The Astounding Privilege And Promises Of Prayer

I was talking recently with a brother who’s been a follower of Jesus for decades and a Christian leader in his work. God has used him as a powerful witness to many people. Some of you would recognize his name. But he told me, “David, I don’t think I’ve ever sat down and prayed for 10 straight minutes.” And I don’t think he’s alone. I read a survey this week from Crossway that polled 14,000 followers of Jesus. Do you know what percentage of them said they were satisfied with their prayer lives? 2%. You translate out into this gathering today, that would mean 98% of you, almost all of you, are dissatisfied with your prayer life. And it’s evident in the way we often approach prayer. It’s this rote, emotionless exercise, tack on before a meal, or transition, to begin or end a meeting. So why is it so hard for us to spend concentrated time in prayer and to experience satisfaction in prayer?

It really doesn’t make sense when you think about it. And we’re talking about what is arguably the most astounding, exhilarating privilege in all the world, to communicate with the ruler of the world who loves us infinitely more than anyone else in the world. Isn’t that odd? I know we’re busy people, but if God really is the greatest possible being, the infinitely beautiful Creator and Savior and Redeemer of all, then what in your schedule this week would be more satisfying than spending a few moments with him? And I don’t ask these questions to shame us, but to help us see we’re missing something significant. And I have prayed that today would be a turning point in the prayer lives of many people. I’ve prayed that in the next few minutes God, through his Word, by his Spirit, would open your eyes, our eyes together to see what we’re missing about the privilege of extended, satisfying time with him.

I can’t promise you in the next few minutes all your questions about prayer are going to be answered. But I do want to show you how Jesus’ words here in Matthew 7 can completely change your life today. Not just your prayer life, but your entire life. So listen to these words from Jesus. Matthew 7:7. He says, “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 the one who seeks finds. To the one who knocks, it will be opened. Or which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone, or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? If you then, who are 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?”

Did you hear that? Jesus just said, not just to a crowd of people 2,000 years ago, but to you and me today, talking about God, infinitely powerful Creator of all, the one who spoke and the entire universe came into being, the one who brings out every star at night and calls them each by name, the one true God who’s unlike any other being and utterly perfect in all of his attributes, the one who is infinitely and perfectly good and loving and wise and powerful and kind and just and merciful. Jesus just said you have an open invitation to ask God for good things, and it’s guaranteed he will give them to you. That’s amazing. And why would we not pray? So the answer must be that either we don’t understand what Jesus is saying here or we don’t believe it. Because if we understood and believed this, we’d be praying a lot more and we would be super satisfied.

The Root of Defective Prayer

But here’s how I would summarize the problem. What we’re missing as I’ve meditated on this passage this week, we have a defective understanding of prayer because we have too high a view of ourselves and too low a view of God. So let me flesh this out. We might not say it in the ways I’m about to put it on the screen, but if you get in our minds and look at our lives, I think you’d see that oftentimes we think of God as a divine genie who exists to give us what we wish or want. People read this passage and say, “That’s not true. I’ve asked God for things in my life or others’ lives and I didn’t receive them, they didn’t receive them. I’ve asked God to heal me of this and he hasn’t done it. I’ve asked God to change that and he hasn’t done it. I don’t even know if I believe in God at this point. And if he’s there, then prayer to him clearly doesn’t matter.”

But stop for a moment and just think about your view of God. This won’t take you longer than 15 seconds to realize. Do you really think Jesus is saying to all of us, “God will give you whatever you wish. The prayer is a wand you can wave, and poof, all your dreams come true”? God is not Aladdin. And just think about how dangerous it would be if he was. If this was how prayer worked, every one of us with our sinful hearts and competing desires, with our lack of knowledge and wisdom asking and getting whatever we want, never actually knowing how what we want will affect this person or that circumstance or the course of history, for that matter. One writer said, “If it were the case that whatever we ask God would pledge to give, then I for one would never pray again, because I would not have sufficient confidence in my own wisdom to ask God for anything.” And I think if you’ll consider it, you will agree.

So we realize, okay, maybe God is not a personal genie for each of us. Maybe this doesn’t mean I get everything I want. But then we start to think of God as a celestial slot machine. So I’m not sure if asking God for something is actually going to work, but it won’t hurt. Just put the coin in the slot, take the chance, and maybe every once in a while I’ll hit the jackpot. And this affects prayer for small things and big things. People pray for their team to win a game, not realizing the other team’s praying the same thing. Or people pray in a more serious way for someone they love to live and to be healed of a sickness or disease, for a marriage or a child or relationship to be restored.

And you want to have faith, but it feels like you’re just not sure if this is going to lead to reward or leave you empty. And at the root of much of this is the reality that we think we know better than God. We think we know what is best in a given situation for us, for others. We don’t understand why things don’t happen the way we want. Reading Habakkuk in our church Bible reading plan this year the last few days, this is how Habakkuk starts this whole book. “Why is this happening, God?” Habakkuk 1:2, “How long shall I cry for help and you will not hear?” Habakkuk, like us, doesn’t understand God’s ways, which leads us to question God. “If you are good, God, why are you doing this? If you’re loving, God, why are you doing that? So if you’re not going to answer when I pray, then why pray?” And we end up actually getting mad at God when he doesn’t do what we want.

And when you really take this all the way to the end, you realize that we ever so subtly think we should be God. After all, if God did everything we wanted that we thought was best, that would make us God. We struggle with prayer because we want to be in control of our lives, of others’ lives, of the world, or at least particular parts of it. So prayer becomes an outlet where we try to control things, when prayer is actually an acknowledgement that God alone is in control. And that’s a good thing because God alone knows what is best, not us. But that strikes at the core of our pride. And as you keep digging deeper, you realize we have a defective understanding of prayer because we think we can live without God.

The whole starting point of prayer is acknowledging, “You are God, I am not, and I need you.” Jesus’ first word in verse 7 is to ask God for things. And fundamentally, if we’re not asking for things, we’re assuming we don’t need God for things. I don’t need to pray, “God, give us this day our daily bread.” I have plenty of food in my house. I don’t need to pray. I get up every morning and work hard to put food on my table. There’s a million other ways this lack of prayer plays out in our supposed self-sufficiency. At the core, prayerlessness is pride. It’s saying with our lives, “I’ve got this. I don’t need to ask God for things.” But prayerfulness is a humility that says, “I don’t got this. I need to ask you, God, for any good thing and to gladly trust you that whatever I ask you for, you are God and I am not.” But we have too low a view of God, too high a view of ourselves.

We don’t realize we can’t get up in the morning unless God gives us a beating heart and breathing lungs and the ability to get up and go to work, to put food on our tables that he creates and he provides for us despite our pride. We have a defective understanding of prayer because we think we can live without God in this world. And finally, we think this world is what matters most. So when we read verses like this, “Ask and you’ll receive,” we immediately think of all the circumstances we want to change in our lives, in others’ lives, in the world around us. And this is where we need to see the context of these words from Jesus. This doesn’t just appear out of nowhere. This is nearing the end of this sermon on the mount, where over and over again Jesus has called us to a better way to live in this world, to the blessed life, the good life in this world that’s actually focused on another world.

Remember how the whole sermon started? Matthew 5:3, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” The good life begins with poverty, humility of spirit before God. In other words, the heart of prayer that is focused on attaining a kingdom in another world. We saw it in Matthew 5:11 and 12. “Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven.” Again, the good life, and most people reviling you and persecuting you and lying about you in this world. Rejoice and be glad, because you’re not living for this world and your reward is great in another world. Matthew 5;22, “Turn from anger.” Why? “Because everyone who’s angry with his brother will be liable to judgment. Whoever insults his brother will be liable to the counsel. Whoever says, ‘You fool’ will be liable to the hell of fire in the next world.”

Turn from lust, Matthew 5:29. Why? “If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out, throw it away. It’s better for you to lose one of your members than your whole body to be thrown into hell in another world.” And you jump ahead to chapter 6. Don’t give, pray, fast to be seen by others. Why not? “For then you’ll have no reward from your Father who is in heaven. So give in secret and pray in secret and fast in secret,” Matthew 6:18, “And your Father in heaven who sees in secret will reward you.” Then right after that, verse 19, “Don’t lay up for yourselves treasures in this world, where moth and rust destroy, where thieves break in and steal. Lay up for yourselves treasures in another world where moth and rust do not destroy, where thieves did not break in and steal.” After that, he says, don’t worry about things in this world. God is going to take care of you forever.

Then you get to chapter seven. We looked at this last week right before what we’re reading today. Just said, “Judge not, that you be not judged, for with the judgment you pronounce, you will be judged. With the measure you use it will be measured to you. Judge mercifully in this world, knowing you will be judged in another world.” So after all this, when you get to Matthew 7:7, “Ask and it will be given to you,” what do you think Jesus is talking about asking for? Stuff in this world? Our circumstances to change in this world? No, he’s talking about the good life, the better life that he’s just described. Ask God for poverty of spirit and purity of heart and hunger and thirst for righteousness. Ask God for freedom from anger and freedom from lust and freedom from desires for revenge and bitterness against your enemies. Ask God for freedom from worry.

Ask God, seek God, knock on his door, and God will give you all these things and more. God will give you a kingdom, a kingdom that far surpasses anything and everything else in this world. This is an absolutely amazing passage when we realize what Jesus is telling us to ask for.

Prayer is Primarily for More of Jesus’ Life in Us

So let’s change the way we understand prayer today. Prayer is not primarily for circumstances to become what we want in this world. Instead, prayer is primarily for more of Jesus’s life in us and others, no matter what that means in this world. Prayer is primarily for more of the blessing, the good life that Jesus alone can give, for the purity of Jesus, the comfort of Jesus, the strength of Jesus, the joy of Jesus, the peace of Jesus, the perspective of Jesus, the love of Jesus in us and in others.

And this is not to say that it’s wrong to pray for circumstances to change, for healing to happen, for the job to come about, and for all kinds of other things like that. The Bible actually gives us those pictures of prayer. But the Bible also keeps those things in this world in proper perspective in light of another world. Now, just think for example about praying for healing for someone who’s sick, which the Bible tells us to do. At the same time, at some point every one of us is going to die from any number of causes, including this body wearing out. So at some point the prayer for healing or protection or preservation won’t be answered. But the beauty is, this world is not all there is. Even when this body is broken and no longer able to go on, the life of Jesus in us will live on in another world. Now, some might think, “Yeah, okay, but I really want this circumstance to change,” or this thing to happen. And I get it. Believe me, I get it.

And the reason I use this word primarily is because I want to help us evaluate what we want more in prayer. Because if we’re honest, many times we want this or that circumstance in this world more than we want Jesus’ life in us and others, no matter what that means in this world. And this is where we need to step back and reevaluate the foundation of our faith, especially in a world where so many people have been sold a gospel that says, “Come to Jesus and get stuff, come to Jesus and get health or wealth or prosperity,” or any number of other things in this world. And it’s not that those things are bad in and of themselves, but they’re not the gospel. The gospel, the good news is not, “Come to Jesus to get stuff.” The gospel, the good news is, “Come to Jesus to get Jesus,” who’s infinitely better than everything in this world put together. Come to the one in whom life is found now and forever. That will change your perspective on what you pray for.

Paul says, “If I live, Christ. If I die, gain. Heal me or not, deliver me or not, I win, because I have Jesus. I just want more of him.” So pray primarily to get more of Jesus and all the good things that flow from his life in you. The peace of Jesus that passes all understanding, the strength of Jesus that endures all trials. The joy of Jesus that supersedes all suffering, the wisdom of Jesus to navigate all challenges, the hope of Jesus that transcends all circumstances, the love of Jesus that will never, ever, ever fail you. Ask and it will be given you. Seek and you will find. Knock and the door will be opened wide to you for the life of Jesus in you.

Pray Persistently

So here’s two practical takeaways from this passage. One, in light of the privilege of prayer, pray continually. Ask for this all the time. This invitation to ask, seek, knock on the door of God, from whom all things flow for all of his children. Did you notice that word in verse 8? Everyone who asks. This isn’t just like the super spiritual, the elite Christian, no such thing. Everybody, same plane at the foot of the cross. And he says to every one of his children who ask, receive. Everyone who knows God is Father without exception. And if you don’t know God is Father, then he invites you to be in his family. This is John 1:12, “To all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God.” For anybody listening right now who’s never placed your faith in Jesus, this invitation is for you to be a part of the family of God. You have sin in your life that separates you from God. If you die in this state of sinful separation from God, you’ll spend eternity and judgment due your sin.

But God loves you so much that he came to us, it’s why we celebrate at Christmas, in the person of Jesus. And Jesus lived a life of no sin, then even though he had no sin for which to die, he chose to die on a cross to pay the price for our sins. And three days later, he rose from the grave and victory over sin and death, so that anyone, anywhere, no matter who you are, no matter what you have done, if you will turn from your sin yourself and trust in Jesus as Savior and Lord of your life, God will forgive you of all your sin, restore you to relationship with him forever as part of his family. That is the invitation for you today. Receive Jesus, believe in his name as the Savior and Lord of your life, and become a child of God.

And when you do, and for all who have, now we come back to Matthew 7, where Jesus says to every child of his, uses this imagery, okay, you like to give good gifts to your children and you have sin in your heart. You’re not a perfect father, you’re not a perfect mother. But we’re talking about, the perfect Father in heaven has good things that he wants to give to those who ask him. He wants you to come to him, which is pretty bold when you really think about it.

Again, in light of Luke’s teaching of these same words, let me show it to you, Luke 11:5. Luke tells a story that Jesus tells as he’s talking about asking and receiving. Watch this. “Jesus said to them,” talking about his disciples, “Which of you who has a friend, will go to him at midnight and say to him, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves. For a friend of mine has arrived on a journey. I have nothing to set before him.’ And he will answer from within, ‘Do not bother me. The door is now shut. My children are with me in bed. I cannot get up and give you anything.’ I tell you, though he will not get up and give him anything because he is his friend, yet because of his impudence, he will arise and give him whatever he needs. And I tell you,” here it is, “Ask and it will be given you. Seek and you will find. Knock and it will be opened to you. For everyone who ask receives, the one who seeks finds, the one who knocks it will be opened.”

What a great story. So get the picture. First century Palestine. Here it is, right here. First century Palestine, food not quite as readily available as it is today. No late night Taco Bells. You bake enough bread each day to meet that day’s needs, you start again the next day. So a guy shows up at his buddy’s house at midnight and he’s hungry. And hospitality was huge, so the buddy has a dilemma. Option number one, he can be a poor host and not get the guy any food. Option number two, he can be a poor neighbor and wake somebody else up at midnight. So he chooses what’s behind door number two. His neighbor already fast asleep with his family, houses in that day, one-room affairs, which means you get kid one, two, three down for bed, you and your spouse close the door, bolt it, lay down next to each other. Nobody’s getting up to go to the bathroom without causing major commotion.

So all of a sudden a knock comes at the door, the guy on the outside says, “Friend,” which is a good way to start when you’re waking somebody up at midnight for a piece of bread, because this friendship thing is now walking a tight line. I think about this dad looking around, seeing little eyes next to him start popping open. It’s one thing to wake up Dad, it’s a whole nother thing to wake up the toddler in the middle of the night. So the guy inside’s not too happy right now. He says in the most polite way possible, “Don’t bother me. I am not getting up to give you anything.” Then Jesus says even though the guy will not get up and give him anything because he’s his friend, because that’s in question, he will get up because of his impudence. The word means bold or shameless. He just keeps asking until the dad gets out of bed and gives him what he needs.

So here’s the interesting thing about stories like this. We hear them and think, “Okay, somebody in this story is me and somebody’s God. So I think we’re the guy knocking on the door. So who’s God?” Right? The grumpy guy on the inside saying, “Don’t bother me”? It’s weird. What is Jesus teaching about prayer? Well, if you want something from God, just keep banging on the door and eventually he’ll give you what you want, not because he loves you, but because you’re annoying. Let’s pray. No, that’s not the point of the story. The whole point of the story comes back to this boldness, this shamelessness. And we’ll only understand the story rightly when we look at it through the lens of this guy who’s in need knocking. Jesus tells the whole story from his perspective. So resist the temptation to try to compare the friend inside with God. Just put yourself in this guy’s shoes. Imagine if you were so bold, so shameless enough to go to your friend at midnight just to ask him for a piece of bread.

I think the picture Jesus is painting is of a guy who’s just, in a sense, rude, one of those guys who just doesn’t know which social lines to cross and which ones not to. You know that kind of person? Are you that kind of person? You may not realize it. So the guy doesn’t seem to get the point. Like, you don’t wake up your buddy and his entire family at midnight unless you’ve got a really good reason. This guy doesn’t know that. He’s shameless. He’s so socially out of it, he actually thinks it’s no big deal to bother his friend in the middle of the night to get what he needs. And Jesus says that is how we should approach God. Follow this. This story is a perfect illustration of you and me, think about it, going to God and saying, “So it feels kind of inappropriate to interrupt you because you’re running a universe right now and you’ve got a lot going on, but I need you to look at me and listen to me and not get distracted, because I’ve got some things I need to share with you.”

Is that not over the top? But it’s not. It seems shameless, almost ludicrous to be going into the presence of the God of the universe. And Jesus is saying to you, be as shameless as you want.

God Delights in Bold Prayers

Essentially Jesus is saying, you might write this down, God delights in blessing those who are bold enough to bother him. And I hesitate to use the word bother, but it’s the point. We usually think of bother with a negative connotation, like nobody wants to be a bother. But think about this with me. Imagine I’m traveling overseas, have a full schedule every day, and I call home and I ask my wife, Heather, how’s she’s doing. And she says, “I’ve got some things that are really heavy on my heart, but I don’t want to bother you with it.” Let me tell you what I’m not going to say. “Well, good, because I don’t really want to hear it amidst everything I’ve got going on. Is there anything else you’d like to talk about?”

No, I’m going to say, “Heather, I delight in being the one you want to bother with the things that are heavy on your heart. It would bother me, it would be a sign of unhealth in our relationship if you didn’t come to me with those things.” And that’s the point. God is saying to you, “I want to be bothered with what’s on your heart.” God is saying that to you. And that includes small things and big things. We sometimes think things we’re praying for aren’t important enough to warrant mention before God. But look at this story. It’s not an emergency. The guy’s not saying, “My wife’s having a baby. My kid broke his leg. We have a robber in the house.” It’s in the middle of the night and he’s saying, “I want some biscuits.” Talk about presumptuous. Would the traveling dude die if he just waited until breakfast? Tell him to go to bed. He’ll forget he’s hungry when he falls asleep. That’s what we tell our kids.

See the beauty of this story, every one of God’s children has the freedom to ask, seek, and knock in everything. So in light of this privilege, pray continually. These verbs for ask and seek and knock all have this sense of ongoing, persistent. Ask and keep on asking. Seek and keep on seeking. Knock and keep on knocking. And just think about it, what it would be like if we were praying like this. What if we were all asking, seeking, knocking individually and together all the time for the purity, holiness, peace, strength, love, justice of Jesus? It would totally change our lives and our families, our church family, and our effect in this world. So let’s do it. In light of the privilege of prayer, pray continually, and then in light of the promise of prayer, pray confidently.

Pray Confidently

This passage, you count them up, depending on how you count them, six or seven promises Jesus gives that God will answer our prayers. Now, again, we don’t have time to talk about everything in prayer today, but here’s the practical summary I would give based on this passage and other passages like it. When you have a clear word from God, pray with total confidence in his Word. Meaning when you have a precise direct word from God in the Bible, then pray with confidence in that word that God will do what his Word says he will do. The five-minute podcast I do every day, Pray the Word, is designed to help you do this. Read a verse, follow us along with our Bible reading plan, and just pray it over your life and others’ lives. So when God’s Word says in Philippians 4, “You can do all things through Christ who strengthens you,” and you pray that continually for the strength of Jesus and trust confidently, he will give that to you.

James 1, ask for wisdom. Trust that God hears you and will give you what you ask. He’s a good Father. When you ask for a fish, he doesn’t say, “Here’s a snake.” When you ask for wisdom, he wants to give it. He wants to pour it out on you. So pray with total confidence in his Word when you have a clear word from God. And then when you don’t have a clear word from God, pray with total confidence in his wisdom, his power, and his love. So for example, when, like we said earlier, you’re praying for healing or restoration of people and any number of circumstances, but obviously you don’t have a specific verse that this specific person or relationship will be healed or restored at this specific time, then by all means ask for that. Ask him, keep on asking. Pour out your heart asking for that. Remember, God is our Father. So trust that he hears us and will answer our prayers.

I wish we had time to dive into this throughout the Word. Prayer has an effect in this world. God’s designed it that way. As our prayers are filtered through his wisdom, knowing he sees a million things we don’t see, he knows a million things we don’t know. So we can ask him, trusting his wisdom, his power. Do not doubt the power of God to answer your prayers. He is able, he is omnipotent. So don’t believe the adversary’s lies. “Maybe God’s weak, maybe God can’t do it.” Trust in the power of God as you trust in the love of God. He loves you infinitely, more than anyone else in this world. And he’s promised to work all things together for the good of those who love him and are called according to his purpose, for his children.

And that good is for the life of Jesus to be yours more and more, now and forever.

Pray for the Good Life of Jesus to be Yours

Which leads to how I want to close. So I want to invite you to take the next couple minutes and identify one or two, start here, or two or three, you start here and do more. Two or three characteristics of Jesus that you lack but would like to have. And then once you’ve done that, I want you to pray for these characteristics in your life, for the good life of Jesus to be yours more and more. I want to challenge you to pray continually for those things all week long, and to pray confidently with trust that God your Father will give them to you. And in the process you’ll be taking a significant step forward into the satisfaction that God your Father has designed for you to experience in prayer.

And can I just add to this, in light of the brother I shared about earlier, if you would say, “Yeah, I’ve never or I’ve rarely spent 10 concentrated minutes in prayer with God,” 15 minutes. Can I just encourage you, try this week, set aside in your schedule 10, 15 minutes. Try to do it each day and just spend time in prayer. If it helps to focus your mind. Write out your prayer. Think about the acrostic we use for prayer a lot, P-R-A-Y, praising God, repenting of sin, asking God for things, including characteristics of Jesus you lack, would like to have. And then Y is yield. Pray, repent, ask, yield. Just spend 10, 15 minutes, just you and God. And I guarantee you, he promises there’s reward waiting for you in relationship with God.

Observation (What does the passage say?)

• What type of writing is this text?
  _{(Law? Poetry or Wisdom? History? A letter? Narrative? Gospels? Apocalyptic?)}
• Are there any clues about the circumstances under which this text was originally written?
• Are there any major sub-sections or breaks in the text that might help the reader understand the focus of the passage?
• Who is involved in the passage and what do you notice about the specific participants?
• What actions and events are taking place? What words or themes stand out to you and why?
• Was there anything about the passage/message that didn’t make sense to you?

Interpretation (What does the passage mean?)

• How does this text relate to other parts of the Scriptures
  _{(e.g., the surrounding chapters, book, Testament, or Bible)?}
• What does this passage teach us about God? About Jesus?
• How does this passage relate to the gospel?
• How can we sum up the main truth of this passage in our own words?
• How did this truth impact the hearers in their day?

Application (How can I apply this to passage to my life?)

• What challenged you the most from this week’s passage? What encouraged you the most?
• Head: How does this passage change my understanding of the Lord? (How does this impact what I think?)
• Heart: How does this passage correct my understanding of who I am to the Lord? (How should this impact my affections and what I feel?)
• Hands: How should this change the way I view and relate to others and the world? (How does this impact what I should do?)
• What is one action I can take this week to respond in surrender and obedience to the Lord?

[Note: some questions have been adapted from One to One Bible Reading by David Helm]