Introduction

Example: New dad overwhelm—how can I get this done?

• Example: Old Note—ways I could improve as a dad (according to my daughters)
  • Make something different besides cereal for breakfast
  • Take us out to dinner more often
  • Play more Mario Kart with us
  • Take us to hotels
  • Tell us more good bedtime stories
  • Sing Gus the Seagull to us at night more
  • Don’t be grumpy or rush us when we are sleepy in the morning
  • Watch more football on Sundays after church.
  • Improve your Gru (from Despicable Me) impersonation

Jesus is winding down the sermon, his longest recorded message, and it hasn’t been easy.

• Jesus called us to a kind of righteousness that exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees (5:20)—and all he described is challenging!
• How can we be empowered for this life? Where can we find the strength we need to live this way?
  • We grasp for some hope, some help, some light as we confront his kingdom ethic.
  • We all feel at least some of our limitations—this is not who I am!
    • I don’t have the requisite humility, mercy, or love to live this way!
    • I don’t have the discipline, trust, or drive to live this way!
    • And I don’t have the wisdom, grace, and patience to live this way!
• To these feelings and impressions, Christ shares:

7 “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. 9 Or which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? 10 Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? 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! 12 So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets.” (Matthew 7:7–12)

Theme: We cannot live the kingdom life without Jesus. He gives us prayer to propel us forward (7:7-8), our good Father as the One to trust (7:9-11), and an imagination as we do the work of love (7:12).

• Prayer to help us follow.
• God’s good nature as our good Father.
• And our own imagination, which helps us love others well, fulfilling the Law and the Prophets.

1. Prayer to propel us forward (7:7-8).

7 “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. (Matthew 7:7–8)

The Invitation

• Triple invitation—ask, seek, and knock.

• • • Take all three words together as a strong exhortation to persistent prayer.
    • God invites this! Asking, seeking, and knocking is not rude to him!
      • You do not have, because you do not ask. (James 4:2)
    • Example: When we want something, we often just search for it online somehow—our prayer has been rerouted elsewhere. But we must pray.

• Jesus encouraged persistence in prayer.

• • • Present tense: persistent, ongoing action—keep asking, seeking, and knocking.
    • Image: man knocking on his neighbor’s door at midnight in search of bread (Luke 11:5-8).
    • Image: widow repeatedly returning to a judge in search of justice (Luke 18:1-8).
    • Jacob wrestled with God at Jabbok: “I will not let you go unless you bless me” (Gen. 32:26).
    • Not vain repetition (6:7), but earnest requests.

• Triple answer—receive, find, and opened.

• • • This is an immensely encouraging response from God.
    • Don’t be paralyzed by a view that he will do whatever he wants anyways.
      • Example: Many believe God is like an employer who is going to pay on Friday whether the employees ask or not, but wants them to ask.
      • But is God’s response a charade? The biblical portrait shows a God who genuinely responds to the prayers of his people.

• And how does prayer occur? Through the Son!

A Simplification

• Asking, seeking, and knocking—a good counterbalance if one becomes over-organized by the Lord’s prayer in Matthew 6:9-13.

• • • The Lord’s prayer gives us content.
    • This exhortation gives us method.

• Q: But what are we meant to pray—to ask, seek, and knock—about? A: The setting of this prayer matters.

• • Immediate setting: When it comes to our dealings with other people, we need discernment, breakthroughs, words, help, and perspectives (7:1-6).
    • Don’t we need wisdom in our interactions with others?
  • Fuller setting: When it comes to seeking first the kingdom and practicing its lofty ethic, we need strength, wisdom, and help (6:33).
    • Don’t we need God’s help to live out his kingdom ethic?
  • Fullest setting: Prayed by people who are kingdom citizens, asking, seeking, and knocking with kingdom priorities.
    • Don’t we need him to unfold the kingdom more in our midst?

2. Our good Father as the One to trust (7:9-11).

9 Or which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? 10 Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? 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! (Matthew 7:9–11)

Illustration: Human fathers would not give harmful decoys to their children.

• Bread/Stone (9): a roll vs. a rock.
• Fish/Serpent (10): slimy vs. slithering.
• If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children (11): Even flawed, broken, and sinful human fathers know how to give good things to their kids.
  • If you then: not “if we then.”
    • Note how Jesus did not see himself as evil.

Basis for our confidence: our good Father.

• • How much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!
    • Jesus contrasts the Father with humanity—God is pure good without mixture, so of course he will give good things to his children.

• We can have a trustworthy Father to cry out to—and he genuinely responds to us!

• • • Gospel interlude:
      • God is Father to those who have received his Son.
      • The Son asked, sought, and knocked, and ultimately embraced something much more painful than a stone or serpent so that we might have God as our Father.

• What is your picture of God? That is what Jesus addresses here.

Our Father provides good things to his children when they ask.

• As our Father, he knows what is good and what isn’t.

• • • Example: Child—”I want a puppy and am ready to take care of it.” / “Can I have candy for dinner?” / “Can I drive?”
    • He will not give us something harmful when we ask for good things.
    • Good things vs. What I asked for

• He looks to give us good kingdom things.

• • Luke: “How much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!” (Luke 11:13).
  • As we seek first the kingdom—so God gives us things to help us live.

What about longstanding unanswered prayer?

• • Pause. Have I truly prayed or merely internally wished?
  • Reality. Many of us have asked for a long time—and what we are asking for is categorically, biblically, and totally good.
    • Healing, relationship, children, salvation, revival…

• A: Keep asking, seeking, and knocking.

• • • The timing belongs to God

• A: Your asking has not been wasted—God is forming good things within you as you cry out to him.

• • • Character is a good thing, and it is formed while we pray.

• A: Receive the answer through the great gift of the Son.

• • Healing
  • Relationship
  • Children
  • Salvation
  • Revival

3. An imagination as we do the work of love (7:12).

12 “So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets. (Matthew 7:12)

What does Jesus mean when he says, “So…”?

• So: Conclusion to the thought—because we have a Father who supplies what we lack, we can love others in ways we otherwise could not.
• So: Conclusion to the sermon
  • Final instruction before concluding warning
  • Inclusio (a bracket): The Law and the Prophets (5:17, 7:12).
    • Matt. 5:17—“Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.”
    • Matt. 7:12—”this is the Law and the Prophets.”
    • Jesus: Everything I’ve said here is what the Law and the Prophets pointed toward all along, and the summation is this: do to others what you wish they would do to you.

Jesus gave a positive, not negative, golden rule.

• Negative: do not harm, steal, gossip / Positive: be kind, help, give
  • The negative version can be done from the couch. The positive version not so much. Action is involved.
• Example: The Good Samaritan was the only one who acted.
• Jesus as the living law: He is the ideal king who internalizes and embodies the Torah for his people. He lived out the Law and the Prophets as he imaginatively loved others well. He is the “Golden Rule” lived out to the fullest degree—so he stokes the fires of our imagination.

Jesus gave us a tool for moral imagination.

• Experts not required—just use your imagination
  • Their Era. Rather than going to the scribes with their thousands of interpretations, people could dream.
  • Modern Times. Kingdom people have an inner compass, so though we are open to wise counsel, we don’t have to reach out to the expert class when it comes to how to treat others. Generally speaking, we can use our Holy Spirit fueled imagination.
  • Example: Employee handbook (do not microwave fish in the office kitchen, but broccoli not listed) vs. Culture of the workplace (honor others)
• Deliberate perspective-taking is important and good for us.
  • Question: What would I want if I were in their position?
• Not only for elementary school children.
  • Example: William Wilberforce and his allies dismantled the institution of slavery in Britain by stirring the imagination of Parliament and the public. They used models, drawings, and testimony to convey the brutal treatment of humans as property and cargo, and it ultimately changed the public perception.

Conclusion

These resources—prayer, our Father, and an imagination—are all provided and enhanced by Jesus.

• His death paves the way for prayer.
• His death enables God to be our Father.
• His death is the ultimate demonstration of loving others.

Study Questions

Head (Knowledge, Facts, Understanding)

1. Pastor Nate argued that Matthew 7:7–12 is not a random collection of sayings but a unified paragraph that gives us three resources for living the kingdom ethic Jesus has been teaching throughout the Sermon on the Mount. What are those three resources (7:7–8, 7:9–11, 7:12), and how does each one connect to the demands Jesus has made in Matthew 5–7?
2. In Matthew 7:11, Jesus says, “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!” How does this verse hold together both the holiness of God and the love of God? What does Jesus assume about human nature here, and what does that tell us about the kind of Father who welcomes our asking?

Heart (Feelings, Impressions, Desires)

1. The sermon named a common experience of feeling inadequate before Jesus’ kingdom ethic — “I don’t have the humility, the discipline, or the wisdom to live this way.” Where do you most feel that weight right now? What does it do to your heart to hear that Jesus does not respond to that feeling with more demands but with an invitation to ask, seek, and knock?
2. Pastor Nate said, “He lost his Father for a weekend so that we could have a Father forever.” What is your picture of God the Father? Do you relate to him as distant, disappointed, demanding, or distracted—or as the good Father Jesus describes in 7:9–11? How does the cross of Christ reshape that picture for you?

Hands (Actions, Commitments, Decisions, Beliefs)

1. Jesus calls us to persistent prayer—to keep asking, keep seeking, keep knocking. Is there a longstanding prayer you have grown weary of praying? What would it look like this week to return to that prayer with fresh confidence in the Father’s goodness, trusting that your asking has not been wasted?

The Golden Rule (7:12) is not merely about restraint but about imaginative, active love—asking, “What would I want if I were in their position?” Name one person in your life—a spouse, a child, a coworker, a neighbor—toward whom you will deliberately exercise that moral imagination this week. What is one concrete action you will take as a result?