Ask, Seek, Knock

Good morning everybody. My name is Valerie. I'm one of the pastors on staff, and whether you are here with us in the room, which is so fun to see all of you, or on the live stream, I'm just glad that you are part of church today. And before I jump in to continue the series that we're in, the Jesus way, I want to highlight one of the things that Jim said in announcements about our fall series, Flawed Follower.

I mean, believe it or not, we are almost done with our summer series, the Jesus way. The next two weeks, René's gonna be wrapping that up, and then in three weeks, we begin Flawed Follower, seeing Jesus through the eyes of Simon Peter. Peter, one of Jesus's first disciples, is great because he's so relatable. He's flawed. He does great things. He does stupid things. He's basically us in the story, and I am personally so excited about this. As René does every couple of years, he wrote a book just for us, basically. I've read it quite a few times as we got ready for it, and it's good, I can tell you that.

In addition to the book, as Jim mentioned, you can jump into a small group. There are amazing small group videos where René is literally on location to the very places that Peter encountered Jesus and saw miracles. It's gonna be a—I mean, I could tell you more about it, I really could, but I just want to give you a little glimpse of what's ahead. Watch the screen.

St. Peter's Basilica in Rome, built over what is believed to be the tomb of Simon Peter. But how did an uneducated nobody end up thousands of miles away from home in the center of the Empire? How did Simon Peter become the one with a monument when Nero's racetrack that once stood here has vanished? How did somebody who misunderstood Jesus, who contradicted Jesus, who disagreed with Jesus, who did not deny Jesus, who failed Jesus, become the icon of what it means to follow Jesus? And what does his story show you and me about how Jesus takes very flawed followers, people full of questions and fears, and transforms them into world changers?

This is what this study of Simon Peter is going to be all about. We will travel in Peter's footsteps all around Israel and the Mediterranean and see what it means to be flawed yet a follower of Jesus Christ. Let's go back to where Simon Peter's journey with Jesus began. It's going to be fun. I can promise you that. And it all kicks off in a couple of weeks. But next week, the physical books will be available if you want to pick up one of those. If you prefer your books on Kindle or Audible, those versions are actually available right now, so you don't even have to wait.

Please be praying for all of this. It's going to be an amazing opportunity for us to center on God together. We're not only doing it, but we've got churches over the hill that are joining us, a church in Southern California. So we would love your prayers as we launch this series. But first, we need to continue our series in the Jesus way, the Jesus way. We're studying the Sermon on the Mount Jesus. It's recorded in the book of Matthew, and today we're going to be in Matthew 7:7–12. So if you've got your Bible with you or your Bible app, go ahead and open that up to those verses, or all the verses you need are in your sermon notes as well.

You just said some of this out loud as you were in worship service, but I want to read it to you, and I invite you just to sit and soak these words in. Jesus says, "Ask and it will be given to you. Seek and you will find. Knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives. The one who seeks finds. And to the one who knocks, the door will be opened. Which of you, if your son asks for bread, would give him a stone? Or if he asks for fish, would give him a snake? 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? So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you. For this sums up the law and the prophets."

Like much of the Sermon on the Mount, this is pretty straightforward. Ask God. God's a good Father. He wants to give you good gifts. Do to others as you would have them do to you. We've come to call that the golden rule. Looks good on paper. Looks very good on paper. But I don't know if you're like me. I find living this out a little trickier in reality. These verses at times can feel anything but straightforward. They can make me feel anything but great.

On Tuesday, the whole staff got this email from our local outreach director, Robin. She was playing the keyboard today. And it began with, "I'm just sick to my stomach." No good email ever starts that way. Nobody ever starts good news that way. And she went on to say, "I discovered this afternoon that the diamond on my wedding ring broke off with the prongs. I don't even know when it broke off, but maybe it's on campus. I know it would be a miracle if anyone found it, but if you see something shiny on the ground, it might be my diamond." So if you were on campus on Tuesday and you saw the staff all walking like this, it wasn't because we were discouraged. It was because we were looking for Robin's diamond.

Well, the first thing I did when I got this email was ask our afternoon receptionist, Patty, to pray. I have worked with Patty for 31 years, and in that time, I have never had a prayer that I asked Patty to pray for a lost thing go unanswered. She is like the Baptist patron saint of lost things. So first, get Patty to pray. The second thing is I started to walk the campus, and I walked and I prayed, "God, please let me find the diamond. Please let me find the diamond, God." And you'll find out in a minute if I found it or not.

But have you ever had anything like that happen to you? You lose something that's so valuable to you. You are sick to your stomach over it. You pray, you search, and you find it. Have you ever had that happen? Let me see that show of hands. Yeah, a lot of us have. Have you ever had this happen to you? You lose something that you value. You are sick to your stomach about it. You pray, you seek, and you don't find it. Let me see that show of hands. It's about the same number. Look at that.

Or how about this? Have you ever decided, "Okay, I'm gonna live the golden rule. I'm gonna do to others as I would have them do to me." And you saw your actions bring a shift in a relationship. There was healing and there was hope. Have you ever had that happen when you live the golden rule? Okay, less of us. Relationships are tough, aren't they? How about this? Have you ever lived the golden rule, done to somebody as you would want them to do to you? And they seemingly just went, "Of course, I deserve to be treated like this." And they didn't change how they treated you one iota. Have you ever had that? Yeah, more people have had that happen. Relationships, I tell you.

Well, that is the conundrum in our verses today. That's the tension we feel when we see the words "ask" and you will receive. We're going, "Oh, okay." But except that one time or those dozen times. And we feel that tension. We feel that conundrum. I mean, we know. We have asked until we are hoarse. We have knocked until our knuckles are bloody and nothing. Or worse almost, the opposite of what we're praying for. So what does this passage mean in those situations? I mean, if ask, seek, knock, do unto others was kind of a how-to, we would find every lost retainer from fifth grade. We would find every contact. We would find every diamond. We would all win the lottery every single week. It would be awesome.

If the golden rule was a promise to us, all relationships would be full of grace, would be healed. But we don't find everything, and relationships are broken. So what do we do with these verses? I've gone through seasons where I boldly follow them. I ask, I seek, I knock. I see God move in amazing ways. And I have gone through seasons where I am so disappointed in God, I will not even ask anymore because I don't want any more disappointment.

I've gone through seasons with God where somebody will ask me to pray a bold prayer of faith for them. But I go into reputation management mode for God because I don't want them to be disappointed in God. And so I take their bold prayer and I caveat it to death. And my bold prayer of faith ends up sounding more like terms and conditions that nobody reads. It's like, you don't have to answer on Tuesday, but if it's Wednesday, we'd like an answer. And it just ruins it all.

For me, it comes down to a trust issue. Do I trust God? Will I choose to trust God? And these verses, I think, help us with that because they lay out for us three things that we can trust about God to help us build that relationship. And first, I think we see in these verses that we can trust God's words. We can trust God's words. I mean, let's look at seven and eight again. His words to us are ask and it will be given. Seek, you'll find. Knock. Everyone, it says. Everyone who asks, everyone who asks finds, receives, the one who seeks finds, to the one who knocks, the door will be opened. I mean, these are bold words. But can we trust them?

I mean, when I find the diamond, when I find the retainer, when I find the contact, when we get the yes, yes God, go God. My faith is building. My trust is growing. And that's important because those things do build our faith. They do build our trust. Please don't ever discount God's yes because you're afraid of his next no. Rejoice in those things. But you don't have to be much older than three years old to know you do not receive everything you ask for. You do not receive everything you ask for from your parents. You don't even receive everything you ask for from your grandparents. That's how bad it is down here. And we certainly don't receive everything we ask from God.

So if it doesn't mean that God will give us everything, how do we trust his word? Can we trust his word? Some of you know that from the time—well, all my life really, but really from the time I was about 20 till recently, God and I were in an ongoing dialogue, discussion, screaming match occasionally about my desire to have kids. I've always wanted to have a lot of kids because I love kids and I love a good organizational challenge, and it just seemed like a good fit for me. And so I asked and I waited. I sought and it happened all around me. I knocked and the door shut in my face. In a moment in a surgery, I knew I was never going to have children. All that asking, all that seeking, all that knocking and nothing.

And it's not like I went rogue. God tells me here to ask. The Bible is full of examples of people seeking God, especially in the Psalms. I mean, look at Psalm 5:1–3. Look at all the ways he's asking, pursuing God. "Listen to my words, Lord. Consider my lament. Hear my cry for help, my King and my God. For to you I pray. In the morning you hear my voice. In the morning I lay my requests before you and I wait in expectation." Or verses like 1 Peter, it says cast everything. Give it all to God. Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.

Look at these words in Matthew again. I mean, they are in the Bible for a reason. God wants us. God wants you to ask because he wants a relationship with you. He wants a relationship with you, and when you pray, when you talk to God, when you ask, you're building that relationship. This is an invitation from God to go ahead and pray really bold prayers. I didn't personally grow up in a church that prayed bold prayers, and I don't know why because I don't think anyone would have ever told me don't pray a bold prayer. But I somehow got the impression that it was a bother to God or that I was presuming on God. And I can still struggle to this day to pray a bold prayer.

But this is what we're invited to in these verses. And I wonder what bold prayer have you been praying? Or what bold prayer are you about to give up on praying? Or what bold prayer might you be too afraid to even utter out loud? I want to encourage you today, pray that prayer. You don't have to be fancy about it. Just start talking to God. Talk to him. Trust his words. One of my favorite verses in the Bible—and I know in every sermon I will say one of my favorite verses in the Bible, but this is in my top three, I can promise you. It's found in Deuteronomy 32:47. And in this verse, Moses is letting everybody know he's gonna die, and the people are panicked because Moses is their guy. Red Sea, leaving Egypt, all of the stuff. But Moses reminds them of God's words. He says in this verse, "These words of God are not just idle words for you. They are your life."

These words. These words of God are not idle. They are living and active and trustworthy. You can trust these words. These words will give you the comfort you need in the silence, in maybe the no. These words will give us the correction we need in the moment we need it. These words will give us the hope we need, but the most important thing about these words is they lead us to the one we need, Jesus. On every single page. On every single page. What a blessing to know that we can trust his words. Even the bold words. We can trust them.

But this passage goes on, and I'm so grateful because I think if I just left you today with trust his words, you'd go, "Okay, but why, but how?" And I think as this passage goes on, we find out the why we trust his words, and that's point two: we trust his words because we can trust his heart. Trust God's heart. The next verses are gonna put God's heart on full display, and I really think these verses are the hinge of this passage. They're the meat of this passage. If we can trust God's heart, then we can pray bold prayers because we trust our Father's heart, and look at what these verses tell us about our good God.

They compare him to an earthly father. They say, "Okay, which of you, if your son asks for bread, would give him a stone? If he wants a fish, he'll give him a snake." And I love this next sentence. "If you then, though you are evil—tell us what you really think, Jesus—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?" Even flawed human parents know how to give good gifts. I mean, if a kid comes up and asks for, you know, a piece of bread or a fish—or more likely a goldfish in our current era—they ask for a fish, you're not gonna give him a rock and a snake and say, "Here, kid, gnaw on this for a little while." No, we want to give good gifts to our kids, to our friends. How much more does our Father in heaven want to give good gifts to you?

And don't miss that phrase, "how much more." Remember J. Kim talked about this a couple weeks ago. And also remember, you know, the original hearers of this did not take them 15 weeks to read this. They were hearing this all at one time in about 30 minutes probably, and so when they saw that phrase or heard that phrase, "how much more," they would have gone, "Oh, Jesus just said that." He said that back in chapter 6 when he said, "How much more do I care for you? How much more do I love you?" And Jesus is using a teaching style here called kalvahamr, which means from light to heavy. He's taking something light, an earthly relationship, and saying if that's good, how much more, how much heavier and better is God's gifts and love for you? How much more does he want to give you good gifts?

The Apostle Paul echoes this kind of phrasing in Romans 8 when he says, "He, God, did not spare his own son but gave him up for us all." That's how we got that relationship. "Will he not also, how much more, along with him graciously give us all good things?" What an assurance, graciously give us all good things. Wow, don't you love the words here? All good. These are bold words. They're a step for trust. They're our assurance that God's heart is for us. He is for us. He loves us even when our ask, our seek, our knock is not answered the way we thought it would be.

I didn't get what I asked for when I prayed for children, but I'll tell you this—shoot, I'm looking at one of my kids over there—without hesitation, I will tell you that God has been good to me. That I have seen God's heart in my longing. I have seen God's good gifts to me, and they have come in the form of all the kids that call me Aunt Valerie. I get to be the aunt to more kids. I'm looking at the sweet Ella over here, who's one of the kids who calls me Aunt Valerie, and I get the joy of being in their lives. I get that joy. I get to be the cool, if not slightly quirky aunt who gives out candy, who thinks it's okay to have ice cream for dinner. I get to be the one they come to when mom and dad aren't cool anymore because my cool status holds a little longer. But if all I did was focus on my ask, if all I did was focus on what I thought I needed and wanted, I would have missed the most amazing joy. I would have missed it.

Do you know in this, in the Sermon on the Mount, 16 times Jesus tells us that God is our Father? 16 times he says, "Your Father, your Father." And remember, they would have heard this all at once. 16 times, "Your Father, your Father, your Father." Jesus is establishing that relationship for us. He's personalizing this all. He's telling us we can trust his heart because he is our good Father. You may have had the best father on the planet; you may have had the worst father on the planet who actually would and did give you a stone, but Jesus is saying God is better. He is better, and we can trust his heart. He wants a relationship with us. We can trust his heart. That's why we hinge back and say yes, we can trust your words because we trust your heart.

But I think this verse also helps us hinge forward in our third point and helps us understand how we can trust his way. Point three: we can trust his way. The way he's been telling us to live on the Sermon on the Mount this whole time. Look at verse 12: "So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the law and the prophets." This sums it all up. This is Jesus turning the corner to the conclusion in the Sermon on the Mount and saying, "If you forget everything else, don't forget this: do to others what you would have them do to you." I think we mostly get this, like, "Okay, I can do that," but this is tough. This is tough to do to others as they would have—as you would have them do to you because we know that we have done for others, and they have not done for us.

And so just like asking, seeking, and knocking doesn't always mean abracadabra, tada, this does not always mean people will respond the same way towards us. The Jesus way is vulnerable. God's way is a risk. Choosing to live God's way, to trust his way, means I've got to put the scorecard down. Choosing to live God's way means that I have to put down my shield that I love to put up so I don't get hurt. But choosing God's way means I put the shield down. I risk indifference. I risk disappointment. Do we trust that God's way of living is right, even if the relationship starts to go wrong? Because it is a trust issue, and not necessarily with the other person; it's a trust issue with God.

God, do I believe that your way of living in this relationship is best? And thankfully for most of us, we're in great relationships where there's give and give, and we go, "Yes, I will gladly do for Anna what I know would do for me," and that gets pretty easy. But boy, there are those relationships where you golden rule them, but they do not golden rule you back, and depending on the relationship, that can either just be annoying or it can actually be painful. It can be very, very hurtful. Relationships are complex; it's hard. And there may come a time when you need to step away from doing in a relationship for various reasons, but we can still live out Jesus's words in other ways. For instance, in how we talk, we can talk about others the way we would want them to talk about us. That's actually a little harder for me. That's tough.

But I actually—it gets worse for me because I can be a bit of a people pleaser. I'm trying, but I see I'm trying to please you by telling you I'm getting better, but I can be a bit of a people pleaser. So sometimes my actions will look fine, my words will sound very gracious, but my heart is a black hole, and I am NOT golden ruling in my heart. My heart sounds more like a cartoon character swearing, and I am saying, "Razzle razzle stupid, tell me go over there." No, so what do we do then? What do we do when we're struggling to trust that God's way is the right way, is the best way? I think we go back to point one, and we trust God's words.

We trust God's words to us, words like in Galatians 6:9 that says, "Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time"—and here are these positive words again—"we will reap a harvest if we do not give up." And you might be looking at me going, "Yeah, you don't know the person I'm thinking of." I don't, but I know God. Back to point two, we trust his heart. We trust his heart as we live the Jesus way, as we live God's way. We trust that in his good heart, in his graciousness towards us, he will, as Philippians says, "meet all your needs according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus." This doesn't just mean your physical needs; this means your relationship needs. The relationship where you're struggling to live God's way, God will meet your needs to give you what you need for that relationship. God will meet all your needs. What an amazing promise that is.

Remember, we are dealing with the much more God. He cares so much more. We think that nobody could possibly care more about my kids turning around and finding Jesus, or nobody could possibly care more about that prayer for healing, or about that other big thing about this relationship. But he cares so much more because he loves you, and he loves them. He cares about all the big things, and he cares about all the small things, like lost diamonds. As I was walking around campus, staring at the ground, I decided, well, I'll go over to the People's Pantry modular and take a look. And there's a bunch of trash sitting outside the door that was getting ready to be picked up, and I kind of half-heartedly pick through it—not because I only half-heartedly like Robin, but because I don't like to pick through trash.

So I was going through that, there was a bag of recycling, and I kind of sorted through that, and I thought, well, I don't see it. So I turned around to walk back, and I just felt this compelling saying, "No, turn around, go back to that bag." So, okay, so I turned around. I thought, okay, I'll do it right this time, pulling everything out of the bag, pulling everything out of the bag, pulling everything out of the bag, looking, looking. At the bottom of the bag, I found the diamond at the bottom of the bag. There it was. And this is how the staff responded. We did some serious rejoicing, let me tell you. I mean, Robin got her diamond back; her husband Paul did not have to buy another diamond, and Patty's record remains a thousand. She's batting a thousand. Patty's still got it. I love it.

I love when I find the diamond. My trust balloons when I find the diamond. When I get the yes, when I see God's good gift just right in front of my face. And you know what? God, in his mercy, fills our lives with these moments. He fills our lives with good gifts. He fills our lives with yes. Sometimes we don't see it, though, because we're too focused on the no. "Why didn't you give me the kids?" And I miss all of the kids I love. We have to focus on those good gifts that God has given us. Life is gonna be a battle to tear that focus away from you, and it will be hard in times. I know that it will be hard. You will face the moments where you're thinking, "But it's not working, Val. I'm asking, and this isn't helping. I'm not healed. My partner is not healed. My kids are not back with Jesus. It's not working. How is God providing for me right now, Val? How is he supplying all my needs in every ask, in every relationship?" We always have God. That is the biggest supply. We always have God.

And that's really the whole point. God wants a relationship with you. These verses are helping us trust and move towards a God who wants a relationship with you so much so that he sent his son Jesus not just to teach us but to die on the cross for us to make a way so that we could be in relationship with God. It's amazing. In a moment, we're gonna sing a song that has the words, "He's proven his love will never end over and over and over again. He's always shown up wherever I am over and over and over again. Oh, be still my soul, for the Lord is good. The Lord is good." Pray those bold prayers. Ask, seek, knock, and remember the Lord is good. Live the Jesus way in that relationship and remember the Lord is God. He is our good Father, who we can trust his words, we can trust his heart, and we can trust his way. Let's pray.

Heavenly Father, thank you so much that you are our good Father. Thank you, Lord, that we can trust your way. We can trust your heart. Thank you, God, that you have made a way for us. You have made a way for us to be in relationship with you so that we're not just coming to some vague blob God on high; we're coming to our heavenly Father. Thank you, God. God, I today particularly want to pray for the person who is sitting in a situation where they've asked and asked and asked, and it's quiet. Lord, I pray that you would grant them the additional measure of faith to keep asking. God, I pray, though, that they would also see an answer. Lord, I pray this might be a week where in our congregation we see bold prayers answered. We see those longtime asks answered. And God, I pray for the person who just isn't even sure about this and where to start and how to ask. God, I pray that their first ask would just be, "Lord, I need you. I can't do this on my own. I need you." God, thank you that you are the exceedingly abundant God who does far above all that we could ever ask or imagine. In Jesus' name, Amen.