Do you ever feel frustrated when you pray, wondering if God is even listening? Like your prayers are going into an inbox the boss isn’t reading? Or maybe you feel exhausted by the everyday weight of worklife, managing family, paying bills. And when you pray, you wonder if you’re a bother to God, if your prayers are too small to matter. Or maybe prayer feels like one more area of life where you’re quietly failing. The last thing you need right now is another guilt trip!
If God could be your “prayer coach” for the next few minutes, would you be open to what he has to say about prayer? Earlier in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus taught us quite a bit about the “content” (the what) of prayer. In Matthew 6:9-15 he says, “9 Therefore, you should pray like this: Our Father in heaven, your name be honored as holy. 10 Your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. 11 Give us today our daily bread. 12 And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. 13 And do not bring us into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. 14 “For if you forgive others their offenses, your heavenly Father will forgive you as well. 15 But if you don’t forgive others, your Father will not forgive your offenses.”
In prayer we navigate our relationship with God as Father. We navigate our understanding of his character, purpose, and plan for our life, for this world. But God is equally concerned with matters of everyday life. Like how we’re going to put bread on the table. How we’re going to live graciously in a world that continually bruises us. How are we ever going to heal hurts that cut so deep, and have scarred us so profoundly. How we’re going to face the temptations and pressures of life without nuking our character. How we can forgive people when our anger feels so justified and seems like our last defense.
The Lord’s Prayer tells us “WHAT” to bring to the Father. Everything from cosmic purpose to grocery money to our grudges. You can talk to God just as if he were your father. But the Lord’s Prayer is not everything Jesus had to say about prayer in the Sermon on the Mount. Just as important is Jesus’ words in Matthew 7:7-12. These verses tell us “HOW” to pray to God as a Father.
If you had a good earthly father, and grew up confident of his love, you might not have any hang-ups praying, “Our Father in Heaven…” But I’d suspect that quite a few of us are carrying around baggage, we’ve lugged around since childhood. Maybe your father was an unknown stranger, cold, indifferent, unresponsive. Maybe he himself was badly broken and knew not how to love. Maybe he was overly indulgent. I pray your dad wasn’t a malicious monster but sadly, that is sometimes the case. In Matthew 7 Jesus returns to his conversation about prayer and gives us a kind of primer of what it means to address God as Father. And, I don’t want you to think of these things as “techniques.” They are profoundly relational.
First, in Prayer, Always Keep Asking. Matthew 7:7-8, “Ask, and it will be given to you. Seek, and you will find. Knock, and the door will be opened to you. 8 For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.
You’re not alone if you find Jesus’ invitation to pray to be as bold as it is open-ended. Allow me to share some important insights. First, Jesus uses imperatives to talk about prayer. Ask, Seek, Knock are all commands. Your Heavenly Father is not just saying, he’s commanding us, “Talk to me! Ask, Seek, Knock, Pray!” Second, grammatically, they are present, active, continuous imperatives. Don’t check out on me! The force of what Jesus is saying is, “Keep on Talking to Me… Keep on Praying… Keep on Asking, Seeking, Knocking!” Third, pray desperately, urgently, fervently. Asking is one level of prayer, continually asking another. But then, a whole other level of prayer is seeking, and continually seeks yet another. Seeking implies eagerness, initiative. “God I’m not letting this go. I’m eagerly watching for you to answer my prayer.” And beyond seeking, there is knocking and continual knocking. “God open this door!”
Now I know my dad loved me. But I knew not to bother him, especially after a long workday, when he was stressed, or especially angry. Never in a million years would I bother him, much less keep on bothering him. And I was never presumptuous enough to ask, much less seek or knock. Any persistence would trigger him! And I just wanted to keep the peace!
Jesus says in Matthew 7:8, “For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.” In Luke 18:1-8 Jesus tells the parable of widow to teach us about need to prayer. In a certain town there was a judge who did not fear God or respect people. And there was a certain widow, a nobody, who “kept coming” to him asking him to grant mercy against her adversary. Day after day she “pesters” the judge. She keeps knocking on his door, insisting he act. Finally the evil judge grants her request so she doesn’t wear him out! Jesus uses this story to teach us to always keep asking!
In Luke 11:1-4, Jesus records the Lord’s Prayer. But then in Luke 11:5-8, Jesus tells a parable, “Suppose one of you has a friend and goes to him as midnight and says {texts} to him, “Friend, lend me three loaves of bread, because a friend of mine on a journey has come to me, and I don’t have anything to offer him. Then he will answer from the inside and say, “Don’t bother me! The door is already locked, and my children and I have gone to bed. I can’t get up to give you anything…” But Jesus says, “. . . I tell you. . . because of his friend’s shameless boldness, he will get up and give him as much as he needs.”
And then Jesus says, “So…. I say to you ask and it will be given to you, seek and you will find, knock and the door will be opened to you….” Luke collapses all these verses together with the Lord’s Prayer. Because what is the biggest barrier to prayer? It’s this idea that we’re somehow pestering God. That it’s shameful to be bold before God. Always Keep Asking.
Second in Prayer, Always Keep Trusting. Matthew 7:9-11, “9 Who among 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 snake? 11 If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good things to those who ask him.” If an evil judge ultimately gave justice; If the self-centered, family-centered friend ultimately shared his bread…how much more eager might a truly “good” God bestow good gifts to those who ask him?
D.A. Carson names the three false gods people’ secretly pray to: The reluctant stranger, the malicious tyrant, and the indulgent grandfather. Is God reluctant, stingy? Is God malicious, punitive? Is God recklessly indulgent? Jesus says, “none of the above.” In prayer, Always Keep Trusting God… and why? Because God is good.” You don’t have to manipulate God with words, like the Greek pagans would do with many words, like the Jewish Pharisees would do with their formulaic, hollow prayers. What’s the pretext? It’s that God isn’t good, I’ve got to play prayer games, I’ve got to have the right timing, the right angel.
Now, allow me to give you some insight into the goodness of God. The other day I saw this list of things you shouldn’t give your dog—that are fatal. The thing is, my dog craves, begs, scratches at my leg, barks, and is perfectly content, to eat everything on the list! But never in a a million years will I grant what he thinks he wants—and it’s totally because of my love and goodness!
There is something that happens in the course of our continual asking, seeking, and knocking. What happens is we grow in our understanding of God’s love and goodness! What is the mystery to unanswered prayer? The mystery is that maybe you don’t know God’s goodness and love! Every good parent, every good Father, gives what is best. If his son asks for bread; he is not given a stone; if asks for fish, he is not given a snake; if he asks for an egg, he is not given a scorpion (Luke 11:9-13). In Isaiah 49:15, God asks, “can nursing mother forget her child or lack compassion for child in her womb?” A mother is a ferocious protector, a momma bear, of your child. If humans can be that good, how much more good is God?
When you search Scripture for how a “good” Father answers prayer, you realize God isn’t a cosmic vending machine—He is a wise parent. In the Bible, God’s “YES” always flows along certain guardrails. For example, we should always ask for wisdom and from wisdom. We should always pray out of an abiding, humble, relationship with Jesus. We should always pray according to God’s good character, and according to goodness. You may beg God to give you a rock, snake, scorpion, or something that kills. . . but like a wise parent, God may protect you against your own desires!
Know this. As you keep on praying, you grow in knowledge of God’s love and goodness… and to the degree that you truly understand the depth of that perfect love and goodness. . . to the degree your prayers align to his perfect parental wisdom… I think prayer becomes less “mysterious.” And I think you become more shameless and bold!
Third in Prayer, Always Keep Loving. Matthew 7:12, “Therefore, whatever you want others to do for you, do also the same for them, for this is the Law and the Prophets.” How many of you are familiar with the Golden Rule? How many of you have ever noticed Matthew 7:12 begins with the word, “Therefore?”
DA Carson writes… What is fundamentally at stake is man’s picture of God. God must not be thought of as a reluctant stranger who can be cajoled or bullied into bestowing his gifts (6:7–8), as a malicious tyrant who takes vicious glee in the tricks he plays (7:9–10), or even as an indulgent grandfather who provides everything requested of him. He is the {CARING} heavenly Father, the God of the kingdom, who graciously and willingly bestows the good gifts of the kingdom in answer to prayer. THEREFORE… we ought to be good just like FATHER!
Do you know that just about every religion and philosophy has some form of the Golden Rule? Some take the Golden Rule to mean, “Let your best judgment be your guide… Let your own desires, cravings, preferences be your moral compass…” If we ignore the “THEREFORE” of the Golden Rule, we drift into a kind of moral relativism. The Moral and Ethical crisis of our age is that people have to reference beyond themselves for what is truly good!
The Golden Rule cannot stand as an ethic in and of itself, detached from the Goodness and Love of our Father in Heaven! This might blow your mind to think about. But what Jesus is saying is that as we keep on praying (as we keep on asking, seeking, knocking. . .and God in his goodness keeps on answering, being found, and opening doors) . . .as God keeps on showering us with every good thing, it becomes so transformative, that we ourselves begin imitating God, loving as Jesus loved, doing unto others (not so much as I think or feel) but instead, as God in his mercy, love, grace, goodness, righteousness, glory, holiness, would do unto others!
By the way, Luke gives a profound insight about asking, seeking, and knocking. In Luke 11:13 he quotes Jesus saying, “…how much more will the Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him.” For those who wonder, or doubt, if God has somehow held back his goodness… God has given Himself, ALL OF HIMSELF, to us by His Holy Spirit. He has filled our empty cup overflowing with the presence and power of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit is a spirit of overflowing grace, spiritual fruit, wisdom, truth, love, joy, glory, holiness, power. If you would ask, seek, knock on God’s door… not only would he give you the Bread of Life, Hope of Eternal life in Christ Jesus…. God would give you his Holy Spirit! THEREFORE as God so freely loved, gave EVERYONE WHO CALLS ON HIS NAME such good things… therefore be salt… do unto others as God has done.
The Golden Rule is only golden if you first know the Father’s goodness and love. It isn’t a transaction deal—I’ll scratch your back if you scratch mine. Nor is it making up morality based on your day-to-day feelings and whims. It’s imitating the Father. Be holy as God is holy. Be imitators of God. Be perfect as your heavenly father is perfect. Love as Christ first loved you. The brilliance of Jesus was not to merely echo some new and unheard of “golden rule”… it was to anchor it in Father’s Love!
And even more than divinely inspired… the Golden Rule is Divinely enabled. God’s given us everything we need, by his Holy Spirit, to live out the THEREFORE of the Golden Rule. Therefore, it’s not the Golden Rule by my power or grit or my best judgement, but by my Spirit says the Lord (Zechariah 4:6). Out of the overflow of the Spirit, out of the overflow of God’s self-giving goodness and love… we’re transformed to love like the Father.