Bible scholar D. A. Carson and
others have rightly pointed out that many people who are initially attracted to
the message of the kingdom after a season of enthusiasm tend to get discouraged
and fall away from the path of discipleship. Carson gives two primary reasons
for this that we should take to heart.
First, those who stop following
Jesus lack persistence. They quit when it gets tough and it always gets tough! We
live in a world where people seek their own interests and follow after the
dominant culture in an effort to find personal happiness. To follow Jesus is
counter-cultural right from the start. I would suggest that if we have chosen
to follow Jesus as his disciples then we need at least the persistence of a
salmon swimming upstream for the current is against us.
Second, Carson suggests that the
disciple who becomes discouraged and quits has forgotten the first Beatitude (Matthew 5:3). He has missed the point that God blesses the person who
is “poor in spirit” and acknowledges their own spiritual bankruptcy, not the
person who has it all together in their own strength and wisdom.
“Instead of seeing his own spiritual bankruptcy by the light of the Sermon on the Mount, he sees the beauty of the light itself; and therefore instead of turning to God and asking for the grace, mercy, forgiveness, acceptance, and help which his spiritually bankrupt state requires, he merely turns over a new leaf. Small wonder he is soon discouraged and defeated.”[1]
The Sermon on the Mount (Matt. 5-7)
is filled with challenges that will overwhelm our meager ability to live out
the values of the kingdom of heaven. It is designed to humble us to depend more
upon Jesus to make possible in our lives what is impossible for us to perform
on our own. R. Kent Hughes comments that “In Matthew 7:7-11 Jesus describes the way a
man or woman prays who understands what the Sermon on the Mount is all about.”[2]
ASK God for what you lack (v. 7-8)
“Ask, and it will be given to you;
seek, and you will find;
knock, and it will be opened to you.
For everyone who asks receives,
and the one who seeks
finds,
and to the one who knocks it will be opened.
While asking, seeking, and knocking are used together to convey the idea of persistence in prayer, I
think there is something unique that is added by each term.
- Asking for what we don’t have and can’t have on our own. (James 1:5-6) “If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him. But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind.” Jesus doesn’t slap us for asking him to help us. In fact, he encourages us to keep asking…being persistent in prayer. The Sermon on the Mount should humble us and this passage tells us what to do from there.
- Seeking the One who makes a
difference and
who invites us to “Follow me!” (Matthew 4:19-21). It is written, “You will
seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.” (Jeremiah 29:13) Seeking seems to communicate a
greater level of involvement than just asking and hints at the relational
aspect of prayer. So why would we seek the Lord if we are unsure about how
he will treat us when we find him? Let me tease this idea out a bit. When
we find God will we be found to be pleasing to him? Well, what pleases God? Hebrews
11:6 gives us a place to start. It makes it clear that “Without faith, it
is impossible to please God”… but what does that mean? It means that (1) We must believe
that he exists. (2) We must believe that he rewards those who seek him (i.e.,
trust in his goodness) or we wouldn’t be motivated to seek him. In fact,
this is why many don’t seek Jesus’ help, they have been conditioned to
think that he gives bad things. Cultural concepts such as the lament, “only
the good die young” and insurance companies that label every natural disaster
an “act of God” have taken their toll.
- Knocking with confident humility (Hebrews 4:15-16). While confident humility sounds like an oxymoron or contradiction of terms, I think that it is an important nuance to embrace. Knocking humbly recognizes that we are not God, and we cannot presume to enter his presence casually or flippantly and that we need his permission to come close. Yet, we pray with confidence because in Christ we have access to the “throne of grace”—where we receive the good that we don’t deserve—because Christ deserves it. (Hebrews 4:16).
- A Caution against
taking this out of context. (James
4:2b-3)
“You do not have,
because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you
ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions.” We need to remember that Matthew 7:7-8 is in
the context of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount and should be taken as asking for
spiritual growth and the ability to live out kingdom values in the midst of a
fallen world…not as a genie in a lamp. But when we ask for what we need to
follow Jesus, what does our heavenly Father give us?
“How Much More?” (v. 9-11)
Or which one of you,
if his son asks him for
bread,
will give him a stone?
Or if he asks for a fish,
will give him a serpent?
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!
This is a classic a fortiori
argument, which means, “If this [small thing] is true…then how much more will
this [big thing] be true?” Jesus uses the culturally acceptable First-Century metaphor of a father giving what is good and necessary to his son as
the small thing that was true. “How much more” will God do, since he is wholly
good? He not only gives good things (v.11) but James 1:16-17 says,
Do not be deceived, my beloved brothers.
Every
good gift and
every perfect gift is from above,
coming down from the Father of
lights
with whom there is no variation
or shadow due
to change.
So God gives good things…in fact every good thing, but what is the best
thing? The parallel passage in Luke 11:13 replaces “good things” with “the Holy
Spirit” by whom all good things are supplied. The result is God with us and in
us. In the Old Testament, the Spirit would
“come upon” temporarily for a specific task or moment, but in the New
Testament, the Spirit comes and indwells believers on an ongoing basis. As a
result, he…
- Comforts us (Acts 9:31)
- Teaches us (John 14:26)
- Convicts us (John 16:8-11)
- Guides us (John 16:13)
- Empowers us (Micah 3:8; Acts 1:8)
- Reminds us that we have a Heavenly Father who loves us. (Romans 8:16)
- Intercedes for us (Romans 8:26-27)
A Fresh Glimpse of the Golden Rule (v.12)
“So whatever you wish
that others
would do to you,
do also to them,
for this is the Law and the Prophets.
We have all heard the “Golden Rule” at one time or another, but have we
ever thought about it in its context of persistent prayer? How do we want
others to pray for us? That is how we should pray for them…persistently and
passionately!
We can’t live kingdom lives without being persistent in prayer for
ourselves and for others. The Sermon on the Mount humbles us, and, if we
understand it, find that it drives us to our knees. If we end where we started,
poor in spirit and mourning over sin, then we are blessed indeed.
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