence) My challenge to you this week is to keep asking. Keep seeking. Keep knocking. Not only with the people in your world. With God as well. I invite you to do one other thing. I want you to take maybe a piece of paper out of your program and pull that out with a pen, pull out your smartphone, click on the notes tab. I want you to do something as we close. So pull out something to write with, something to put a couple words down. I'm only going to need you to write down two or three words. Two or three words. Pull out paper and a pen, find your smartphone. I want you to answer this question. How do I want to be treated this week? How do I want to be treated this week? I'll give you a couple words to kind of get things rolling. I want to be treated graciously this week. I want to be treated with kindness. I want to be treated gently. I want to be treated with compassion. I want it to be treated tenderly. I want to be treated lovingly. I want you to just write two or three. Three words. How do you want to be treated this week? I know what Jesus says to you. That's how I want you to treat other people. That's how I want you to treat other people. Don't go to them and say, "Why aren't you? Why didn't you?" Let's say, "God help me to treat other people this way." Imagine what it would look like for us as a community of people. For people who are people of faith to treat others like this. Every person that crossed our paths, every person, every person. Imagine what it would be like for us in our small group settings when we come and we pray that we consistently week in, week out, bring the same request, the burdens of our heart, the things that we're knocking on God's door saying, "God, would you do something? God, would you show up?" Instead of maybe our aches and pains, we talk about them regardless. Everybody knows about them. Family members aches and pains. We don't do it because we know we're going to get an answer. We do it because we have a good and loving father who cares about each one of us. Let me pray for us as we close. God, when we think about what Jesus had to say, pretty common phrase, do to others, but you want them to do to you. Easy to say, hard to do. That seems to be the theme in the Sermon on the Mount. Easy to say, hard to do. Easy to talk about asking God over and over again, believing that he's good. One life has not been good. God, I just ask that you would help us this week to be people who are marked by a confidence and a trust in God's goodness, even when life does not appear that way. The repentance for us is not ignoring talking to God, not abandoning it, giving up talking about it, but it's turning back and walking back and saying, "God, I'm going to keep asking about this." Even though I have no idea and nothing seems good, I'm going to keep knocking. God, instead of demanding what I want from others to do for me, that I'm going to choose to do it to them this week with your help. Because I can't do this on my own. We need you, Jesus. In your name, amen. Join. [BLANK_AUDIO]