Talk to Your Father – 8/25/24

If you’ll turn to Matthew 7. This past week I was at the Cancer Institute several days with my wife. She was one day receiving an infusion, and I was out in the waiting room. Fortunately in this waiting room, they have tables. So I was spreading out, working on today’s message. But there was a TV going rather loudly. Sometimes no one was in the room, so I was trying to figure out how to turn the TV off. But it was childproof. Couldn’t do it.

There was a show on called Neighborhood Wars. This show features footage from cell phones and security cameras that record neighbors or customers arguing with one another and then going at it over this disagreement. For example, one man at a fast food restaurant was screaming at the manager for giving him the wrong toy in his kids meal. That turned into a chair-throwing brawl. Another woman was just humiliating the store clerk who wouldn’t return, give her money back for a shirt. There were disagreements that ended in food fights and fist brawls.

Now. The most amazing thing is, first of all, that this is a show. Even more, that it’s in its sixth season. What is wrong with us? And then even more, that it was hard for me to look away. What is wrong with me? What is going on here?

I want you to imagine for a moment this show is going on. People are screaming, humiliating each other, throwing things. And I’m reading Matthew 7:1-12. And you’re thinking, wait a second. This is like two worlds, two different kingdoms. Maybe that’s the point. Jesus is saying, in my kingdom we resolve conflicts a very different way. In my kingdom, we communicate our concerns very differently.

This morning I want to do three things. One, we’re going to do an overview of Matthew 7:1-12. And I want us to see, because so many people pull these verses out as if they’re fragments, completely disconnected from one another. I want us to see the whole flow. We’re going to cover all four points, and then we’ll come back and focus in on the third point where we pick up from last week. And finally, hopefully we can apply that. What do we do with this? Let’s pray, and then we’ll do those three things.

Father, we can’t do anything without you — anything that matters, anything that lasts, including what we’re about to do. So we pray that you would pour out your Spirit upon us so that we might grow in relational wisdom and learn how to ask, seek, knock. We pray this in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Overview: a safety course in judging, we’ve called this. A few weeks ago we talked about how judging is similar to owning a weapon. A gun can be a great help or a great harm, depending on how it’s used. Judging, which we all do every day, can be a great help or great harm, depending on how it’s done. You could also call this section a training seminar in relational wisdom.

There are four parts. Two weeks ago we saw, start with yourself, verses 1-5. Jesus is training us to slow down. You’re trying to pick that speck out of your brother’s eye, but you might be blind to your own problem. So stop. Start with yourself. And then you will see clearly to help another. That’s verses 1-5. Last week we talked about stop trying to force-feed. That’s verse 6, giving what is holy to dogs, trying to cram pearls down the throat of pigs. It never ends well. You could say it this way. Don’t pressure people to embrace what they don’t currently value. Don’t pressure people to embrace what they don’t currently value. Why? Because the truth will be abused, Jesus says, and the messenger will be abused.

Now, this doesn’t mean we go around labeling people dog, pig, and permanently writing them off as if they’re a different kind of person. It does mean we ask God for wisdom. Why wisdom? Two weeks ago again, we saw in 1-5 we must not be too quick to judge, or we’ll be cynical, or critical, or hypocritical. Last week we saw we must not be too slow to judge. Verse 6 is essentially “lest we be uncritical, gullible, naive.” Do you see how that takes wisdom when we are overly critical or under critical? We tend toward various forms of manipulation, coercion, actively or passively.

So what do I do? Go limp? Do nothing? No. Number 3, talk to your Father. Talk to your Father, verses 7-11. This is where Jesus teaches us how to ask, seek, knock so that we are not treating each other as if we are orphans. Fighting over the last scrap of stale bread as if we don’t have a Father who provides in the kingdom of Jesus. Prayer is the alternative or antidote, the alternative to coercion. Prayer is the alternative to coercion. What do we mean by coercion? Prayer replaces bullying, manipulating, online shaming. We pray for people rather than prey on people. Spelling change there. We pray for people rather than prey on people is what Jesus is saying between verse 6 and verses 7-11. And this kind of praying is where we’re going to land in a few minutes. We’re going to focus on that today.

But I want to I want to cover the fourth point so that we could see it all together. Fourthly, be creative in your kindness, verse 12. There are people who are going to be really difficult to love. They will twist anything you say or do to be something negative. If you back off, they’re going to complain that you’re ignoring them. If you press near, they’re going to complain, you’re smothering me. Whatever you do, it will be wrong. And so, Jesus provides some helpful training in verse 12.

“So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them. For this is the Law and the Prophets.”

Now I use the word creative because to do what Jesus is calling us to do, you have to use your imagination, creativity. What would it be like to be this other person facing the challenges they face, the opportunities they have? What might that be like? A narcissist is never going to do that, to actually try to feel what another person might feel. Now, there’s danger in doing that because you can abuse that in a couple ways. Two of the most common ways, you can assume that you know what that other person feels or wants, which you don’t, I don’t. So what might they… What might be helpful?

Secondly, you can over-empathize to the point where you can imagine what they wish for is what God wills, as if morality is defined by someone’s wishes. And so we can end up justifying sin. That is not what Jesus is talking about. There are three important features to this creative kindness. One, it is the contrast to the hypocritical judgment of verse 1. In verses 1 and 2, we’re imagining the worst of someone. In verse 12, we’re imagining the best. Do you see the contrast like bookends? Negative, positive.

Second feature of creative kindness, it is the completion to the Law and the Prophets. When we began the main body of Jesus’ sermon all the way back, Sermon on the Mount, we’re in right now, all the way back in 5:17, Jesus said that this will fulfill the Law and the Prophets. And now in 7:12 this will fulfill the Law and the Prophets. It’s these bookends that surround the main body of Jesus’ sermon, and they are, this creative kindness is the fruit of a righteousness that exceeds the Scribes and Pharisees that he referred to back in chapter 5.

Third, this creative kindness is the consequence of believing prayer. It is the consequence of believing prayer. It flows from talking to our Father. Well, what do we mean, talk to our Father? So we’ve done the overview. Now we’re going to drill down into verses 7-11 of Matthew 7. Jesus communicates this in three ways. Number one. Notice the extravagant invitation, verse 7.

“Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.”

These verbs are in the present tense, which you could translate this, keep on asking, keep on seeking, keep on knocking. Why would anyone do that? Well, verse 8,

“For everyone who asks [present tense] is receiving. And to the one who seeks is finding, and to the one who knocks, [future tense] it will be opened.”

This is an extravagant invitation. But Jesus anticipates our skepticism. Why would God do that for me? So he gives us what we could call the ordinary illustration, verse 9.

“Or which one of you, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent.”

So here Jesus is appealing to a very mundane family event. A child is hungry — I’m sure that happens in your home — asks for some food. Jesus is saying is a typical dad going to slide a stone on to the plate or a snake? Haha. You know, it would be like today we don’t ask for bread or fish so much, but maybe a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. So it would be like your typical dad today, coating a piece of bread with mud and putting some diesel oil on the mud to lubricate the sandwich, and then handing it to the kid. Would a typical dad do that? Seriously, this scene reminds me of a Saturday Night Live theme over 30 years ago. I’m not a fan of Saturday Night Live. But over 30 years ago, Jack Handey did “Deep Thoughts.” Some of you old people will remember this. Some are bad. This one is relevant.

“One thing kids like is to be tricked. For instance, I was going to take my little nephew to Disneyland, but instead I drove him to an old burned out warehouse. ‘Oh no,’ I said. ‘Disneyland burned down.’ He cried and cried. But I think that deep down he thought it was a pretty good joke. I started to drive over to the real Disneyland, but it was getting pretty late.”

So, kids, would you enjoy that? No. We got a no. And it’s just, it’s not just kids, right? When you build your expectation, you’re going to do something really fun. You’re going to go somewhere, receive something, and then someone just dashes that like it was within their control. But they still they thought it was a funny thing to do the opposite. That’s the illustration Jesus uses.

And now, notice the compelling implication, verse 11, the compelling implication. What does this mean? What does this matter?

“If you then who are evil know how to give good gifts to your children,”

Now pause for a second. Notice how Jesus’ point is resting on rich theology. Jesus highlights the depravity of man — “you … who are evil” — and then he highlights the common grace given to all people. Even unsaved dads know not to give snakes as sandwiches. He goes on.

“How much more will your Father, who is in heaven, give good things to those who ask him!”

So Jesus is making a lesser/greater argument. If the average dad knows how to give good gifts to their children, how much more your Father in heaven will give you good gifts! That’s Matthew 7:7-11.

Now, what is Jesus specifically calling us to do here? Let’s apply. Number 1, very clearly, he’s calling us to ask. Ask, turn to our Father rather than turn on our brother. Turn to our Father rather than turn on our brother. These three commands — ask, seek, knock are commands — are embedded within a context. If you look at the most immediate context, in contrast to judging hypocritically, verses 1-5, in contrast to naively assuming I can jam anything down anyone’s throat, whether they value it or not. Ask. Prayer is the alternative to coercion, manipulation, and intimidation. Notice the tight connection between appealing to our Father rather than unloading on our brother. And you’ll see this in several different places. Let me show you one other example in 1 Timothy 2:8.

“I desire that in every place the men should pray, lifting holy hands without anger or quarreling.”

So men, for example, are going to do something with their hands. They’re either going to lift them up in prayer, or they’re going to clench them in anger, one or the other. And this passage back in Matthew 7, as well as in 1 Timothy 2, is contrasting, saying, no, in my kingdom the men are not characterized by clenched fists but raised hands crying out to our Father. This truth will transform our relationships.

Let me apply first to marriages. 95% of marriages between good marriages and bad marriages are essentially the same. I just made that statistic up because I felt like this moment of the sermon needed a statistic. But there really is some good data showing that it’s in those 5% moments, the small part of our marriages that distinguish between good and bad marriages. I’m not talking about abusive marriage. I’m talking about good and bad marriages. What’s the difference? Well, it’s in those heated moments, those 5% where things are escalating, where in a bad marriage we begin to either demean one another — personally, attack one another rather than address the issue — or we disappear. We withdraw. We’re done. I’m done with you. Both are equally damaging.

Dr. John Gottman’s research undergirds this whole point. In good marriages… A lot of people in bad marriages think some people will just naturally get along and good marriages just happen. No good marriages have almost the same amount of conflict. It’s just handled differently. When a couple in a healthy marriage begin seeing things escalate, Dr. Gottman noticed that they tend to pull a pressure release valve to release the pressure, or de-escalate or take a runaway truck ramp, you know, when you feel like we’re picking up speed, heading in a bad direction, what might that look like? It will look like a myriad of things.

But one example is, “Honey, I really want to resolve this with you. But I can sense so many thoughts and feelings right now, that if I speak these, they’re not going to be helpful. Could I have a few minutes to walk to get my thoughts together? And then I promise, we’re not going to ignore this. We will come back. I love you, I want to resolve this, but right now is not the best time.”

Do you see what just happened? Pressure release. Go for a walk. And what is Jesus teaching us that we do in that walk? We should… what’s the big word? Pray? Yes. I was going to say “ask.” You guys are more spiritual. That’s exactly it. Pray. Ask.

Can you hear the voice of your Father? You’re walking. Now there are all these feelings, thoughts. You want to put that person in his place, her place. And your Father is saying, ask. Ask. You need wisdom. Ask. You need patience. Ask. You need kindness. Ask. You need to know what to do. Ask. I am ready to give you what you need in this situation. Ask. What a massive difference this makes on relationships because it’s in those 5% — random statistic — but it’s in those moments of heated exchange that we do so much damage to the other person, that creates so much distrust, so much pain, and days of ongoing silent treatment or tension where if we would back up in that moment and ask. Ask. That’s what Jesus is saying.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, in his classic book on community called Life Together, writes this.

“Human love constructs its own image of the other person, of what he is and what he should become. It takes the life of the other person into its own hands.”

Pause. Just like back in verses 1-5, what Bonhoeffer is saying, human love thinks it knows what that other person needs. If I could just get at your eyeball and get that thing out. You’d be good to go. I’d be much happier. We’d have a good marriage. That’s human love. But Bonhoeffer goes on.

“Spiritual love recognizes the true image of the other person which he has received from Jesus Christ. The image that Jesus Christ himself embodied and would stamp upon all men.”

What Bonhoeffer is alluding to is, we are all made in the image of God. Sin has marred that image. Jesus is renewing us in the image of himself, his Father, Colossians 3:10. He goes on.

“Thus this spiritual love will speak to Christ about a brother more than to a brother about Christ. It knows that the most direct way to others is always through prayer to Christ, and that the love of others is wholly dependent upon the truth in Christ.”

“Ask, and it will be given to you.”

You know how we have these inner dialogs going on? What Paul Tripp calls the inner lawyer, where you’re preparing for a big showdown in court. I’m going to have a mic drop moment. Zing her. Put him in his place. These dialogs are going on in our imagination. And they often put the other person in a really bad light and put ourselves in a really good light.

What Jesus is teaching us is prayer is like taking your imagination through a car wash and washing the way we imagine that other person, renewing the vision we have for that person, whether they can see it all or not. Prayer is uniting our heart with our Father’s heart on behalf of our brother or sister.

Lord, you’re up to really beautiful things in our lives, but often our brains are imagining the worst about someone. We remember their failures. We highlight what they’ve done wrong. And prayer is uniting us with our Father in an imagination for our brother that is beautiful and may not be fulfilled yet, but it changes the way we love them and respond to them. Father, help me see her like you see her. Ask. Turn to our Father rather than turn on our brother.

Then number two is seek. Seek. Pursue our Father’s kingdom rather than our own agenda or our own kingdom. And this is moving away from the broader context just a little bit. And this point protects us from abusing or misunderstanding the extravagant invitation.

For example, last November, Megan Rapinoe was playing in her last professional soccer game, and six minutes into the game, she went down and was injured. She had imagined a storybook ending to her illustrious career. You know, bicycle win, be carried off by your fellow players, and retire. That’s beautiful. But instead, she was carried off by the trainer six minutes into the game. And after the game, she was interviewed, and she said,

“If there was a God, this is proof that there isn’t.”

So Megan is arguing that if God exists, he will always make my dreams come true. And if my storybook endings don’t come through, then as she’s arguing here, he must not exist. Is that true? No.

Is that what Jesus is teaching when he says ask, seek, knock? You will receive, you will find, it will be opened. Well, one of the ways we know what he’s teaching is to look at the surrounding context. We began the Sermon on the Mount back in chapter 5, where Jesus told us who we are as members of Christ’s kingdom. Does Jesus begin, “Blessed are those who live a Disney kind of life and have all their dreams come true.” Is that what he said? No. Blessed are those meek… mourn… poor in spirit… hunger and thirst after righteousness. Even blessed are the persecuted. Whoa. So whatever kind of blessing we’re talking about, it’s different than what we would imagine.

And then the second half of chapter 5, Jesus taught us how we live, that we are not characterized by anger or lust. That we value marriage. Right in the middle of that, Jesus said, one man, one woman. Life. (Megan would have a big problem with that.) And then goes on, loving our enemies. This is how we live in this kingdom.

And then in chapter 6, what we live for. We don’t live for status as if a successful life is getting the applause of people, approval of people. Or we don’t live for stuff — second half of chapter six — if we become financially successful and achieve all this material stuff, then we’ve made it. We’ve got the storybook ending? No, we seek a different thing. What do we seek? Matthew 6:33.

“But seek first his kingdom [the kingdom of God] and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.”

In other words, God does care that you drive something, wear something, eat something. He cares about those mundane needs. But his people are characterized by seeking something way bigger, way higher. So whatever it means to ask, seek, knock, we find the answer within the context of the Sermon on the Mount, not in our storybook dreams of how our lives should go.

James, the half brother of Jesus, wrote a little letter that mirrors some of the topics in the Sermon on the Mount, and he explained why we often don’t think we’re getting what we want or ask for. James 4:3.

“You ask and do not receive because you ask wrongly to spend it on your passions.”

Yes, we need to ask for big things. And yes, our Father loves to pour out good things on his children. But all of that is within the context of seeking his kingdom rather than our own.

Number 3, knock. Trust our Father’s provision rather than our own perception. The reason this is so important is knocking implies hidden-ness, lack of openness. Something is closed. Something’s not fully accessible yet. I can’t see it. It’s behind something. It seems uncertain.

James Fraser, in a biography written by his daughter called Mountain Rain, teaches us a lot about prayer. James was only 22 when he left a promising engineering career to go to China. His heart latched on to the Lisu people of the Yunnan Province, a stunningly beautiful area. And he spent the rest of his life traveling through the rugged mountainous area, sharing the good news and establishing churches. The fruit that came from his labor was astounding. Thousands and thousands of Lisu coming to Christ, churches planted. Even now, decades and decades after his death, those churches still, many are thriving. But it was not always so.

After about 5 or 6 years of ministering, he had planted many seeds but had seen no harvest. And he began to raise questions like, why did you come? Why did you make such great sacrifices? What is the use of praying? He became so discouraged, he slipped into deep depression and battled suicidal thoughts. He would sit on the edge of these mountainous cliffs, imagining throwing himself off.

But he received a pamphlet from home, and he began soaking in the Scriptures that were in the pamphlet. And the Lord used this, these promises to bring him out of depression and to teach him a lot about believing prayer. He wrote to some of his prayer partners these words.

“I’ve come to see that in the past years I’ve wasted much time over praying that was not effective prayer at all. Praying without faith is like trying to cut with a blunt knife — much labor expended to little purpose….

“I’ve been impressed lately with the thought that people fail in praying the prayer of faith because they do not believe that God has answered, but only that he will answer their petitions. They rise from their knees, feeling that God will answer some time or other, but not that he is answered already. This is not the faith that makes prayer effective. True faith glories in the present tense and does not trouble itself about the future. God’s promises are in the present tense and are quite secure enough to set our hearts at rest. Their full outworking is often in the future, but God’s Word is as good as his bond, and we need have no anxiety.”

So what does that mean? I do think he overstates his point sometimes, because some promises are yet for the future. But his point is, when your faith is in a Father who sees all things and does all things well, and you ask him for good things, you can walk away knowing he has answered. It’s similar to what the author of Hebrews says in Hebrews 11:1, that faith is the substance or the assurance of things not seen. So this is why we’re knocking. I can’t see it. It’s around the corner. It’s a little beyond my perception or capability to grasp. However, I’ve asked you for this. I’m seeking this. I’m knocking for this. And what Fraser is arguing, when you’re … when you’re doing that, you can get up from prayer and walk away with the assurance that your Father has answered that prayer. Even if some of the fulfillment of that answer is not yet… has not arrived, or you can’t perceive. And there’s no way we’re going to do that if we’re not utterly convinced that our Father is reliable and generous, right? I think that’s where most of us struggle.

I was talking to a woman this week who experienced horrific abuse growing up from her father and family. And so to hear messages like this can be very difficult. Even the idea of “father” can be contaminated. But she was describing through counseling, through other ministries this summer how her understanding of our Father has been transformed this summer. As she’s describing this, she has radiant joy. She has a completely new understanding of who her Father is, and that our heavenly Father is not at all like what she grew up with. And that is a miraculous work of the Spirit. But Jesus is describing our Father this way. He delights to give you good things.

Well, what about when he gives me something that doesn’t feel like a good thing? It feels like he just slid a stone or a serpent onto my plate. My wife, Karen and I were talking about this this week. And for visitors’ sake, let me bring you up to speed. Karen has been diagnosed with leiomyosarcoma, which is a rare, aggressive cancer. She was given eighteen months to live. That was three over three years ago. Praise God. But this particular kind of cancer doesn’t respond to any traditional treatment or alternative treatment. And we have prayed daily for her healing. We have had wonderful prayer times, anointing of oil, and the Spirit just filling the room. And we have seen so many answers to prayer throughout this journey. We could write a book on the way God has answered prayer, but he hasn’t healed her.

And to update everyone, this week was a particularly difficult week. Many side effects, tumors are multiplying. So I asked her, what does that feel like when you feel like our good Father seems to have given us something that’s not good? And she was explaining to me that if you’re just looking at the moment, you might conclude that. But what about the future? What about the things… And she’s getting at the same point Jesus talking about with the knocking. What if there are things coming that help us understand this gift in a completely different way? And as she was talking, the illustration that came to my mind was from the Olympics.

If you’re training for the… We have a man in our church who won a medal in the Olympics — not this year — but he was explaining recently that he had to train 5 to 6 hours a day — painful, rigorous, sacrificial — and do nothing else almost. And imagine if you have to go through that painful process and you don’t think there’s ever going to be an Olympics, or you don’t think there’s any chance you can win a medal, that painful process is going to feel abusive, right? Who would make you do that? But what if you had a coach who had won a gold, and he was working with you saying, I know if you will follow this training process, I see in you the capacity to win gold, if you will make these sacrifices and follow this training process.

I know the illustration breaks down a little because Jesus has done it all for us, but he calls us to follow him. And he went to a cross. His Father called him, to take what is the ultimate painful gift because he knew how good it was going to be. And perhaps Jesus will call us out of the goodness of his heart to walk through some things that are incredibly difficult and painful. Because he knows the prize,  the fruit that will come from this.

And I believe this with all my heart. It doesn’t make it easy, and it doesn’t stop us from asking. We keep… This morning, we’re praying for healing. Keep asking. Keep seeking. Keep knocking. He has good things for us. And this is what Paul says. And I know we tend to destroy this verse, but I cling to this. Romans 8:28.

“We know that for those who love God, all things work together.”

There’s the same word that’s used in Matthew 7. Good. Your Father gives good things.

“All things work together for good for those who are called according to his purpose.”

His purpose, not ours. So what do we do? Keep asking. Keep seeking. Keep knocking. I want us to take a few minutes before we respond in song to quietly talk to our Father. Some of us struggle with the idea of father. Some of us have allowed our own experience to define what our Father is like, rather than what he says. But wherever you are, let’s take a few moments right now. I’ll kind of lead us through this prayer time.

Father, we are quiet in your presence. We’re not here to prove anything to impress you. We can’t earn anything. You’ve done it all through Jesus. Your Spirit has spoken to us through your Word. We don’t want to blow it away. We don’t want to blow it off and just go do what we’re going to do, or think the way we’re going to think. We pray that your Spirit would confront lies we believe about you. May we confess and repent. Hear our prayers now.

Some of us are very distracted, seeking everything but your kingdom. Hear our prayers now as we confess and repent. Some of us have grown impatient, knocking and knocking and knocking and we just still can’t see it, feel it, taste it, know it. Lord, some of us want to give up. Like James Frazer sitting on a mountain, just being done with it all. We can’t quite see what’s around that corner or past that door. We pray that, Lord, your Spirit would renew us today with the promise that you are faithful. You will do what you say. May we not miss out on that by giving up. Turning to other things, or people, or our own strength, rather than trusting you to do what you said you would do.

And I want to thank you just for the answered prayer this week — so many times asking for help, and you rush in. You delight to give your children good gifts. Some of us don’t believe that, Lord. Please change that in us. And as we continue to cry out to you, we pray your Spirit would continue to speak in very specific ways to our hearts, that we would know the voice of our Father. That changes everything. We thank you. In Jesus’ name, amen.