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Sermon
The Gospel of Matthew

Our Father Gives Good

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March 30, 2025
Matthew 7:7-12
Nick Whitehead

Prayer

Faith

Grace

Transcript

0:18Well good morning. For those who don't know me, I am Nick Whitehead. I serve here on staff as the pastor for global Outreach. I didn't preach last week. That's Josh, that's Pastor Josh. And I'm not Ryan Beck either. So we'll keep learning here, but I, I'm very eager to lead us this morning as we seek to encounter God through his word. It's a humble privilege for me to get to do this. And so keep your Bibles open in front of you to Matthew chapter seven, verse seven. And what I wanna start with is just to say that certain teachers have taken this text, especially verses seven and eight, and they've argued that God will give you whatever you want.

1:04If you ask with enough faith, you need a job, ask and he'll give it to you. You want a wife seek and you will find you want a new car knock and the doors of a brand new BMW will be opened to you. This text and others like it have been put forward by health, wealth, and prosperity. Preachers as a formula, they say God wants you to have physical blessing in this life. So ask away and he will give you your heart's desire. And at face value, this seems to be what Jesus is promising. Ask God for what you want and he'll give you everything you ask for. And some of you read a text like this this morning and you're wondering, why hasn't God given me the good thing that I've persistently been asking him for a job healing, a spouse, a child?

2:02You're thinking about all of your unanswered prayers and you're wondering, am I doing something wrong when I pray or something wrong with me, something wrong with my faith? Perhaps some of us have even ventured to ask, is something wrong with God? Can he not actually accomplish what he promises here? But as we dive into this text, what I hope you will see with me is that God never promises to give us exactly what we want. He promises to give us what is good, what is art to our ultimate advantage. And so as we explore this text in which Jesus again calls us to pray, we see that this word does not give us the secret prayer code to get what we want out of God, but it's reminding us of his character and his favor towards us as his children.

2:55It's not so much a text about how to get the gift as much as it is about how to trust the giver. So let's turn to him in prayer now, before we jump in and see this together, pray with me. Father, I'm asking that you would receive glory for yourself from this time together over your word, that your people would find what is good for their souls from it, and that we would be increasingly transformed into the image of your beloved son as we seek you. And as we wait on you, we ask in Jesus' name, amen. So here's our travel plan this morning. So you know where we're going first, what I wanna do is reorient us to where we are at in the Sermon on the Mount so that we understand this passage in its context.

3:46And then we're gonna work through verses seven through 11 in two main parts. First, there's an invitation to ask that's verses seven and eight. And second, there's a reason to trust that's verses nine through 11, an invitation to ask and a reason to trust. So let's start with context. Where are we at in this sermon on the Mount? We are nearing the end of Jesus' discourse and fact. Our text today is the conclusion of what I would call the main body of Jesus's sermon. And this started all the way back in Matthew five 17 and goes all the way through chapter seven, verse 12. And you'll see that this section is bookended by references to the law and the prophets.

4:30So flip back to Matthew five 17. Jesus begins to provide his authoritative interpretation of God's law with these words, do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets. I've not come to abolish them, but to fulfill them. And with that verse, Jesus begins to lay out the demands of his kingdom. He says, this is what it looks like to live as a citizen under my dominion. King Jesus is laying down his law, so to speak. And if you have an ESV Bible in front of you, a simple skim of the headings starting after five 17 will remind you of Jesus's high calling upon our lives as kingdom citizens.

5:20He calls you. You'll remember to control your anger and your lust to honor your marital vows, to love your enemies, to give to the needy, to avoid self-aggrandizing, hypocritical forms of prayer and worship, to avoid the love of money, to avoid anxiety and to judge others humbly. And I think that if we were sitting at Jesus's feet when he preached the sermon and and we received it all in just one fell swoop, we would begin to feel this list of demands just piling up into a heavy burden. It would feel like one impossible request after another until finally we would get all the way to verse 12 of chapter seven.

6:05You can flip back there, verse 12 of chapter seven. Finally, Jesus will deliver a sort of final blow with this concluding summary of all of his kingdom ethic. He says chapter seven verse 12, whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them. For this is the law and the prophets. There's the other bookend of this section closing out that main body of Jesus's sermon. And what verse 12 is, is it's this handy summary of all of Jesus' commands starting back at five 17 all the way up to seven 12. Look at that verse with me and notice something about this pithy statement. This command is not direct and clear like some of the ones we've seen before.

6:58Love your enemies. Do not be anxious. This command doesn't tell us exactly what to do. Instead in this summary command, Jesus calls us to use our imaginations. He says, you wanna know what to do as my kingdom citizens ponder. Imagine all the things you wish other people would do for you and do that to them. Jesus knows our human nature and he knows that we are very, very familiar with the things we wish other people would do to us. And he says, bring all your wishes to pass on others. And what Jesus is doing by putting it in these terms is he's providing us with a powerful yet flexible way of making moral decisions and a thousand different scenarios.

7:51He doesn't give us a thousand laws. He sums it up with one like this and says, this will apply in many different cases. Notice something else about verse 12. Jesus doesn't simply give us the negative version. He doesn't say, don't do things you wouldn't want others to do to you or avoid doing things you wouldn't want others to do to you. He puts it positively. We're called to intentionally act on behalf of others in a way that we would like others to act toward us. We're to love our neighbors as ourselves as is summarized elsewhere. And this is the sum of Jesus's sermon on the Mount. And Jesus says it's the sum of the entirety of the law and the prophets.

8:35And at this point in Jesus's sermon, I think the listeners are not primarily thinking about some material or physical lack in their lives. They're thinking about their own moral deficiency. In light of Jesus's commands, Jesus has just said quite strongly, you've gotta be more righteous than the most law abiding zealots. He says, you must be perfect as my heavenly Father is perfect. You must seek above all else the kingdom of God and his righteousness and then all these things will be added unto you. And Jesus knows that those who are truly listening, who are eager to do as he says, are wondering how, how can I possibly live this way?

9:26How can these things be added to me? We reflect on all of Christ's demands in this quintessential sermon and we cry out who is sufficient for these things. And this is where verses seven through 11 come in. 'cause right after laying down his law and just before moving on to his final call for commitment, that's the rest of chapter seven. Jesus provides this beautiful interruption in the midst of all his royal regulations. He gives an invitation to weary subjects who are feeling inadequate to meet the demands of their king and to those weary souls to us. Jesus says verse seven, ask. Ask and it will be given to you.

10:14Seek and you will find knock and it will be open to you. For everyone who asks, receives. And the one who seeks finds and to the one who knocks it will be opened. He has called his followers to righteousness and sincerity and generosity and humility and purity and love. And now Jesus assures them that all these things can be theirs through prayer. One commentator writes about this text, Jesus assures his followers that far from demanding the impossible. He is providing the means for the otherwise impossible. Have you considered that prayer might be your gateway into a rich life of discipleship and obedience instead of running and hiding from God?

11:07When you sin again in the same old way, do you come to God asking, seeking, knocking that he might give you the good gifts of his kingdom, the kingdom to which you've been called. And these verbs ask, seek, knock. I think the repetition is designed to ingrain into our thick skulls that God really wants us to ask him for what we need. We are to be eager and persistent. And guess what? It does not annoy him. Some of you have had a boss, maybe even a parent who would get set off or annoyed or angry by simple petitions and and you would dare not make a request to them in the wrong way or at the wrong time or for the wrong thing because you just don't.

11:56You would, you didn't know what was gonna happen. And you might be tempted to think if that's how my boss was, if that's how my dad was far too busy and important for my requests, shouldn't I be all the more careful around the God of the universe? And Jesus says, no, your father in heaven is not like that. He wants you as his child to come and to ask him for what you need. And Jesus has to exhort us to this because we are tempted to believe that our problems and our desires are too insignificant, that they're not worth bringing before God almighty or that we're not worthy to come before him. And Jesus says this here to remove our doubts so that we might approach the throne of grace with confidence.

12:47Now others of us, I think others in this room need Christ's urging to pray because we've become complacent in prayer. One preacher I listened to made a helpful distinction between contentment and complacency. Contentment says, God has given me everything I need. Whereas complacency says nothing will ever change. So why bother? Is that how you've begun to think about prayer? I've tried it. God doesn't do anything. Why pray? Listen to what God says about complacent people. And Zephaniah one 12, I will punish the men who are complacent. Those who say in their hearts the Lord will not do good, nor will he do ill.

13:40We must not think that way about God as if God is just out there floating around, not doing anything good, not doing anything bad, just kind of there just a fly on the wall watching the world burn that is not who our God is. Jesus is reminding us that God is near and he's accessible to his children. Now sometimes your experience convinces you otherwise am I right? But that's why Jesus gives you these particular words. Ask, seek, knock. Sometimes you're gonna feel like God is standing right up next to you and all you've gotta do is look up and say, dad, can I have that? But there's other moments in life where God will not seem so close and Jesus is saying, well, don't just stand there.

14:29Go and find him. Seek him. And there will be those dark moments in which his presence seems obstructed to you. Shut off from you. And Jesus reminds us, there might be a barrier there, but he's just a knock away. Knock at the door of your father's room and he will swing it wide open to you. Now before I move on from verse seven, I just want to give one point of application here to those of you in this room who have not repented of your sins against a holy God and you have not put your faith in Jesus Christ because I want to make clear to you that the type of prayer being modeled here in this text, it's not for you.

15:17As we move further into our text, we'll see that this type of praying is for people who can legitimately call God their father. In John one 12, we are told that only those who have received Jesus, who've believed in his name have been given the right to become children of God. So if you're living in rebellion to God and you've not accepted the free gift of salvation in his son, then you cannot expect your cries to be heard and answered by him. Only children of God purchased by the blood of Jesus can cry out to him and expect his fatherly response. But there is a prayer that he will gladly receive from you today if you are not trusting Christ.

16:02And I invite you to not delay in crying this out to him. Oh Lord, have mercy on me a sinner, if you will humble yourself before the judge of the universe, if you'll confess your sins and trust that Christ has died in your place to grant you forgiveness, then you will have everlasting access to the ear of God and he will care for you as his child. I beckon you to that. For those of us who are his children, the promises are glorious. Indeed our God does act on behalf of his children. Look at verse eight, verse eight. Jesus promises that the one who asks will receive, the one who seeks, will indeed find the one who knocks the door will be opened.

16:51Now the immediate question that this type of promise raises in us as his children is will God really give us whatever we ask for this text And others seem to imply that this is the case? Listen to a few others. Here's Mark 11, 23 and 24. You know this one, Jesus says, truly I say to you, whoever says to this mountain be taken up and thrown into the sea and does not doubt in his heart but believes that what he says will come to pass, it will be done for him. Therefore, I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it and it will be yours. John 14 verses 13 and 14. Jesus says, whatever you ask in my name, this I will do that.

17:34The Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it. John 16 verses 23 and 24. Jesus says, truly, truly I say to you, whatever you ask of the Father in my name, he'll give it to you. Ask and you will receive that your joy may be full. So again, I ask, does God commit to grant us our every request? It appears this way at first glance, but if we bring in a broader swath of scriptures, we quickly find that the answer is no. Scripture tells us that there are all sorts of reasons why we may not get what we ask for. So I wanna give you six reasons you may not be getting what you ask for.

18:19There are likely more that you could find in scripture, but here's six, I'll give 'em to you and provide a text. Number one, you may not get what you ask for because you lack faith. Matthew 2122 says, whatever you ask in prayer, you will receive if you have faith. Reason number two, you may not get what you ask for because you ask with the wrong motives. James four, three says, you ask and do not receive because you ask wrongly to spend it on your passions. Reason number three, you may not get what you ask for because you are not abiding in Christ. John 1517, Jesus says, if you abide in me and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish and it will be done for you.

19:08Reason number four, this is similar to the last one. You may not get what you ask for because you are not keeping God's commands. One John 3 22, whatever we ask, we receive from him because we keep his commandments and do what pleases him. Reason number five, you may not get what you ask for because you are holding grudges against others. Mark 1125, whenever you stand praying, forgive if you have anything against anyone so that your father may forgive you your trespasses. And one more. This is for husbands specifically. So husbands listen up. You may not get what you ask for because you don't live with your wife in an understanding and honoring way.

19:57One Peter three, seven husbands live with your wives in an understanding way showing honor to the woman as the weaker vessel since there heirs with you of the grace of life so that your prayers may not be hindered. So again, I don't think God is committing to give us every specific thing we ask for every time. And there's lots of things that might impede us from getting our requests, but perhaps the main reason that you may not get what you ask for is because God has something better for you. And that's where I want to turn in these final three verses because I think they answer a lot of the questions that are raised by verses seven and eight.

20:40Verses seven and eight come, come across really declarative, really strong, really promising ask and it will be given to you. But did you notice that they also leave a lot of ambiguity? Who are we to ask? What are we to seek? Where are we to knock? What will be given to you? When you ask what will be found by you when you seek the text is not explicit that you will receive exactly what you ask for. In fact, look at the it in verse seven. Do you see that little it ask and it will be given to you that little word. It is not even in the original Greek text. And I think it's a little misleading because it suggests that the thing asked for is the thing given a more little translation of this phrase would say ask and you will be given.

21:34Something will be given to you. In other words, there's no explicit promise that what you receive will be precisely what you ask for. So let's clear up some of the ambiguity of seven and eight by looking at verses nine through 11. 'cause this is where Jesus explains what he's saying. Verses seven and eight were the invitation to ask. And here Jesus gives us the reason to trust as a good teacher, the best teacher, Jesus gives us an illustration which I think proves incredibly helpful to us. He says in verses nine and 10, 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.

22:19This is of course a rhetorical question. The implied answer is no loving parent would give a stone or a serpent to their hungry child, right? The son is hungry, he he's looking for something to satisfy his hunger. And no good dad is going to plop a stone into his starving son's lap and say, eat that. He's not gonna give him something with slippery scales. That's not a fish like a snake and say, have at it. It is intuitive to all of us that a father will not respond to his son's request for food with a rock that will not fill him or with a reptile that could kill him. And so building upon that illustration, Jesus brings this section to its conclusion in verse 11.

23:06He says, so then if you 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? Jesus is arguing from the lesser to the greater. The lesser are human fathers. And Jesus is presupposing the inherent sinfulness of humanity. And he calls all human fathers, even the best ones evil. But even these evil men who are corrupted with a sinful nature, they generally provide food for their hungry children, don't they? And then Jesus moves to the greater. So how much more? How much more then will the all sovereign, all wise, all powerful ruler of the universe tainted by no sin, perfect in all his ways, infinitely loving and merciful?

24:04How much more will this heavenly father give good to his children when they call upon him? And Jesus' point is unmistakably clear? God is a better father, God is a better father. And so he gives better gifts. But notice something about these verses again, notice this. Jesus never says that the good Father gives his child exactly what he asks for. In fact, the point is remarkably absent from every single one of these verses, and this actually tells us so much about God, our God is not a genie and prayer is not a rubbing of a magic lamp. He's not a vending machine. So if we put in the right coins, he pumps out exactly what we pushed our prayers.

24:55Do not control him. He's not a slave to our requests. Neither is he an indulgent grandfather who can't say no to the cute little faces begging at his feet. He's the God of heaven and earth. He's the God of the kingdom who knows exactly what his children need before they even ask. Who knows what is ultimately going to be advantageous for us? What is going to ultimately be for our spiritual good and for his supreme glory? Let me just put it this way bluntly. He's so much smarter than you. He's so much smarter than each one of us. I mean, what if God gave you everything you asked for? What if your desires instead of God's wisdom controlled all that happened in your life and in the world?

25:50I don't know about you, but that sounds like a super scary scenario and an incredible burden to bear. If every desire I had would immediately come to pass, how much better is it to just let God be? God? Sometimes when my kids complain about a simple task that I give them, I remind them about how incredibly good it is to be a kid. All the grownups said, amen. Grownups, do you remember how great it was when you didn't have to plan the vacation or do the taxes or pay the bills or do the grocery shopping or take the car to the shop? Those were the glory days. There are great benefits to being a child and leaving the greater responsibilities to our parents.

26:39How much better is it to be God's children and just depend on him to work wisely for our good? So it's incredibly good that God doesn't give us everything that we ask for. We are just children. After all. My oldest son, when he was about three years old, asked me to get him a pet lion in genuine request. I have no idea how one would acquire a lion, but I ask you, should I have gotten him one? No, it would not be wise. A good loving father would not do such a thing. And instead he would consider the request, listen to his child, understand their heart and give them a gift that would be far more suitable.

27:26We got chickens. But, but here's the point. Our father knows what is best for us and sometimes he declines our naive requests and gives us what will truly profit our souls. Now you may want to know then what exactly are the good things God gives to those who ask? And this is where I want us to remember the broader context of the passage that we started with in the context of the Sermon on the Mount. I think the good things are primarily referring to all that Jesus has called us to be in order to be faithful citizens of his kingdom. So the primary thing that Jesus is calling us to ask for and that he promises to give here in this text is not physical blessings but spiritual righteousness.

28:21He does not promise here or anywhere in scripture to give us a carefree life or to make us rich or to even give us good earthly things like a spouse or a good job or healing. What he is primarily promising is that he will give us what we need to grow in holiness, to be the kingdom citizens he's calling us to be and to be more like His son Jesus. We are to seek first Jesus's kingdom and his righteousness. And then all these things which were mentioned in the Sermon of the Mount are gonna be added to us righteousness and self-control and faithfulness and kindness and love and generosity and humility and peace.

29:05Essentially, the good things God is promising to his children are the fruit of the spirit, which I think is precisely why Luke's version of these same words says something a little different. Okay? If you go to Luke's gospel, Luke includes the same teaching there. But instead of saying the heavenly Father gives good things to those who ask him, Luke's version says the Heavenly Father gives the Holy Spirit to those who ask him. So when it comes to fulfilling the demands of Christ's perfect law, what gift would be any better than the Holy Spirit? It is the greatest of gifts. It is the gift of God himself in dwelling us to actually empower and fuel our obedience to him.

29:55Only he can enable us to do unto others as we would have them do to us. And for those of us who are his children who are trusting in Christ, he has already sealed us with his promised Holy Spirit. He has already given you the greatest gift. And now we ask that you would help us to walk by that spirit and not gratified the desires of our flesh. And that's where I wanna take us as we move towards application here. As Christians, you know this, there is a battle at war within us. It's a battle between flesh and spirit. And this affects your prayer life. It affects what you ask God for. If we are fueled by the desires of the flesh, we will primarily ask God for things that satisfy our fleshly wants.

30:49We will primarily call upon God for physical earthly blessings. But if we are primarily fueled by the Spirit, then our prayers will increasingly align with God's values and priorities. And I think this is really our goal. Brothers and sisters, our goal is to increasingly share God's perspective of what is ultimately good for us. And as we get to know him better, as we understand better what he values, I think we will increasingly align our prayers to those things that are agreeable to his will. I think we're all tempted to primarily pray for things of this world. Health, wealth, safety, success.

31:37I pray with my kids every night as we do family worship and their children, they ask a lot for the needs, the healing of the neighbor, the healing of their brother. Uh, these physical needs we're tempted to pray that way and we give hardly any attention sometimes in our prayers to what I think God is ultimately after in us to produce righteousness, to conform us to the image of his son. And I think the Sermon on the Mount is teaching us not only what we are to do, but also what we are to be asking for. And these things have more to do with our own holiness and less to do with getting a job, being healed, finding a spouse, getting your offer accepted on the house.

32:26Now, I'm not saying that you should never bring your physical needs to God because you absolutely should. And we could go to a plethora of other scriptures calling us to this. But I think the primary thing God is calling us to ask for here, and this text is spiritual righteousness, not physical blessings to weave into our prayer life. Not just a concern for my today and my tomorrow and my present needs, but for my sanctification in the midst of the trials and the sufferings and the things that I don't have. And he promises that when we delight ourselves in him, he'll give us the desires of our heart.

33:06I wanna give this one final application. This is to those of you who have persistently been asking for good potentially God glorifying things to happen in your lives. And I've joined some of you in these prayers for these things and I have my own personal petitions to add to that number. There are sicknesses that we are asking God to eradicate. And there are financial goals that we are asking the Lord to meet. Some of you still long for just a good friend to share life with. Some of you long for a spouse and you've been praying for years. Some of you're asking the Lord to give you a child. Others are currently in need of a job or you're praying for a better one.

33:48And Jesus invites us to ask our father for these things. But even more importantly, he's calling you to trust your father's sovereign wisdom and care even when he doesn't give you what you ask for. He's training you. He's training us to put our faith not in the things that we think would be best, but in the goodness of our Father who will not give us a snake or a stone. A father who promises to produce in you things of eternal spiritual value. And sometimes God's withholding of seemingly good earthly gifts are a means of producing in you spiritual fruit that you would otherwise never obtain. Lemme give you two examples of what this looks like.

34:38First, the Apostle Paul listen to his experience in second Corinthians 12. Paul says this, so to keep me from becoming conceited because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass me, to keep me from becoming conceited. Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me. But Jesus said to me, here's Jesus's response. My grace is sufficient for you. For my power is made perfect and weakness. Therefore says, Paul, I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.

35:24Paul asked. Paul asked, and the Lord did not grant his exact request, but the Lord did give him something and it was far better. Paul's father protected him from conceit. His father used whatever this thorn in the flesh was to eradicate Paul's pride to humble him so that he would depend all the more on the sufficient grace of Jesus and not on himself. That's a good gift. Paul's father did not give him what he asked for, but he gave him something so much better. Last example, this comes from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. On the night of his betrayal, Jesus would kneel in the garden of Gethsemane.

36:15He knew what the Father had predestined for him, and here's what he prayed. Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but yours be done. And this prayer, I think we get the perfect model of expectant, childlike faith, mingled with a humble understanding that the Father will do what is best. Jesus, the very son of God, prayed this to his father. Father, I don't wanna go through this, take it away. I don't wanna bear your wrath for the sins of all these people. I don't want to. I don't want you to turn your face away from me. Remove this cup. And yet he ends his prayer by yielding to the good and sovereign will of his Father, to do what was best.

37:11And we praise God. We praise God that he did not give Jesus precisely what he asked for In that moment. We praise our heavenly Father that he could look through all the pain coming for Jesus, all the suffering in the trial and the loneliness, and he could see the glory that was coming on the other side. He made Jesus drink the cup in order to exalt him and to maximize his own glory and to save us. And you have the ear of that same God. He is your wise and loving father. Continue to ask him for what you need and then continue to trust him to give you far superior gifts, the good gifts of his kingdom.

38:00In answer to all of your requests, let's pray. Oh, father, it indeed is good to be your children, to be the recipients of your very great and precious promises granted to us through your son. Father, we are grateful that we not only receive the demands of King Jesus, but that his divine power grants us all things that pertain to life and godliness. Thank you, father for bringing to completion the work that you have begun in each of our lives. Thank you that in all of our earthly sorrows and trials, you are pursuing our soul's eternal good. Help us to trust you in it all. Yes, we ask in Jesus' name.

38:47Amen.

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Sermon Text

Matthew 7:7-12

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