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Everybody say ask. Come on, say seek. Say knock. Is there anything you're asking God for today in your life? Anything you're asking God for? Anything you've been praying about, processing, talking about, anything you've been stressing about, you know, dealing with your own inside your own heart? Today's message is for you, I think, because I think there's an uncovering of scripture here today to understand how God works through prayer. And we'll conclude today by going to a time of prayer for you and your life, because I believe that asking, seeking, and knocking are part of the Christian journey together. Matthew 7, here we go. Verse 1 through 11, watch this close. Do not judge, or you two will be what? Judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, Let me get the speck out of your eye, when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? I love the imagery. I think of a cartoon character going with that conversation. And he says, You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and you'll see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye. Verse 6 Do not give dogs what is sacred. Do not throw your pearls to the pigs. If you do, they may trample them under their feet and turn and tear you into pieces. Here we go. Verse 7 is a key verse for us today. Ask, it will be given to you. In fact, let's read verse seven together out loud. Here we go. One, two, three. Ask and it will be given to you. Seek and you will find. Knock and the door will be open. Do you stop there? For everyone who asks receives. The one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks, the door will be open. Which of you, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone, or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? If you then, even though you're evil, that's that's encouraging, know how good to how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask of him. Everybody say ask. Everybody say seek. Everybody say knock. Here's what we're talking about today. We're talking about our our petitions, we're talking about our pursuit, and then we're talking about our persistence, our petition the ask, the pursuit of the seek, and the knock to the persistence of faith. Every one of us have probably prayed for something in our lifetime that God did not answer the way you thought he would do it. And maybe even praying right now. Maybe you've asked God for healing, for a miracle, for financial provision, for restoration of relationship. You've asked God to touch your mind, your body, give you peace, give you strength. You've asked God for something. You prayed for healing, you prayed for a better job or a family situation. You've prayed, prayed, prayed, prayed earnestly, and you're still wondering, God, are you taking my calls any longer? Or God, are you sleeping today? All of us have been there. When you think about this, in the Christian faith, this call to ask and it'll be given to you, to seek and you will find it, and to knock, and it'll be open to you, is a great reminder of the greatest privilege we have as Christians, and that is we have access to the Father in heaven through Jesus Christ. What an honor to think that I can ask of God. In fact, I would say God invites us to ask things of him. And when we look at this scripture, we realize that prayer is not primarily about informing God of our needs. God knows your need before you even ask of him. It's about participating with a God who is a good father. Come on, say God is. Say, God is a good father. Now, when you think about this in Scripture, the Bible is clear about this. Matthew 6, 8, your father knows what you need before you ask of him. Yet Jesus still tells us to ask of him because a petition prayer is not convincing God to care, it's responding to God's instruction or invitation to ask of him because he's a father who delights in hearing his kids call upon him. You've never ever asked of God anything in which he said, Stop asking, I'm not listening. Now, if you're a mama or a dad, you've learned to turn the word mom and dad off in your ear. Can I get an amen? Mom, mom, mom, mom, mom, mom, mom, mom, mute, dad, dad, dad, dad, dad, dad. Actually, dad, mute, um. How many of you guys got that? A few of you did. All the men are like, stop hating on us. We're trying our best. You've never prayed a prayer in which God said, Would you please stop calling on me? Would you please leave me alone? And this is important because in our faith journey, we got to realize that we're responding to an invitation and that prayer always works in us before it works for us. Every time you pray, something happens on the inside of you, even if nothing on the outside changes. Because prayer is first about your relationship with a good father who loves you beyond your own awareness or imagination. When you look at this scriptures together, these 11 verses of Matthew 7, and you kind of break them down, it's all about relationship. Us with God, us with other believers, and even those outside the faith who might be antagonists or critical of our faith. The Bible gives us a position and a posturing on all these things because as a Christ follower, my response to God, my response to you, and my response to those outside the faith is all important because it shows what Christ is doing inside of me. God says to us to ask. And we think about this, Jesus actually concludes his teaching on prayer in the Sermon on the Mount with this thought process. After all he said in the Sermon on the Mount, he ends with this conversation of asking, seeking, and knocking. Let's lean in deeper to all these three key words and we'll break it down for your life today. Here we go. Everybody say ask. The word here in the original language, the Greek, literally means to request of someone who you know is able to give it to you. And I use this example. I've never asked my wife ever in 34 years of togetherness and uh 36 years of togetherness and 32 years of married life, I've never asked her one time to get anything for me off the top shelf. Never. I've never said, honey, you get the heavy box out of the car, I'll get the light box. I understand that there's some things that she may not can do that I can do. However, she's asked of me on numerous occasions, will you please get that off the top shelf? And which I gladly said, absolutely, here it is, because her wish is my command. Can I get any imaginate, guys? Her wish is my command. And so when she says, Will you get that? The answer is absolutely yes. When you ask of God what you're really doing, you're saying, God, I know you're able, I know you can, I know you have the power, I know this is not beyond your control or scope. God, you can do this, and that is why I'm asking. You can save, you can heal, you can deliver, you can set free, you can break the chains off my life, you can provide my need, you can give me wisdom. God, you can do this, and this is why I ask of you. I've never had anybody ask me to help them on how to run a marathon. I guess they looked at me and thought, he ain't running nowhere. Except to the grocery store and the restaurant, that's where he runs to. I've had folks say, Can you help me understand how to get my bench press a little bit higher? Yeah, I can do that for you. When you look at people, you kind of have a sense of what they may be able to do or not to do. Is that true or false? When it comes to God, every time you ask of God what you're saying is, God, I believe you can. The language here is that of a dependent child asking a father or a servant, asking his king, or a believer, asking a good God who's all powerful in a place of presence in his life. God's able today. Come on, say, God is able today. Jesus assumes you're gonna have some needs in life, he never rebukes the needs. In fact, he invites you to ask of God the things you already have need of. And here's why prayer begins with humility. Prayer is recognized, and I cannot, but God, you can. James chapter 4, 2 says, You have not because you ask not. You don't ask God. You need to ask of God. And sometimes our greatest limitation isn't God's willingness per se, but often our indifference is saying, God, I want to sincerely ask of you, and then God, I want to trust you for the outcome of my life. Look at this in Mark 11, 22. It says, Have faith in God. Jesus answered, Truly I tell you, if anyone says to this mountain, go, throw yourself in the sea, and does not doubt in their heart, but believes what they say, they will happen, it will be done for them. Therefore I tell you this whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you will have received it, and it will be yours. And when you stand praying, now watch us close. If you held anything against anyone, forgive them so that your Father in heaven may forgive your sin. Notice how he connects here together in the asking of God things, the throw of the mountain to see things. He says, Oh, by the way, if you got anybody you've not forgiven. I wonder if unforgiveness limits God's power working in our life. That hits kind of hard, doesn't it? Because often we want to hold a grudge or a bitterness toward a spouse or a family member or a co-worker or a pastor or a leader or a neighbor or this or that person or a child or a parent, and we don't realize we're actually harming our own journey because of unforgiveness. If you're gonna ask of God anything, be sure your heart is pure before God with both Him and your fellow man. Because God cares about your heart toward other people. Everybody say seek. We're gonna ask, we're gonna seek. Seeking means to search diligently until you find it. Until you find it, you you're not gonna quit. You're not gonna quit. You're gonna look, look, and look. The other day I was I was walking around my house trying to find my wallet with earnest passion. I had to leave the house. I could not find my wallet. I looked here, I looked there, I looked there, I went here, I went there, I could not find it because it was in my right hand the entire time. I've reached the age where I search for stuff I'm holding on to. Anybody else in the house that you identify with that problem? What is wrong with us? I mean, I'm like scurrying the house. Where is that? It's gotta be here. I just had it here a minute ago, and I went to get in the car, I'm like, and I went to open the door, I'm like, well, there's my wallet right there. So or maybe it just out of a miracle appeared in my hand. Just maybe it just happened to be there the whole time. What is it with this aging process? But to seek with diligence and never give up seeking goes beyond presenting requests. It's about pursuing God. I don't want to ever be guilty of seeking in the gift and not seeking in the giver. Think of it this way: it's not just asking of God, it's seeking for more of God. It's not just saying, God, give me what I want, it's saying, God, I want more of you. Look what the psalmist said. One thing I asked from the Lord, the one thing I do seek, this is Psalm 27, 4, that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to seek him in his temple. The one thing I want, I want to be in God's presence. Look at Jeremiah's words, Jeremiah 29, 11. You've heard this first verse a lot before I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and to not harm you, plans to give you a future and to give you a hope. Now watch verse 12 and read it slow and read it clear today. Then, everybody say, then, then you will call on me and I will come and pray to me, and I will what? Listen to you. You will seek me and you will find me when you seek me with what? Your whole heart. The asking part, I believe God can. The seeking part, God, I'm gonna pursue you. And you also see in this progression of scripture, you see a maturing process in our faith journey. And that is this God, I don't want just the gift, I want the giver. And if I don't get the gift, I'll praise you if I just get a hold of the giver today. Imagine asking your kid at Christmas time, is it Christmas time yet? I think so. Coming up. Store's got false stuff out already. Imagine going to your kids at Christmas and saying, What do you want this year for Christmas? Let's say they're roughly seven, eight, eight, nine, ten years of age. You say, What do you guys want for Christmas this year? And they look back and you say, Mom and dad, I just want to be with you. You would look at your kid and go, should we take your temperature? Is everything okay on the inside? Because you know they probably have a written list of stuff they've been working on for several months, and they're prepared to go, and here it is. But notice this as you get older, and your spouse says, What do you want for Christmas? Just to hang out with you be fine by me. I'm pretty good. Nothing I really need. I I would enjoy just being the two of us. There's a maturing process. In the faith journey, a maturing process in prayer is, God, I don't just want the stuff. I want you. The psalmist said, the one thing I want, I just want to be in his house, in his presence. His house was where his presence was. I just want to be in the space in which your presence resides. I just want to sense you, feel you're with me. I want to know you're near God. I just want to worship you and praise you and lift you up and declare your goodness and your worthiness. God, you're worthy of praise and honor and glory and power today. You're the king of everything, creator of everything. God, you're such a good and loving and a faithful God. God, I just I just want to be with you. I want to be where you are, God. If you'll show up, I want to be right there in the center of the house of God to be with you. I just want to be with you. In our prayer life, we can often say, God, I need this, this, this, and this. And the truth is you just need more of Him. Because if you have Him, you have all that you need today. The seeking part goes beyond the request and onto the pursuit. God, I just want to be with you. What about knocking? Everybody say knocking. I'm gonna ask, I'm gonna seek, I'm gonna knock. Now, this is a very strong verb in the original language, and it pictures someone in a doorway. Doors closed. And let's go back to this. You always knock longer if you know they're in there. Can I get an amen? I thought about this when I was writing the sermon. Think about how culture's changed. There is a time and space, and I'm I'm not that old. I remember these days. When if somebody came by your house, you went, Oh, we got company. That's how old I am. And you go, come on in. Nowadays, nowadays, who's at the door? What do they want? I'm not going. Don't raise your hand. But you know in your heart you have sat in your house when someone knocked and did not go to the door on purpose. Can I get an amen? You know you've done that. I've done that, certainly. Who is out there? Or you've done like I do. I checked my ring phone on my app. Who is at my door right now? I am not going to answer that door right now. But God's not that way. God doesn't look out from the balcony of heaven across heaven's threshold and doorways and go, who is out there knocking? In fact, the idea here is that the knocking is our persistence. The asking is our petition. The the the seeking is our pursuit. And this is the fact that God, I'm not gonna give up until you show up. I'm not gonna let go. I'm gonna keep crying out, I'm declaring, I'm believing, I'm hoping, I'm praying, I'm worshiping, I'm singing, I'm speaking, I'm reading the word of God. God, I believe you can, I believe you're there. Knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock. I'm not gonna stop, God. I'm coming for you. I'm reaching out, I'm crying out, I'm begging because I cannot do it by myself. I have to have you, God. I need you in my life. I cannot do this, but God, you can. God, you're able, God, you're worthy. God, you have the power. God, you know what I need before I even ask God. You can do it today. And this is the picture in the knocking part. There's a picture of this in Luke 18. Go real fast, Luke 18. This is the parable of the persistent woman who just wouldn't quit knocking. And now, watch this parable because she gets the attention of a guy who doesn't even believe in God, but her persistence got his attention. Keep knocking. Luke 18. Then Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up. Everybody say, Don't give up. Come on, say don't give up. Watch this. He said, In a certain town there was a judge who neither feared God nor cared what people thought. And there was a widow in that town who kept coming to him with a plea. Here's the plea grant me justice against my adversary. For some time he refused. But finally he said to himself, even though I don't fear God or care what people think, yet because this widow keeps what? Bothering me, I will see that she gets justice so that she won't eventually come and attack me. The funny picture there. And the Lord said, listen to what the unjust judge says. And will not God bring about justice for his chosen ones who crowd him day and night? Will he keep putting them off? I tell you, he will see that they get justice and quickly, however, when the Son of Man comes, will you even find faith on the earth? A persistent widow is used in a picture of persistent prayer. In other words, what you're saying is, God, I'm not gonna stop. Because I believe you can. And every time I ask, you're doing a work in me, not just for me. And Jesus concludes to us that God recognizes our persistence and God honors our pursuits. Persistence is not overcoming God's reluctance, it's being transparent about our dependence. It's saying, I don't have another option. There's nothing else I can do. It's like this is the only way there. There is not a plan B possibility. And so Jesus tells us in these three three imagery words today to keep asking, keep seeking. Keep knocking. Don't stop praying. God is able because prayer is not an event, it's a lifestyle, it's a conviction, it's a dependence, it's a belief that I must cry upon God. Paul says to pray continually in 1 Thessalonians 5. Prayer becomes a rhythm of the Christian life, a surrendered life. You're always saying, God, I need you in desperate ways. Now here's what you gotta know. We build all of our prayer on a few simple thoughts about the nature of God. Because God's character is the foundation of our prayer life. When you believe God can, and you believe he will, if it's in his providential plan, your prayer life remains steadfast. Let's go back to the opening thought we saw in the ask, seek, and knock in Matthew 7. Jesus reminds us all that if we being evil would give to our kids what they ask for, how much more will God give to you what you ask for? We build all of our prayer life on the premise that God is a good father. Come on, say God is a good father. Here's three foundational thoughts to close out our time in the Word of God together today. First of all, believe that God can. Hebrews 11:6 says, anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and he rewards those who earnestly seek him. Paul wrote in Ephesians 3.20, I love this verse right here. Now to him who is able. Come on, say, now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than we could ask or imagine. God is able. God is able. God is able today. He's able to do it in your life. Prayer begins with a confidence in God's power and the recognition of our limitations, but be sure the lack of prayer doesn't limit God's power in your life. Never fail to ask God for anything. Second thought, the foundation of trust. Everybody say trust. I can ask because I believe, but I also trust what God's gonna do. Think of it this way: when you pray, you might often get a couple different responses, maybe some more. Here's if you to think about you might get a yes. Who's ever gotten a yes before in prayer? I have. You might get a no, who's ever gotten a no before? And you didn't like the no. Now, when you're a kid, you ask dad and he says no, you go ask who? Mom. Or vice versa. But when you ask God and he says no, who you gonna ask? Or you might get a not yet. Or you might get a, hey, you know what? I got something better for you. You might get a I got something beyond what you're asking. I don't know about you, but I I have always struggled to keep my view of God big enough. I've always struggled to keep my view of God even close to how able He is. Because my view of God is limited by my view of myself and by my view of everybody else. When I think about God, there's nothing. Come on, say there's nothing. Say there's nothing too difficult. There's nothing God can't do. So I'm gonna ask, but I'm gonna trust. I think of this prayer. Jesus in Gethsemane, he prayed multiple times, take this cup from me. He concluded, not my will, but thine be done. The apostle Paul, he had a thorn in the side. Who's ever had a thorn in your side? Come on, put your hand up high. We're not gonna judge you right now. You're afraid to put your hand up high. I'm not saying they're sitting right by you now, but who's ever had a thorn in your side? Come on, you've had a thorn before. Maybe it's your husband or wife. There've been a thorn in my side. And Paul pleaded multiple times, God, take this from me. You know what God said? My grace is sufficient for you. Imagine going to God saying, God, get rid of this problem, get rid of this issue, get this out of my life, and God goes, My grace is sufficient. I didn't want to ask for God. I want to ask about your grace. I got I want this thorn out of my side. Get it out of my side, God. Oh, my grace is sufficient. No, God, I'm not asking that. I know you got sufficient grace. What I want is sufficient thorn removal right now. God, get this thing out of my life. This boss, this coworker, this child, this parent, this neighbor, this leader, that leader. God, get this thorn out of my side, and God goes, you know what? My grace is sufficient for you. I don't always like the prayer answer God gives. I just wish God would work for me. Do exactly what I want when I ask. Now, none of you ever thought that, but I'm gonna be honest with you. I've thought that a lot. But you know what? God doesn't work for me. He is God and I am not. And he is able and I am not. And he is good, and I'm human. God's faithful today. In the asking process, our faith has to trust God's wisdom more than God's power. And God knows things we don't know. God has awareness we can't comprehend today. So you might ask of God, God do this, God do that, might, and God might go, I'm listening. Gotta need that by tomorrow at noon. He God's never running around heaven trying to meet your demands, just so you know. We gotta hurry. He demanded by noon tomorrow. God's going, angels, everybody know he's not doing that. He doesn't operate that way. But he does have sufficient grace. And when you come to the place of God, not my will but thine be done. Now you surrender your soul to God. You're saying, God, I trust you. And here's the third thought for you today. Foundational premise in all things, give thanks. You've prayed, God didn't answer, I praise you anyway. I cried out, didn't happen my way, I praise you anyway. I petitioned, I believe he heard, I believe he's able, I praise him anyway. God, I don't understand, I praise him anyway. No matter what you face in life, no matter what you pray, learn to say, God, I praise you. Blessed be the name of our Lord today. Lord, you give, you taketh away. Blessed be your name. You're a good God, you're a faithful God today. God, I don't understand, but I give you praise anyway, because the Bible says, give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you. Think of it this way. Philippians 4:8 or 4, 6, and 7 says, Don't be anxious about anything, but pray about everything and petitions of thanksgiving. Make requests unto God. God, I thank you in advance because I know you're able, God, today. Not everything, not every situation is what I ask God for. But the Bible doesn't give me a what's that monopoly? Get out of jail free card. I don't get a card that says, God, I just, because I didn't get what I want, I don't have to thank you on this one. The Bible says, in every situation, come on, say every situation. The good and the bad. What you hope for versus what you got in all things. Come on, say all things. In all things, what do we do? We're gonna give thanks to God because I know this is true. God's always working in me before God's working for me. Before he ever answers my prayer, he's making a change in my life. Jesus tells us all to ask because your father says to ask, to seek, because he desires relationship with you, and to knock, because persevering faith pays off in the journey.