INTRODUCTION
• How many times have we wondered why God has not blessed us in a certain way? How many times have you asked God for something from your heart only to feel that God kicked dirt in your face or that He did not hear you?
• When you asked God and felt rejected, did you ever sit back and wonder why?
• What about when you hear someone speaking about how God has blessed them and you just cannot relate to what they are saying?
• There are times that we really struggle with our relationship with God because we do not feel like God is blessing us or hearing us.
• In the last few chapters Jesus has given us some very difficult things to carry out. Some of the things He wants us to do seem almost impossible. Left to our own devices, they are.
• Jesus has asked us to keep our focus on heaven, which we cannot see and not on the world that we can see. He has told us to put our full faith in Him (whom we cannot see) for our daily provision. Jesus has told us to love people that seem to be unlovable. He has told us not to hypocritically judge people. We are told that our righteousness is to exceed that of the scribes and Pharisees if we are going to see heaven.
• The question now comes, “Just how are we to do these things?” How does God expect us to do these things, things that do not come naturally to us?
• The answer is given to us in the passage that we will look at today.
• Jesus wants to bless each and every one of His children. Jesus wants each and every one of His children to live a victorious life in Him. Jesus wants each and every one of His children to live life to the full.
• What do we need to do in order that the gates to God’s blessing become open to us?
• The answer to the question is one that is simple, but yet seems to be hard for us to carry out in our lives in a consistent manner. The answer is prayer.
• Jesus is going to tells us that if we want help carrying out all the great things that He has told us to do, we need to pray.
• Jesus tells us that if we want to receive blessings from God, we need to pray.
• Do we want dynamic prayer lives? Do we want to know that God is working when we pray? Do we understand what is available to us when we pray?
• Today we are going to look at “Prayer, The Pathway to Blessing.”
SERMON
I. GOD’S PATHWAY TO BLESSING (7-8)
• READ VERSES 7-8
• John MacArthur Jr. writes in his commentary on Matthew, “Here is one of the Lord’s greatest and most comprehensive promises to those who belong to Him, to those who are His children and citizens of His kingdom. In light of this great promise we can feel free to fully love others and totally sacrifice for others, because our heavenly Father sets the example in His generosity to us and promises that we have access to His eternal and unlimited treasure to meet our own needs as well as theirs. We can do for others what we would want done for ourselves (see v. 12) without fear of depleting the divine resources and having nothing left.”
• Jesus gives us a formula for a dynamic prayer life. That formula can be found in the acronym “ASK”.
• In Verse 7 Jesus tells us to do three things. Each of the steps He gives to us builds to a climax to the last step. Let us look at what Jesus tells us.
A. ASK
• Jesus tells us we are to first ask. As we look at the progression it starts with simply asking.
• JAMES 4:2 You lust and do not have; so you commit murder. You are envious and cannot obtain; so you fight and quarrel. You do not have because you do not ask.
• Jesus says in our passage if we ask and it will be given to you. James tells us we do not have because we do not ask.
• How many times have we really needed a blessing, and yet the last place we go if we there at all is to God?
• As with the other two things that Jesus tells us to do, the verb tense of the word “ask” indicates a continual asking. It does not mean just ask one time or two times, but ask continually!
• Asking in itself is not enough. There are some things that need to go into our asking.
• We must believe that Jesus can answer our prayer. MATTHEW 21:22 "And all things you ask in prayer, believing, you will receive."
• When we ask for something in Jesus name, it needs to be something that Jesus would want. JOHN 14:13 "Whatever you ask in My name, that will I do, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. JOHN 16:24 “Until now you have asked for nothing in My name; ask and you will receive, so that your joy may be made full.
• Whenever we ask for something in the name of someone, we are asking as if that person were asking. When we call on the name of Jesus, it is the same. This is why it is so important for us to know Jesus through study of the word and prayer so that we can know what to ask for and what not to expect and answer for.
• James 4:3 says, You ask and do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, so that you may spend it on your pleasures.
• Sometimes we pray "wrongly" as James says, "to spend it on your passions" (James 4:3).
• Jesus says if we persistently ask it we be given to you.
B. SEEK
• When we ask, we use the voice, when we seek, we use the body to start looking for what God has in store for us.
• Once again this seek implies that we are actively seeking God’s will in what we are wanting.
• We want what we want, not what God wants. Some time ago I ran across a wedding prayer that illustrates how subtly this can be done. This is a girl praying on her wedding day:
• "Dear God. I can hardly believe that this is my wedding day. I know I haven’t been able to spend much time with You lately, with all the rush of getting ready for today, and I’m sorry. I guess, too, that I feel a little guilty when I try to pray about all this, since Larry still isn’t a Christian. But oh, Father, I love him so much, what else can I do? I just couldn’t give him up. Oh, You must save him, some way, somehow. You know how much I’ve prayed for him, and the way we’ve discussed the gospel together. I’ve tried not to appear too religious, I know, but that’s because I didn’t want to scare him off. Yet he isn’t antagonistic and I can’t understand why he hasn’t responded. Oh, if he only were a Christian.
• Dear Father, please bless our marriage. I don’t want to disobey You, but I do love him and I want to be his wife, so please be with us and please don’t spoil my wedding day."
• That sounds like a sincere, earnest prayer, does it not? But if it is stripped of its fine, pious language, it is really saying something like this:
• "Dear Father, I don’t want to disobey You, but I must have my own way at all costs. For I love what You do not love, and I want what You do not want. So please be a good God and deny Yourself, and move off Your throne, and let me take over. If You don’t like this, then all I ask is that You bite Your tongue and say or do nothing that will spoil my plans, but let me enjoy myself."
• We are to seek God’s will for our lives and our prayers and Jesus says that we find it.
C. Knock
• READ Luke 18:1-8
• Jesus wants us to be persistent. WE are not to just ask once and quit, we are to ask continually and as we are asking, we are to seek God will continually and as we are doing these things, Jesus wants us to knock at the door of heaven continually. Knocking implies that we will have the courage to pass though the open door and that we will have the courage to pass through any worldly obstacles that get into our way!
D. An answer for EVERYONE (verse 8)
• Everyone refers to those who belong to the heavenly Father. Those who are not God’s children cannot come to Him as their Father. JOHN 9:31 says, "We know that God does not hear sinners; but if anyone is God-fearing and does His will, He hears him.
• JOHN 1:12 But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name, (SPEAK ABOUT THE FATHER ISSUE)
• The two overriding relationships focused on in the book of Matthew are those of God’s kingdom and God’s family. The kingdom concept deals with rule, and the family concept deals with relationship.
• The one who claims this promise must be living in obedience to his Father. “Whatever we ask we receive from Him,” John says, “because we keep His commandments and do the things that are pleasing in His sight” (1 John 3:22).
• Third, our motive in asking must be right. “You ask and do not receive,” explains James, “because you ask with wrong motives, so that you may spend it on your pleasures” (James 4:3). God does not obligate Himself to answer selfish, carnal requests from His children.
• We must be submissive to His will. If we are trying to serve both God and mammon (Matt. 6:24), we cannot claim this promise. JAMES 1:6-8 says, “But he must ask in faith without any doubting, for the one who doubts is like the surf of the sea, driven and tossed by the wind. For that man ought not to expect that he will receive anything from the Lord, being a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.
• As John makes clear, “This is the confidence which we have before Him, that, if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us” (1 John 5:14).
• We need to ask out of a heart of obedience. 1 JOHN 3:21-22 Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence before God; and whatever we ask we receive from Him, because we keep His commandments and do the things that are pleasing in His sight.
• Those who are trying to live in obedience to God are the ones who have confidence. (TALK ABOUT THE CONFIDENCE)
II. GOD’S PRACTICE OF BLESSING (9-11)
• In verse 9-11 Jesus is more or less saying, “If you do not believe that God will give to those who ask, seek and knock, just look at the example of your earthly fathers.
• It has been God’s practice to bless us even when we did not deserve it.
• Jesus says that our imperfect earthly fathers who in comparison to God are evil give us what they think we need, why wouldn’t the perfect heavenly Father give us good gifts or blessings?
• Notice that verse eleven says that God will give what is GOOD to those who ask.
• This means that we will not always get what we want because God in His perfect will and knowledge knows what is good for us and what is not.
• Too many times we throw a fit before God wanting something that would not be good for us.
• It would be like your 3 year old throwing a fit because you will not let him play with your loaded gun. No matter how big a fit the kid throws, you know the gun is not good for the three year old even though the three year old does not understand that.
• God knows what will help you and what will hurt you and He will not give you what is bad for you. JAMES 1:17 Every good thing given and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shifting shadow.
III. GOD’S PURPOSE FOR BLESSING (12)
• This takes us to the purpose for God’s blessings upon us. The golden rule. In my home I have a variation of this that Rachel does not like. (GIVE IT)
• Jesus finishes up this section by telling us that “therefore” or “since” God gives good gifts to us, and that God’s love motivates Him to be good to us, that we are to treat other people in the same manner.
• This rule of conduct is a positive command. Instead of saying, “an eye for an eye”, Jesus is saying that we are to treat people the way we want to be treated.
• Jesus says, “Do what God commands”, then “do to others as you would have them do to you.”
• Jesus says that this was supposed to be the general principle of the Old Testament that the people really did not understand.
• JOHN 13:35 "By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another."
CONCLUSION
• The pathway to being blessed by God is a persistent prayer life. We do not want to suffer the same fate as a church or individual Christians as the following fictitious church did. Listen to the obituary.
• We are sorry to announce the passing of Mrs. Prayer Meeting. She died recently at the First Neglected Church on Ho-Hum Avenue. Born many years ago in the midst of a great revival, she was strong and healthy as a child, fed largely on testimony and Bible study she grew into world-wide prominence and was one of the most influential members of the Church family.
• However, in recent years Sister Prayer Meeting has been failing in health, gradually wasting away until rendered helpless by stiffness of the knees, cooling of the heart, lack of spiritual sensitivity and the concern for spiritual things. Her last whispered words were inquiring about the strange absence of her loved ones, now so busy in the market place and places of worldly amusement on Wednesday evenings!
• Experts, including Dr. Good Works, Dr. Socializing and Dr. Unconcerned disagree as to the fatal cause of her final illness. They all administered large doses of excuses, even ordered a last minute motivational bypass, all to no avail. A post-mortem examination showed that a deficiency of regular spiritual food, a lack of prayer and Christian fellowship, all contributed to her untimely demise.
• The pathway to receiving blessing from God is to be persistent in prayer and to show other all people the love and kindness that God has shown to you!
