Ask, Seek, Knock

Ask, Seek, Knock

Because of his boundless mercy, his generous grace and his unfailing love; God has made you promises that are sound and dependable. His nature is to keep his word and his power is such that his will will always be accomplished. We benefit from these promises not the least of which is that he will always hear us and respond when we reach out to him.

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. For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened”

How few of us receive, how few of us find and to how few the door is opened. But the promises stand and will always stand – God is faithful.

Perhaps a better way of putting this is: how few of us ask, how few seek and how few knock. God wants desperately to be in right relationship with his creation; with you. We were built for right relationship with one another and with our creator but the whole of creation, including even the land that came to give forth thistles, was corrupted by our progenitors – the first man and woman – and we are born to a broken and fallen world. We need a saviour.

We’re all familiar with the story of Jesus, his life and actions resonate with us and many of us I expect have taken him at his word and come under his lordship. Should you have done so, you will have discovered the freedom that follows from the restoration of right relationship; that it, redemption. Jesus, the perfect man, and his supreme deliberate sacrifice removes from us the stain of sin and provides a path and means to be reconciled with our creator. This is the heart of the gospel – God’s intervention through his only son Jesus.

But to know this redemption; this salvation we must ask, seek, knock and should you do this - as God is always true to his promises - he will give, reveal and open the door. Just as Jesus promised is the passage in Matthew.

Those that don’t know to ask

Now, except for being told, how should we know whom to ask and indeed what to ask for?

John 4:7-15

“When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, "Will you give me a drink?" (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.) The Samaritan woman said to him, "You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?" (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.) Jesus answered her, "If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water." “Sir," the woman said, "you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his flocks and herds?" Jesus answered, "Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life." The woman said to him, "Sir, give me this water so that I won't get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water."

So here we have simple woman who we learn later is far from perfect (…in fact you have many husbands) who stumbles across Jesus blindly confusing the practical and the spiritual; that is, Jesus for ordinary man and water for ordinary water.

Until Jesus points it out, she doesn’t recognise that she has a need so she hasn’t asked, sort or knocked; nor does she know of the living water of which she might drink and live forever. Jesus reveals himself to her and even then she has trouble seeing the truth.

Let’s not wait until we stumble across Jesus. And should he reveal himself to us as he did to the woman at the well, let us ask for the living water.

Let’s ask Jesus, seek the living water, knock so that the gates of paradise might be open to us.

Those afraid to ask

Then there are those who are afraid to ask. Remember that poor woman who was bleeding for 12 years? Remember her close encounter with Jesus and the miracle which followed?

Matthew 5: 24b-34

“A large crowd followed and pressed around him. And a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years. She had suffered a great deal under the care of many doctors and had spent all she had, yet instead of getting better she grew worse. When she heard about Jesus, she came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak, because she thought, "If I just touch his clothes, I will be healed." Immediately her bleeding stopped and she felt in her body that she was freed from her suffering. At once Jesus realized that power had gone out from him. He turned around in the crowd and asked, "Who touched my clothes?" "You see the people crowding against you," his disciples answered, "and yet you can ask, 'Who touched me?' "But Jesus kept looking around to see who had done it. Then the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came and fell at his feet and, trembling with fear, told him the whole truth. He said to her, "Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering."

So here we have a woman who reached out to Jesus, pushing her fear aside just enough so that she might touch his cloak. And that was all it took for Jesus to heal and restore her. What the doctors were unable to do in 12 years and at great expense, Jesus did unconsciously in response to a woman’s fragile faith – see reached out and merely touched his cloak.

Are we afraid to reach out to Jesus? What, we might ask, if he find me unacceptable, un-redeemable, un-lovable. I have done many things I am not proud of and I have not done many things I should have.

But God makes us a promise; should we ask we will receive, should we seek we will find, should we knock and the door will be opened. All of this not because we a free of sin but because of his love, his mercy and his forgiveness.

You need not be afraid – Jesus is the great friend of mankind, our benefactor, our intercessor and advocate before God. He promises, and indeed has, taken on the consequences of our imperfections – it remains for us to receive the freely offered gift of salvation.

But - the story teaches us- even if you are afraid, should you reach our even in the smallest way Jesus will fully respond. If you ask you will receive – but only if you ask.

Those too proud to receive

Some are too proud to ask. Is this you? You belong to generation of survivors who lived through great hardship, poverty and war. Growing up in a prosperous and peaceful time prevents me from fully understanding the affect your experiences had but I do understand that many of you are predisposed to insist upon standing on your own feet, fighting your fight and never asking for help incase it might inconvenience another.

While this pride can be a strength in the face of great difficultly it can prevent you from receiving God’s free gift. We struggle to raise the spiritual funds to purchase what is offered for free never quite grasping that it is actually impossible to redeem ourselves through good works. We would be like the woman suffering from bleeding should she have chosen to continue using doctors rather than throwing herself at the feet of Jesus.

Pride and self-reliance can produce in us spiritual blindness preventing us from seeing and receiving what God has promised. Paul worked tirelessly to persuade people to turn and accept Jesus on one occasion rebuking those for whom pride prevents them accepting the truth:

Acts 28:25-28

25They disagreed among themselves and began to leave after Paul had made this final statement: "The Holy Spirit spoke the truth to your forefathers when he said through Isaiah the prophet:
26" 'Go to this people and say,
"You will be ever hearing but never understanding;
you will be ever seeing but never perceiving."
27For this people's heart has become calloused;
they hardly hear with their ears,
and they have closed their eyes.
Otherwise they might see with their eyes,
hear with their ears,
understand with their hearts
and turn, and I would heal them.'

28"Therefore I want you to know that God's salvation has been sent to the Gentiles, and they will listen!"

Are you so self-reliant that you are unable to receive? Are you too proud to ask for help? Are you callused by life’s cruelty?

Unless you ask you will not receive, unless you seek you will not find, unless you knock the door will not be opened. But if you do these things you will receive, find and the door to eternal life will indeed be opened.

This is the promise of God and we can have great confidence in its integrity.

Don’t be like the woman by the well who failed to ask because she did not recognise her need for living water.

Don’t be like woman who bleed who was afraid to ask lest she be found unworthy.

Don’t be like those whose pride blinded their eyes and stopped up their ears when Paul reveled to them the truth that is the gospel of Christ.

Instead:

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. For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened”

Hearsay is inadmissible for good reason

Hearsay is inadmissible for good reason

Most of us a supremely interested in self-preservation; it’s an instinct that runs animal deep. Once we feel mortally secure (roof over our head, food in our belly) our attention turns eternal. It is entirely natural to wonder about the great-beyond and whether there might be a way to reach it. And with this in mind religions spring up like weeds at the beginning of winter offering helpful (and sometime very strange) suggestions of how we might cross the river Styx which we intuitively sense ultimately awaits us (one way or another).

Believing the teachings of one or other of the great religions even if old or popular or backed up with a beautifully illustrated book is utterly inadequate – even if you believe fervently (with all of you heart, soul and mind) most religions agree you’ll fall desperately short.

“You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that—and shudder (James 2:19)”.

It takes more than nailing your colours to the right mast. It takes more that accepting the right ideology. Who you choose to believe in is more important that what you choose to believe because the “who” makes credible the “what”. You need more than the right view of the eternal you need a path, a way and the means to reach it.

Proof of purchase

Founders of most of the world’s religions have conceived of some kind of afterlife without having the benefit of first inspecting it themselves.

The founder of what we now call Christianity claimed not only that he had been there but that he was from there and was soon returning (offering to take some of us along for the ride). There have been others who claimed similar things but failed to back it up as Jesus did with a substantial body of evidence, for e.g.:

1. Credible miracles witnessed by thousands, including the mass-manufacture of food (loaves & fishes) and quality booze (wedding feast), healing the un healable (lame to walk, blind to see, bleeding to coagulate), spiritual authority (legion and the pigs + ex-fortune telling girl), the raising of people from the dead (Lazarus) and control of weather (lake of Galilee).
2. Jesus’ unprecedented impact across the whole-world lasting 2,000 years achieved after a short three year public tour of roman-occupied Philistine harassed by the Jews and backed by no institutional authority, money, education, writings or good looks (The closest thing we get to a description of Jesus, and it’s prophetic only, is in Isaiah 53:2b, “He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to Him, nothing in His appearance that we should desire Him.” – That is, he was ordinary-looking.). His words and deeds alone transformed the whole world ever after.
3. The not so small act of rising from the dead himself after torture, crucifixion and entombment (guarded by soldier and bolder) followed up with an long-term in-person visit (Thomas puts his finger in Jesus’ side + Jesus eats with disciples on the beach) with many of his followers most of whom went on the proclaim his message even though they knew this would be met (and indeed was met) with terminal force resulting in a number of gruesome deaths.

In my mind these count for compelling arguments when I consider Jesus’ authority to speak on the important matter of salvation. So, consider carefully his claims - which are extraordinary to say the least - and you may, like me, be sufficiently persuaded to take him at his word which will change you life (guaranteed).