In Jason Dohm's sermon titled 'Having a Loving, Almighty Father,' he emphasizes the importance of a God-centered life, focusing on the roles of asking, seeking, and knocking as foundational to a Christian's relationship with God. The sermon delves into the three levels of dealing with sin: personal sin, sin among brothers, and sin among unbelievers, highlighting the danger of hypocrisy and the need for gentleness. Dohm discusses the futility of self-sufficiency, urging believers to rely on God's strength and grace. He interprets the 'Ask, Seek, Knock' passage from Matthew 7 as a call to dependence on God, noting that while the language is absolute, the context implies boundaries based on God's will and glory. The sermon also explores the notion of God's predisposition to bless His children, using biblical examples like Elijah and the persistent widow to illustrate God's readiness to act for His kingdom. Dohm concludes by encouraging boldness in prayer and a commitment to seeking God's kingdom first.

Let's go to the Lord in prayer. Our Father, we honor You. We're so happy that You've given us your word as a gift that your people might know how to think, might know what to do. And I pray that you would make us faithful stewards. Pray that you would make me one as I handle your word and speak about this text.

I pray that you would make all of us faithful to Receive the things that are in accordance with your word and to apply them, to do them, to treasure them, to remember them as best as we're able to remember them so that When the day comes when we need it, it will be there for us. We pray that the Holy Spirit would be among us, alongside us as our tutor, to teach us all these things. God, we know that your people are always blessed when your word is preached in a spirit in which faithfulness to it is so much desired. May that be so among all of us that we would desire faithfulness to you, Lord, and that you would grant it to us according to your kindness. In Jesus' name, amen.

So last week, we were in the first part of chapter 7. It was all about dealing with sin, dealing with sin on three levels. First, it just, it always has to start with dealing with our own sin. And, and that was really in two ways. The first, The first way being that it's always a temptation to judge others hypocritically, to want to raise ourselves up among our brothers over our brothers, and look down on them and apply a very different standard to our brothers than we apply to ourselves.

So that was one of the key ways in dealing with our own sin is just to acknowledge, hey, the seeds of this are in all of our hearts. There's something in all of our hearts that wants to do this. And so it was a warning against it. The second part of that was just to acknowledge who we are in relation to our brother. We're just fellow sinners.

We're not the judge of our brother. We're just fellow sinners. And though God may want to use us to come alongside our brother to help him with his sin, he certainly has not appointed us to be the master of our brother. Every servant stands or falls to his own master, and that's not us. So you can't get anywhere in last week's text without starting with your own sin, a bent towards judging your brothers hypocritically, and an acknowledgment that we're just fellow sinners in relationship with our brothers.

Once we have that in mind, we're actually able to go to our brother and help him with his sin. We're actually able to go in a spirit of gentleness, as Galatians 6.1 says, and come alongside him and help our brothers be conformed into the image of Christ. That's what God desires for us to do for one another as brothers and sisters in Christ. We'd be able to come knowing that we're sinners in a spirit of gentleness and to help each other with the specs that we all have in our eyes. And then thirdly, it dealt with dealing with sin among unbelievers.

And the key point there is that we are fundamentally different than unbelievers. When you've crossed over the line from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of light, you're not like the kingdom of darkness anymore. And so if you go to an unbeliever and you try to address their sin as if they're a brother, you better watch out. You are setting yourself up to have the truth of God despised and trampled, and to be turned on, and to be rent in pieces. And so our text had us dealing with sin on three different levels, Our sin, our brother's sin, and an unbeliever's sin.

And these are great instructions that we need. But it's also a warning that there's a pit there. There's a hole to be stepped in and something that can ensnare us. And so Jesus in kindness is coming to help us with our frailties and the things that can trap us. This week is simply about glorying in the goodness of our Father.

And that's why the title is Having a Loving Almighty Father. It's all there in the title. This text about asking and seeking and knocking is about having a father who has adopted us, who loves us, and can do anything at any time. Over the last several months, Adam Hagan has said to me a couple of times, when do we get the God is Love sermon? It's just been just one assault on my hypocrisy after another.

It's just week after week assaulting my hypocrisy. When do we get the feel good sermon? And I told him, it's probably coming at some point. Well, Adam, this is your sermon. We have arrived at the feel good sermon.

And it is a feel good sermon. The people of God, if we haven't understood this fully before, if we haven't received the full encouragement as we ought to from this text before, this is our Sunday to revel in the goodness of God towards His people. The roots of this text are all throughout the Sermon on the Mount. The thrust of the Sermon on the Mount is God. It's how we relate to God and the things of God and the things of the kingdom of God.

But God is always at the center of the things that Jesus is talking about. In chapter 5, we have the Beatitudes. And they're just completely God-ward. Being poor in spirit, mourning, being meek, hungering and thirsting after righteousness, being merciful, being pure in heart, being peacemakers. All these have their foundation in God.

They're meaningless without a God who is at the center of all things, directing all things. And the first part of chapter six is all about practicing our faith to an audience of one. That we would put our blinders on so that we could only see what is right in front of us, and then we make sure that we're turned so that the thing that's right in front of us is God himself. So we just don't care about the applause of our neighbors. But we have our blinders on.

We're seeing God, and we're practicing our faith to the audience of one God himself. And then in the middle of chapter 6, we have the Lord's Prayer that begins, our Father in heaven, that we have a Father who rules from heaven, who is a sovereign over all things. And His kingdom is coming, and His will is done, and as His people, we should have something in our heart. And it cries out for that, an increase of His kingdom, an increase of His will happening in our lives, in our homes, on our block, in our community, in our state, in our nation, and across the world. And then we're told to actually go to God and pray for our daily bread that God would sustain us.

And we're told to go and ask God for pardon for our sins. And we're told to go and seek the Lord about keeping us from temptation so that we wouldn't fall back into sin. And then the last part of chapter 6 was about laying up for ourselves treasures in heaven to stop worrying so much about all those other things on the earthly plane. Because God is able, he's willing to provide those things. And if we'll just fix our mind on the kingdom of God and his righteousness, that God will take care of all these other things.

And So we have a sermon so far that's been God-ward in every way, that God has been the center, the central character in every sermon. And now we come to this one. And we're told to ask, and we're told to seek, And we're told to knock. And this, if it's nothing else, this is a death blow to self-sufficiency. It's just the death blow for us striving in our own strength to try to make things happen.

And we're called, actually, not to do that apart from God, but to ask God for the things that we need, to ask God for the things that are consistent with this kingdom, to seek him, to knock. And for me, I say rest in peace, self-sufficiency. Aren't you tired? If you've been walking the Christian walk, living the Christian life long enough, you just hit this point where you're just so tired of trying to make things happen, so tired of trying to do these things in your own strength, that you're just waiting for Jesus to come and strike the death blow to your self-sufficiency. So you'll be moved out of the way so that the power of God can actually come and make some progress, can actually come and get something done to push you forward into being conformed into the image of Christ.

And this is what we have here. We have a text that will give us the death blow to our self-sufficiency and just cause us to look to God for these things that we've proven over and over and over again that we're unable to do in our own strength. Solomon in Psalm 127 says this, unless the Lord builds the house, they labor in vain who build it. Unless the Lord guards the city, the watchman stays awake in vain. It is vain for you to rise up early, to sit up late, to eat the bread of sorrows, for so he gives his beloved sleep." The other thing we should say about the Sermon on the Mount is that there's this heaping up of things that we're just unable to do.

There's a building of a house that's being called for that we're just not able to build, to put it in terms of Psalm 127. And like Paul, we end up saying, who is sufficient for these things? I feel so insufficient for all these things. We're supposed to actually rejoice when we're persecuted. We're supposed to be salt and light, even when all the world is so overwhelmingly against light and against the flavor of Christ.

We're supposed to keep and teach the least of the commandments so that we'll be rewarded in heaven. We're supposed to obey not just the letter of the law, where we might be able to achieve some level of outward conformity. But we're not supposed to just do that. We're supposed to obey the spirit of the law, which just expands this out to a point where we say, we're just not able to do that. We're supposed to practice our faith without hypocrisy.

And as we went through those texts, I just kept thinking, I see so much of the thing that Jesus is putting his finger on. I see so much of it in my heart. Every week, just like Adam Hagan, I'm thinking, when do we get to the feel good text here? These things just seem so impossible. And it's all summed up with what we saw at the end of chapter 5.

Therefore, you shall be perfect, just as your Heavenly Father is perfect. Who is sufficient for these things? Well, though we be insufficient, Jesus Christ has made a provision for all these things. He's the ultimate answer to who is sufficient for all these things. Jesus Christ is sufficient for all these things.

And if you're joined to Him, you actually have the righteous life that he offered up to God imputed to you. And in addition to that, we have this text where we're invited to ask God. We're invited to seek God. We're invited to knock so that God might open the doors that we find shut to ourselves, and so that there can be progress made into becoming like we ought to be, into being pressed into this image that we see in the Sermon on the Mount. So let's go right to the text.

Matthew 7, verses 7 and 8. We'll start there. 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 he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened. Ask, seek, knock. Here we're given this completely categorical language that doesn't come along. It's not accompanied by any wiggle room at all. It just says ask, seek, and knock, and you have these actions that are always met with success.

There are no caveats given. There are no carve-outs in the language of this. It will be given to you. You will find. It will be opened to you.

Everyone who asks receives. This text is a name it and claim it person's dream, isn't it? Because there are no boundaries put on it. And the answer to this is the answer that's been to a bunch of the other sermons, the sermon texts in the Sermon on the Mount, that You can't look at these two verses in complete isolation, or it has no boundaries. And as we study the whole Council of God, we find that the boundaries exist, the boundaries are clear, the boundaries make sense, but they're found elsewhere.

And that again, this text is a directional text. It's a text where Jesus wants to reset us and take us from where we are and point us in a different direction. And he doesn't want us focused on the boundaries, so he doesn't spend his teaching time, his words, on the boundaries. Because he doesn't want this to die the death of a thousand qualifications. Ask, but this, this, this, not that.

Seek, but this and not that. Knock, but not this way. And while those all might be legitimate, you end up coming away from what Jesus is trying to communicate to us, thinking, well, I don't even know where this stands anymore. If we don't do it just right, if we don't ask with our head tilted just at the right angle, we don't get what we're asking for. And the point of this text is that we have a Father in heaven that's predisposed to bless us, to do good to us.

And he's telling us, he's commanding us to go and lay these things before our Father and to know that God is always able. At the heart of this is the unseen party, God. Now he's not mentioned in these two verses, but he's there. And you'll see him if you look. You're only the lead actor in verses seven and eight, just for a moment, just for the briefest of moments.

And ask, and it will be given to you. There's an immediate handoff. You do the asking and then there's an immediate handoff to the unseen party in verses 7 and 8. There's this transfer that happens to the unseen party. And you're handing off to the one who's able.

You weren't able. That's why you're asking. You weren't able. That's why you're seeking. That's why you're knocking, is because you had an inability that had been identified.

And so you're handing over to one who is able. You're handing over to one who isn't constrained at all. And the reason that there are no caveats in verses 7 and 8, the reason that there are no boundaries or parameter is that God doesn't have any boundaries and parameters on what he's able to give to us. He's not restricted at all. He can do anything at any time and Jesus wants to press this on us.

This knowledge that God is so predisposed to give us good things And he's completely without restraints in what he's able to do for us and give to us. There are things that he won't do because of who he is. He acts for his own glory and for our good. And so to the extent that we ask and seek and knock in ways that aren't consistent with his glory and ways that aren't consistent with our own good, then he won't do those things. But it's not that he can't.

It's that in some instances, he won't. D. Martin Lloyd-Jones says this. I thank God that he is not prepared to do anything that I may chance to ask him. And isn't that true?

Isn't that something to be thankful for? The fact that God won't just do whatever we ask for willy nilly. That these thoughts that streak across our brains sometimes, that once we look back on things and think, if God had given me what I asked for, Where would I be today? So Lloyd-Jones thinks back on his history and says, wow. God was so kind not to give me what I ask for all the time.

But Jesus is pointing us in a direction. He wants us to consider who it is that we're asking. He wants us to consider the one who can give us what we're seeking. He's always able to give us what we're seeking. He wants us to understand who can open up all of the shut doors.

There is not one shut door that God can't open. Now, the question becomes, is he willing to open it for you? Well, that's a different question. But God is always able. So he leaves out the caveats.

He leaves out the boundaries so that we're put in a state of mind where we know that God is a Father who has adopted us, who loves us, and who is able to do anything, anything at any time. He wants to point us in that direction. First Kings 18, Elijah is facing off against 450 of the prophets of Baal. So it's one against 450. And the prophets of Baal, all 450 of them, get the first shot at this.

And it's to get their gods to bring down fire to consume the offering. They both got a cow. And you get your shot at your god bringing down fire to consume the cow to prove that he's god. And I get my shot. So the 450 get the first shot.

I guess that's majority rule. I suppose that's what it is. And so morning until noon, they're crying out for their God to produce fire, nothing. And so Elijah starts the mocking at noon. Maybe he's asleep.

Maybe he's busy. And so they start cutting themselves and taking extreme measures to get their God to act. And then around the time of the evening sacrifice, he calls for three dousings of water over the sacrifice so that there will be no doubt whether or not God has acted, whether or not it's a supernatural act. And he calls upon God, and God consumes the whole offering. Now this is what's being taught to us in this passage.

There are all sorts of things that get relied on in this world. And they're silent. They're always somehow busy. They're always somehow asleep. And yet there is a God who is our Father who's never too busy, never asleep, and can always bring down fire upon an offering that's been doused in water and consume it.

And God wants us to know this, that we have a God who hears, that we have a God who does. And so he invites us to ask and seek and knock, but he also commands us to ask and seek and knock. Here's the underlying assumption of the text, that in our asking and our seeking and our knocking, that we're seeking first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and that all these things would be added to us. That's the nature of our asking, our seeking, and our knocking. That's the context in which this is set.

That our seeking is for his kingdom and his righteousness. That we've got the king and the kingdom on the brain. And that's what's driving the asking, seeking, and knocking. It's right here. It's the context here.

So this is not an offer without boundaries. The boundaries are actually implied in the context. Jesus doesn't want us focused on the boundaries. We are not the center of the asking, and the seeking, and the knocking that is described here, as if it's a way for God to give us things that we really want or that we really think that we need. We exist for God, not the other way around.

This is not a text to teach us that God exists for us and our happiness and the things that we desire. No, we exist for God, and we're to seek him first, and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to us. It assumes that our interests are the interests of the kingdom. That it's not our own things that are in view here, but it's the things of the kingdom of God so that we've got the king on the brain and we've got the kingdom on the brain. James 4, 2 and 3.

You lust and do not have, you murder and covet and cannot obtain, You fight and war, yet you do not have because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive because you ask amiss that you may spend it on your pleasures. So James identifies two things here in James 4. The first is that you do not have because you do not ask. And so Jesus is addressing this in Matthew 7 by actually commanding us to ask and to seek and to knock.

James says you don't have because you don't ask. Jesus commands you to ask. Secondly, James adds the obvious parameters that are implied by Jesus from the context of Matthew 7. For instance, the Lord's Prayer in Matthew 6. The Lord's Prayer teaches us how to pray, and the Lord's Prayer teaches us what to pray.

So if we find in our asking, seeking, knocking, that we're at a big variance to what we find in the Lord's Prayer, that we're thinking we're out of bounds, that we're ignoring something while we love something else. Boy, we love that ask, seek, knock passage, but we don't think much of the Lord's Prayer, where he teaches us how to pray and what to pray for. You might think, how am I supposed to discern whether I'm asking a miss or not? This is an impossible thing to unwind. Not true.

Not impossible to unwind at all. John 15, verses 7 and 8. Write this one down. This is great. John 15, 7 and 8.

If you abide in me and my words abide in you, you will ask what you desire and it shall be done for you. By this my Father is glorified that you bear much fruit. So you will be my disciples." I'm going to read that again, because this is right at the core of how we understand Matthew 7 correctly. John 15, 7 and 8. If you abide in me, says Jesus, and my words abide in you, you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you.

By this my Father is glorified that you bear much fruit, so you will be my disciples." This is what we are to be like as disciples. The picture that is being painted in John 15 is one where we abide in Christ, where we do have the King on the mind, where our life is being sustained by union with Christ. We're abiding with Him, and His words abide in us. In other words, we're saturating ourselves by the things that Jesus has told us through His Word. And every word of the Bible is a word of Jesus Christ.

So His words are abiding in us because we're soaking in them. And then it says, you'll ask what you desire. At that point, when you're abiding in Christ, and when his words are abiding in you, the things that you desire have been informed by abiding in Him, by His words abiding in you. It brings a radical change of your desires when you abide in Christ and His words abide in you, so that He can give you the desires of your heart, because the desires of your heart have been trained by abiding in him. The desires of your heart had been trained by soaking in the words of God.

And this turns us into fruit factories, because we're abiding in him. His words are abiding in us. And we're asking according to that. And he's granting it. And the fruit is there in abundance.

So there are three corresponding questions that come out of These two verses, Matthew 7, 7 and 8. First question is this. And these are beyond obvious questions. But I'll ask them anyway. The first question is, are you asking?

We've been invited to ask. We've been commanded to ask, are you asking? Is it possible that you don't have because you haven't asked? What a sad thought that is. There's good things out there, and I need them, and I at least ought to want them.

And God desires me to have them, but I don't have, because I haven't asked. Yes, God knows what you need. In Matthew chapter 6, we've heard that explicitly stated in two places. Matthew 6, verse 8, your father knows the things that you have need of before you ask him. Matthew 6, Verse 32, your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things.

So God already knows before we ask. But that's not the point. God wants us to depend on Him. God wants us to be the children and him to be the father, so that when we need things, even though he knows that we need them, that we are trained to come and ask him, because he desires his people to be completely dependent upon him. And he understands what happens if he just gives us these things as a matter of course without our coming to ask him and to seek him.

And what happens when he just gives us these things as a matter of course is that we stop making the connection. That it's God who gave us the thing. Or worse yet, that we make the wrong connection. We begin to believe that we are responsible, that we somehow have done this for ourselves. This happens.

God knows this about our natures. This happened in the garden when our natures were twisted and warped, that if we're a people who come and just receive without asking, we stop making the connection or we make the wrong connection and begin to presume upon God. And God has designed a universe where He's forcing us to depend on Him. Don't you have a sense of that? That All of life is pushing us towards dependence upon God.

And this is one of those things. So the main question here is, are we asking? Here's a sub question. It just falls under that. Are we asking for the right reasons and in the right way?

In James 4, we just heard about asking amiss. So is it really for his glory? Is it really for his honor? Is it really for his kingdom? This goes to the heart of, are we asking for the right reason?

Or do we just want to spend something on our pleasures? Now asking in the right way, James speaks to this as well, James 1, verses 5 through 8. If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him. But let him ask in faith with no doubting, For he who doubts is like a wave of the sea, driven and tossed by the wind. For let not that man suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord, for he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways." Again here in James 1 verses 5 through 8, we're told to ask.

Ask God for wisdom if you need wisdom. But we're told to do it in faith without doubting. And we're told that if someone comes, even though they ask, If they do it with doubting that they shouldn't expect to receive anything from the Lord, because they're double-minded, they're unstable. So James really focuses on the negative side of this. If you come with doubting, you should have no expectation.

But Matthew 21 talks about faith again, talks about not doubting again, but talks about the other side of things, which is this spectacular promise that Jesus has set before us in Matthew 7. Listen to Matthew 21 verses 21 and 22. So Jesus answered and said to them, Assuredly I say to you, if you have faith and do not doubt, You will not only do what was done to the fig tree, but also, if you say to this mountain, be removed and cast into the sea, it will be done. And whatever things you ask in prayer, believing, you will receive. So James talks about what won't happen if you doubt.

Jesus in Matthew 21 talks about what will happen if you do it in faith, if you're able to keep clear of doubting and actually trust in God for this, that you can actually speak to a mountain, and it will be removed into the sea. And so we're being told to ask in prayer. We're being told to believe. And we're being emboldened to Pray great prayers. This passage should make us so bold in our prayers, believing that God is able to pick up a mountain and remove it into the sea If we ask for the King and the kingdom in accordance with his will that God can do anything, why are our prayers so small?

God wants to make us bold through this text to pray great things, knowing that he's able and knowing that he has a predisposition to do these things, to show himself glorious. God is waiting to show himself mighty. He's at the ready to put himself on display. Don't you know that? God wants us as His children to believe that He's able to do anything and then ask for very audacious things for His kingdom so that He might put Himself on display and show himself mighty, show himself to be a great God, show himself to be a good God.

Second question, are you seeking? Are you seeking? What you find in a search of seeking across the Bible is, by the way, there's 232 instances of seeking in the Bible. What you find is seek God, seek God, seek God, seek God, seek the Lord, seek the Lord, Seek the Lord, seek the Lord, seek the Lord, seek the Lord. And a bunch about Saul seeking David's life.

So we won't focus on those, although it is an excellent lesson in perseverance. On both sides actually. The main thing that we should be seeking is God. The main thing that we should be seeking is the Lord. Turn in your Bibles to 2 Chronicles.

Most of us aren't well versed in the history of King Asa, but that's what we get in 2 Chronicles 15. And a revival happens among the people of God in the time of King Asa. And that's what we see in 2 Chronicles 15. So we're going to read 2 Chronicles 15, verses 1 through 15. 2 Chronicles 15.

2 Chronicles 15. Now the Spirit of God came upon Azariah, the son of Oded. And he went out to meet Asa and said to him, hear me Asa and all Judah and Benjamin. The Lord is with you while you are with him. If you seek him, he will be found by you.

But if you forsake him, he will forsake you. For a long time, Israel has been without the true God, without a teaching priest, and without law. But when in their trouble they turned to the Lord God of Israel and sought him, He was found by them. And in those times, there was no peace to the one who went out, nor to the one who came in. But great turmoil was on all the inhabitants of the land.

So nation was destroyed by nation and city by city, for God troubled them with every adversity. But you be strong and do not let your hands be weak, for your work shall be rewarded." And when Asa heard these words and the prophecy of Odad, the prophet, he took courage and removed the abominable idols from all the land of Judah and Benjamin and from the cities which he had taken in the mountains of Ephraim. And he restored the altar of the Lord that was before the vestibule of the Lord. Then he gathered all Judah and Benjamin and those who dwelt with them from Ephraim, Manasseh, and Simeon. For they came over to him in great numbers from Israel when they saw that the Lord his God was with him.

So they gathered together at Jerusalem in the third month in the 15th year of the reign of Asa. And they offered to the Lord at that time 700 bulls and 7, 000 sheep from the spoil they had brought. Then they entered into a covenant to seek the Lord God of their fathers with all their heart and with all their soul. And whoever would not seek the Lord God of Israel was to be put to death, whether small or great, whether man or woman. Then they took an oath before the Lord with a loud voice, with shouting and trumpets and rams and horns, and all Judah rejoiced at the oath.

For they had sworn with all their heart and sought him with all their soul, and he was found by them. And the Lord gave them rest all around." We desire a revival. We desire a spread of the kingdom of God, that His kingdom would come and that His will would be done on earth as it is in heaven. And this is how it happened in the time of King Asa, that they sought the Lord with all their heart, and he was found by them. He revived their land.

Do we want more of God? Do we want to decrease so that he might increase, as John the Baptist said. We want less of us to make room for more of God than we should seek him with all of our hearts. Isaiah 55, 6 says this, seek the Lord while He may be found. Call upon Him while He is near.

There are many times where He may be found and when He is near. This is one of them. When the Word of God is opened up and preached, it is a time to seek the Lord because He's near. He's promised to be in the presence of His people with the preaching of His word. And there are many times like that.

Worship in our homes is a time like that. We should make the most. We should squeeze the most out of these times in our home that we're worshiping God. We should seek the Lord because He's near. We should call upon Him.

There's A sad tag to this life of this mighty king who turned the people towards the Lord. In 2 Chronicles 16, just one chapter over, verse 12, it says, And in the thirty-ninth year of his reign, Asa became diseased in his feet, and his malady was severe. Yet in his disease, he did not seek the Lord, but the physicians." So even We who might heed the exhortation to ask, seek, and knock, there is a call for lifelong diligence to set the Lord before our eyes and always have him be the one that we would ask and that we would seek and that we would knock. Because there's a temptation just to forget for a moment and have the time come where disease comes where we seek the physicians. We don't seek the Lord.

Now does that mean it's wrong to go to physicians? Of course it doesn't mean that. But this king, the indication was, after he had led the people in an oath to seek the Lord with all their hearts At the end of his life when he became diseased he forgot And he sought the physicians instead of himself There's always something waiting in the wings to be sought other than God And there's always things clamoring for our attention that we desire to be sought after, but we should have God be the object of our seeking all the days of our life. The Word of God also counsels us to seek wisdom, seek understanding, to seek the law of the Lord, to seek the good of our brethren, to seek wisdom and pursue it. And on and on, there's so many things that the Word of God calls us to seek.

All these Things are in view in Matthew 7. They're all subservient to seeking God, seeking the Lord. But they're all summed up in James 1, 7. Every good and perfect gift is from above and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning. This is why we seek God, because He is the source of every good thing that we'll ever seek.

God is the source. Every good and perfect gift is from above and comes down from the Father of lights. So I declare to you today and I charge you to declare to yourself tomorrow and every other day that God is the source of the good things that we're seeking. And so if we have diseased feet and we need help, we should seek God first and then go to the doctor maybe. But in all the good things that we need, that God would be the one that we would seek First.

Thirdly, are you knocking? In this life, in advancing the kingdom of God, there are many doors that we're just simply unable to open. We just can't open them. They're shut. They're locked.

We can't budge them. We can't get over them or around them or through them. I know of many instances in this room where people need a door open. Are we hoping against hope? Are we knocking to a father who's able to do anything?

Jesus tells you to knock. We're given these three things, ask, seek, and knock. Not because they're necessarily fundamentally different, but because we're being told to persevere in the seeking of God. That what is being set before us is not a passing inquiry for something that we think that we need, but it's a sustained, passionate applying to God. That's why the ask, the seek, and the knock.

God is always the target in view. And rather than one and done, rather than hit and run, it is a sustained, passionate applying to God that is being commended to us here. It's an active dependence on God. In other words, it is a complete reliance on God, but it's not passive. We're being told to do things.

We're being told to ask. We're being told to seek. We're being told to knock. And so we have A part to play in this. And the handoff happens really quick to the unseen party in these verses, to the one who's actually able to do the things and give the things that we need.

But it's an active dependence. It's not a passive dependence. Luke 18 contains the parable of the persistent widow and the unjust judge. And it starts this way. Then Jesus spoke a parable to them that men always ought to pray and not lose heart.

That's why Matthew 7 is here. We ought always to pray, ask, seek, and knock, and not lose heart, and not give up. But continue, because even the unrighteous judge considered the perseverance of the widow. Even this man who did not fear God or man when he was faced with the continual coming of this woman asking for justice against her adversary. Considered her perseverance and gave her what she wanted.

And God argues how much more will God give to those who persist in their asking? If an unjust judge will do so, how much more so a loving father? Verses 9 through 11. We're back in Matthew 7. Matthew 7, 9 through 11.

Or what man is there among you who if his son asks for bread will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, Will He give him a serpent? If you then, being 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? The argument is from the lesser to the greater. If it's true for the lesser, if it's true about you and your children, it's even more true for the greater.

That's the argument. We've seen this structure of argument twice in chapter six. The birds of the air, God feeds them. They're so much less valuable than you. And if God feeds them, you can believe that you who bear his image will be fed by him.

The lilies of the field. They're here today and gone tomorrow. But God closed them in this unbelievable array. If God does that for These things that go into the oven tomorrow. How much more will he do it for you who bears his image?

So in chapter 6, we were the hero in the argument of the lesser to the greater. We were the ones who bore his image. In chapter 7, we're compared to God. So we get to be the lesser in this argument. But the form of the argument is the same.

And we're told to look at how we deal with our own children. Consider how you deal with your own children. We know how to give them good gifts. We're predisposed actually to do good. Now it doesn't mean we give them everything that they ever ask for either.

But we have a predisposition when they're asking for something that's good and asking in a right way, we're predisposed to say yes. We want to say yes. We're looking for an excuse to say yes to our children. And what is proposed here that our children would come to us and ask us for bread, nothing extravagant there, nothing over the top in the request there. I want some bread that you would actually, in a mocking way, give them a stone, something that looks a little like bread, but that'll break their teeth out.

This would never even cross your mind. Your child comes to you and asks for a fish, just something to be sustained with. And you hand them a serpent, something to actually harm them. Only the devil does that. Only the devil promises good things or holds out good things and then switches with something that harms.

God is fundamentally different from that. And what we should get from this verse is that it may be that we're not thinking about God in the right way, as if He's miserly, as if He's not predisposed to do good to us, to bless us. If that's what we think, then we're thinking wrongly about God. God is our Father. He loves us like we love our own children, but to the nth degree more, exponentially more.

So the thing that we find in our own heart, in our affection for our own children, God has it exponentially more in His heart towards us. Do we believe that? Do we believe that God has a predisposition to do us good and to bless us? Based on this verse, we have every reason to believe that he's predisposed towards us in this way. And it says that He gives good things.

This is another one of those boundaries in the text. God doesn't just give us whatever willy-nilly thing we might ask for, but He's there, predisposed to give us good things. And he gives it to those who ask him. That's the last phrase in verse 11. To those who ask him.

Jesus is just pounding this theme. Ask, seek, knock for everyone who asks. He gives good things to those who asks him, is it sinking in yet? To those who will humble themselves and depend on God, God shows himself to be faithful. To those who presume upon him, and say I don't need to ask, You find yourself on your own.

Romans 832. He who did not spare his own son, but delivered him up for us all, How shall he not with him also freely give us all thanks? If God sent Jesus to suffer and die, how dare we have an assumption about God other than He loves us and He's predisposed to bless us. He has a bent towards doing good to us. If you ever wanted evidence, look to the cross.

The evidence is at the cross that God has proven the kind intention of His will towards us. There's something else that we should deal with in these verses, and it's this. God actually calls us evil. If you, who are evil, Know how to give good gifts to your children. Here we're getting a glimpse through God's lenses.

We're seeing things as God sees things. And it's jolting, isn't it? It's a little bit jarring. We tend to think of ourselves as things that need tweaking, things that need minor adjustments. And yet, when we're handed God's glasses and we look through those lenses, we get called evil.

Noah, just off the ark, God has just destroyed everyone. We're down to only the elect. It's going to be beautiful from here on out, right? Genesis 821, and the Lord smelled a soothing aroma. They're sacrificing to God just off the ark.

Then the Lord said in his heart, I will never again curse the ground for man's sake, although the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth. Nor will I again destroy every living thing as I have done. The imagination of man's heart, even after all that evil was cleansed away with the waters, with the floodwaters, and we're only down to the elect, the imagination of man's heart is only evil from his youth. Paul takes up this theme in Romans 3 verses 8 through 10. As it is written, there is none righteous, not one.

There is none who understands. There is none who seeks after God. They have all turned aside. They have together become unprofitable. There is none who does good, no, not one." Paul starts quoting Ecclesiastes 720.

He moves to Psalm 14, verses 1 through 3. Then in the very next verses in Romans 3, he quotes Psalm 5, 9. It says the same thing. Psalm 140, verse 3, it says the same thing. Psalm 10, verse 7, it says the same thing.

Isaiah 59, verses 7 and 8, it says the same thing. Psalm 36, verse 1, it says the same thing. Paul is just heaping up, heaping up, heaping up, heaping up, heaping up, all the references that say the same thing, that the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth. So go. And God hands his glasses to us so that we might see ourselves as we are.

We see that we're not just these creatures who need the minor adjustments, who need a little tweaking, but that we're actually evil and must have a major overhaul. We must be born again. And this is what makes God's grace so amazing, that He's so kind to us, even though He sees us as we really are, and though we rarely do, though we rarely recognize it, though we rarely take the trouble to look through His lenses and call ourselves as God sees us, that God pours out His grace on us anyway. God's grace is amazing. We ought to be so humble.

We ought to be so happily dependent upon God. Having seen through his lenses what we really are, we ought to be so glad to lay ourselves before God in humility and trust him for everything, to ask him for everything, to seek him for everything, to knock at every closed door in his name. Verse 12. Therefore, whatever you want men to do to you, do also to them. For this is the law and the prophets.

Therefore, in view of the fact that God is such a kind father to those who are evil, love your neighbor. This is just like the very closing verses in chapter 5 where we're told to love those who persecute us because that's Acting like God who's kind to the unthankful and the wicked Therefore because you have a father who's like this who's so predisposed to do good to you, so bent towards blessing you. In light of that, love your neighbor. Love your neighbor as yourself. This, the golden rule is just a paraphrase of the second greatest commandment.

You shall love your neighbor as yourself. They're the same thing. They communicate the same thing. It is built on an assumption of self-love. No argument needs to be made here that we love ourselves, that we have our own interests at heart.

It's just assumed in the second greatest commandment. It's just assumed that we don't want bad things to be done to us. It's just assumed that we do want good things to be done to us. And so Jesus takes this universal understanding of what we don't want done to us and what we do want done to us. And he takes those and turns them into a summary of the law, into a guide for us to understand the law and our obligations under the law and as a litmus test so we can know whether we're actually obeying the law or not.

It's a summary in the sense that every law rolls up to it. Every law has an association to it, and we can understand each law by it. It's a guide so that we can know whether we're acting rightly or not, and it's a litmus test in the same way. That we can judge our conduct, judge our speech, judge our thoughts towards all those around us by this standard and know whether it's in accord with the law of God or whether it's not. So Jesus takes all that self-interest that we know intuitively is there.

We're so in tune with the self-interest. And he tells us to turn that towards our brother and sister and just act in that way. In that way, where we'd want people to act towards us, then we just turn that to our brothers and sisters in due and kind. You want to be treated in a certain way. The NASB actually renders this verse this way.

However you want people to treat you, so treat them. You want to be treated in a certain way. Okay, that's your guideline. Use that as a standard to help you understand what the law of God really teaches about how we ought to relate to one another. It's an unbelievably wonderful way to harness all that self-interest in a way that helps us and keeps us from being consumed by it.

J.C. Ryle says this. We are not to deal with others as others deal with us. This is mere selfishness and heathenism. We are to deal with others as we would like others to deal with us.

This is real Christianity. Turn to Romans 13. Romans 13. Romans 13. Romans 13 verses 8 through 10.

Romans 13 verse 8. Oh, no one anything except to love one another. For he who loves another has fulfilled the law. For the commandments, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not murder, you shall not steal, you shall not bear false witness, you shall not covet, and if there is any other commandment, all are summed up in this saying, namely, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. Love does no harm to a neighbor.

Therefore, love is the fulfillment of the law. Do you want others to honor your marriage vows by not paying inappropriate attentions to your wife? Good. Don't commit adultery. Do you want others to respect your property?

Good. Don't steal. Do you want others to tell you the truth? Good. Don't bear false witness.

And on and on and on. Love is the fulfillment of the law. But not only those things that you don't want done to you, but also the positive, The things that you do want done to you. That is what separates this from all the great Jewish teachers of the past and the teachers of the other religion. This is a commonly taught maxim among religions.

But it's always focused on the negative. The things that you hate done to you, don't do those. But Jesus actually flips that into something that includes that, but that's only a subset, to say the things that you do want due to you, the kindnesses that you do wish would be shown to you, The help that you do want to receive, that's the kindness that you show. That's the help that you offer. So in conclusion, this text takes us right back to the God that sees the charitable deeds that go out of our way to be done in secret.

Takes us right back to the God that sees the charitable deeds that go out of our way to be done in secret. It takes us right back to the God who hears the prayers that we offer behind closed doors. It takes us right back to the God who sees when we fast in secret and when we seek Him in a particular intense way. It takes us back to the God who feeds the birds and closed the lilies. He's a loving Father.

He's adopted us. And He's adopted us so He might pour out His love on us, that he might bless us, that he might do good to us. He's an almighty Father who never is constrained in what he might do for us. And he invites us to ask and to seek and to knock. And because his arm is never too short to accomplish anything at any time, he leaves off the restrictions to point us in a direction, to increase our faith.

And he's daring us to be bolder in our prayers. If you get nothing out of this time except for this, be dared to be emboldened in your prayers, with no doubting in your heart that God is predisposed to bless you. He's bent towards doing good to you. And that He stands at the ready to put his glory on display through us asking him for crazy things in his name and for his kingdom. I pray that we would become that people.

That we would become so emboldened by this text that we begin to ask God for things that we just have never seen before, but that would bring Him glory. That we would have the King on our mind. We would have His kingdom and the expansion of the kingdom on our mind. So we began to just pray these crazy prayers that ask God to do something for the greatness of His name in our lives, in our homes, in our community. He's predisposed to bless His children because He loves us.

And because He's almighty, we should be emboldened. If you ever needed to be agitated to pray more and to pray more boldly, this is the text for us. It should agitate us to pray that we've been commanded and invited to ask and to seek and to knock. Lastly, in Genesis 32, Jacob is returning to the land of his fathers and he's met The night before he'll meet Esau, his arch enemy slash brother, the night before he meets him, God shows up. And in a scene that's unlike anything else in the Bible and that I can't explain, Jacob wrestles with God.

I'll pick this up in Genesis 32, verse 25. Now when God saw that He did not prevail against him, He touched the socket of his hip, and the socket of Jacob's hip was out of joint as he wrestled with him. And God said, let me go for the day breaks. But Jacob said, I will not let you go unless you bless me." So God said to him, what is your name? He said Jacob.

And he said, your name shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have struggled with God and with men and have prevailed. We think of wrestling with God as this thing that we shouldn't do, and yet here we learn that there's a sense in which we ought to do it. There's a right sense in which we ought to wrestle with God, where we ought to lay hold of God and say, I will not let you go until you bless me. So that God would change our names, that He would force this fundamental change on us. And we would be His in a new way, in a deeper way, in a better way.

That we would find ourselves with the ability to make progress in our sanctification, in our faith where we've been stumped a thousand times, would we lay hold of God and wrestle with him and say, God, I'm not letting you go until you bless me? This is what Jesus brings us to in Matthew 7. And he's challenging us to wrestle with God in this way. And to have our perseverance raised. And to have our boldness flowing out of a faith in God raised.

I will not let you go unless you bless me. Let's pray. Father, I thank you for the example of Jacob. I pray that you would make us like him in spirit. We find ourselves with his flaws.

May we also have his virtues, Lord. May we learn to lay hold upon you, Knowing that we can never prevail upon you, but that you're predisposed to do good to us. And to, in a foolish sort of way, insist that you bless us. Plead with your blessing. Not so that we can spend it on our own pleasures, but so that your kingdom would advance, so that there would be progress in our lives.

That we really would be being conformed into the image of your son. I just confess the slowness with which I've seen this in my own life. And I acknowledge that I have not asked as persistently as I should have asked or sought you as I ought to have sought you or knocked at the closed doors. Oh God, build our faith, Lord. Use this text in a mighty way.

Holy Spirit, come and be our tutor. Teach us what it means to ask and to seek and to knock for the advancement of your kingdom. We ask it in Jesus' name. Amen.