Ask, Seek, Knock
7 “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. 8 For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened. 9 Or which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? 10 Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? 11 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!”
12 “So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets.”
This last Sunday Nick covered Matthew 7:7-12, connecting the “Golden Rule” to the section usually titled “Ask and it will be given.” This is an interesting and important point, because our Father’s love and willingness to give good gifts as He sees fit in His sovereignty is reflected in our calling to treat others well. This is not only a primary means of reflecting the Law, but it is also accomplished by the power of the Holy Spirit transforming us.
This passage starts with what and how we make requests. Verses 7-8 give three verbs for what it looks like to ask God for something: ask, seek, and knock. On Sunday Nick pointed these out, giving us three nouns with how to go about this: ask with humility; seek with persistence; knock with patience.
Remembering that God is a good Father as our lens with which we analyze our requests, let’s look at some other passages about requests and desires. James 4:3 points out “You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions.” While this can feel harsh or unfair, the reality is it is mercy from the Father to not give us all we ask for, because we are not omniscient, and often what we think we want in a moment can often be influenced poorly by our emotions, and in the long run we might realize that thing was not or would not have been best. Luke 11:5-13 reiterates the verses in Matt. 7, and finishes with v13 “If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!” This is a reminder that God is a good Father, and for all who believe, He has already given a gift of ultimate value, His Holy Spirit.
He also gave us Christ as a propitiation (payment) for our sins, and clearly His sacrifice and the salvation and reconciliation for all who believe is also of ultimate value, and what comes along with that is the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. If Jesus is Emanuael, “God with us,” the Holy Spirit is then “God in us” when we pass from death to life in salvation. Paul (among other New Testament authors) makes this point often in his letters, such as Romans 8:9-11
“You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. 10 But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. 11 If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.”
The Spirit working in and through us opens a new spiritual reality to us in that, as Paul puts it, we have the mind of Christ (1 Corinthians 2:10-16). This changes our requests, going back to the passage in Matthew and James, as we ask, seek and knock, we can ask rightly, having confidence then “that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us” (1 Jn 5:14).
It’s a deceptive misinterpretation of the text then, to think what Jesus is saying is that if we ask the right way we’ll get whatever we want. That clearly wouldn’t fit with the context of the Sermon on the Mount overall, with passages like the Lord’s Prayer saying “Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven” (Matt. 6:10). The point of prayer, and asking in the way Jesus is describing, is to align ourselves with God’s heart, to then ask rightly for what is of most importance, which in all things relates to knowing Christ and making Him known.
The Bottom Line from Sunday was this: With humility, persistence, and patience, ask God for the Holy Spirit’s help to approach other people with the mind of Christ. With this attitude in our requests, we will honor God by depending on the Spirit as we seek to obey Him and serve those He has sovereignly placed in our lives.