The Sermon on the Mount (Matthew): Relational Prayer

Our reading this morning is Matthew chapter seven, verses seven through eleven.

Ask and it will be given to you, seek and you will find.

Knock and it will be opened to you.

For every one who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and 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?

The word of the Lord.

So let's jump into our text for this morning, which segues pretty cleanly because the text is about prayer.

Matthew 7, verses 7 through 11.

Matthew 7:7–11

We've been working our way through the Sermon on the Mount, and this is the next passage in our progress.

I just read it.

We will work our way through it during the sermon.

Our first point is this God is waiting to hear from you.

That's our first point.

Pretty simple.

We can forget that, or we can feel like we're not worthy enough for that.

My wife's grandparents were Nana and Granddaddy.

Here's a picture of them.

And if that's not a nana and granddaddy, there's not a nana and granddaddy that exists in the world, right?

I mean, that is.

That's nana and granddaddy.

They were always tending their garden, always ready to welcome us and feed us.

If you stopped by Nana and Granddaddy's house, granddaddy was, he was going to try to put a bowl of Briar's ice cream in front, always Briar's ice cream in front.

And every time Christy called, Nana would always pick up, and she had unlimited time to talk to Christy.

And every time Christy stopped by, Nana would put down her gardening tools or she was vacuuming.

I think she'd vacuum the whole house every single day.

You know, she'd stop her daily vacuuming, and she would spend as much time as she wanted with Christy and have a Coke and Ritz crackers.

That's what Nana had.

And Christy said, and she always says, she says, all through her teen years and through college years, she really did think, she really did think that literally Nana was just waiting for her to call or show up.

Like that's what Nana did just wait for her.

And it's somewhat true because Nana treasured nothing more than her family.

And that image is so good for us this morning when we think about prayer.

Because God is actually waiting to hear from you.

Even if you don't feel like it, or even you don't feel like he does hear you, he is waiting.

And he's not waiting because he needs to be filled in on your life.

He already knows it.

He already knows what you need.

We've learned that before.

He's all-knowing.

But he's waiting to hear from you because he cares for you and he treasures you.

And he is all about relationship with you.

But a question arises Why is there some part of God that waits to give until we ask?

If he knows what we need, why is he waiting?

Why does he wait?

I mean, the verses actually teach this.

Ask and then you will receive.

Well, John Stott, theologian, he wrote this.

Good sentence for us to kind of contemplate.

The reason has to do with us, not with him.

The question is not whether he is ready to give, but whether we are ready to receive.

Meaning God's always ready to give, but we're not always ready to receive.

So back in the text in verses 9 through 11, the text places us and places prayer in a relational context, not a transactional, not a mechanical, but a relationship.

Child to father.

Point number two is this prayer is based in a relationship of us as child and God as heavenly father.

If we want to begin to think about prayer, we think about it in relational context.

We think about it as God as Father.

Now, Father can be hard for us to contemplate depending on how you grew up and your father as imperfect as he was.

TV dads can help us.

So let's just look at a few TV dads and have some interaction here.

So can you name this TV dad?

Anybody?

Just say it out loud.

Phil.

Phil Dumpy, right?

Now a more classic dad.

Let's move into some difficulty.

Anybody?

Ward, yeah.

Ward Cleaver.

Very good.

Let's move into difficulty.

Anyone?

George Bluth.

Yeah, George Bluth.

Now, this is one of my favorites.

This was mine.

This was young.

Can anybody name him?

Close?

Jason Seavert, right?

The dad, I mean, what a dad, the 80s TV dad, Jason Seaver.

I mean, all right, so none of these dads, as good as they're, even Jason Seaver.

Jason Seaver's the best out of the whole bunch there, to me at least.

I mean, he was he was insightful and listening.

He's like, he worked out of his house.

He's always like coming around to solve the family's problems.

I mean, that's what Jason Sievert did.

But this TV dad, I think, tops them all, at least for me growing up.

Right, Mike Brady.

I mean, I loved Mike Brady.

And you know the story.

He was busy with three boys of his own.

They were four men living all together, yet they were all alone till one day when this lady met this fella, right?

You know the story.

We don't have to do the whole song.

He was a successful architect.

He had three boys.

He meets Carol, they marry.

He embraces and accepts in these three girls, right?

And you've seen the show.

I watched it every afternoon as a kid, TBS, after school, all the time, right?

And Mike is always, always the ever-present dad.

I don't know how he earned that much money and was still so present in the home.

He was always providing, always present, always teaching.

He was always listening, always patient.

And that's what we need.

We don't need Mike Brady as God, right?

We need God as perfection of our idea of Father.

This is the picture Jesus is trying to paint for us over and over and over again.

He paints it here again in this text to empower our prayer of God as Heavenly Father, treasuring us, caring for us.

There's a story in Mark chapter 14.

Mark 14 · chapter mention

There's a plot to kill Jesus.

A friend of Jesus' has betrayed him.

Jesus is headed toward a very painful death.

Jesus goes into the Garden of Gethsemane to pray.

Here's what Jesus prays.

Here's what Jesus prays.

Mark 14, 36.

Abba Father, all things are possible for you.

Remove this cup from me.

Yet, not what I will, but what you will.

So first the term Father, we've said this before.

I say it repeatedly.

About 15 times in the Old Testament, the idea of Father is communicated, and then in the New Testament, 245 times.

So God is progressively revealing Himself through the scriptures for us to understand Him not just as creator, judge, and King, but as a heavenly Father.

Three points from Jesus' prayer there in Gethsemane that jumped out to me this week as I just stared at that verse for a while.

Jesus prays from an understanding of God as the heavenly Papa who cares for him.

He's bringing his anguish.

Bringing his anguish, voicing it.

Number two, Jesus sincerely asks for his heart's concern.

Take this cup from me.

So he asks the thing he wants.

He voices it.

But point number three, yet, yet, even in that, Jesus prays with surrender to the sovereign God.

So he prays his full concern to the loving Father, and yet, even praying the full concern, he's like, yet, God, yet, God, I surrender.

Maybe you know more.

Maybe you know more.

So the implications could possibly be this.

Number one, I get to relate with God as a child to a heavenly Papa who cares for me.

What a privilege.

What a privilege.

Number two, I get to pray my heart's concerns.

Those concerns can be incredibly limited in sight.

They could even be selfish, but we get to voice those to God.

Number three, see, yet, this is where like, yet your will.

Yet I'm relieved of the burden to figure everything out and trying to use prayer to control my world.

That's not what I have to use prayer for.

And I'm freed into a relationship with a loving Papa who knows best, whether I am in comfort or suffering.

Now maybe you're here and you would say, great.

Like, right.

Like I prayed once.

Or like I prayed for like a season, or I prayed for years, and then like that thing happened, right?

The thing happened.

The event, the trauma, the woundedness, the opportunity didn't happen, you wanted it to happen, didn't work out.

And you had you prayed for it.

Well, the text implies that we won't get everything we asked for.

I mean, the text is saying that.

So we just make it up that we're actually gonna get everything.

Like, that's not in the Bible.

Matthew 7, 9 and 10, it says it right here.

Or which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone, or if he asks him for a fish, we'll give him a serpent.

I mean, it's just saying, like, you're not gonna get everything he asked for.

You don't even know.

You can't even know.

How could you possibly know?

How could you possibly know?

How many prayers have you prayed that later you go, wow, glad that one didn't work out?

Right?

It happens all the time.

I love this quote by Mark Galley, used to be editor of Christianity today.

He says this here's the lesson I have learned from Jesus, a lesson reinforced by four decades of failed prayers.

It doesn't matter how I feel when the worst seems certain.

Jesus didn't say ask when you feel hopeful.

He just said ask, and he said, It will be given.

Once we announce our desire to God, it's his job to deal with it.

Prayer is not manipulating heaven to fulfill our desires, it's putting what we desire into the hands of a loving, if inscrutable, God and letting him fulfill it in his time, in his way.

Prayer is inside the relationship of us surrendering to him, voicing our concerns.

Some of those things just work out exactly as we ask, and we love those moments, don't we?

And then sometimes we're the ones that are changed, and sometimes our prayers are that which change.

That's how prayer is freeing.

Point number three, as God's beloved child, we get to pray without concern of getting our way.

That gets removed as part of the process.

We voice our prayers because we're in relationship with God, and it's good for us to voice our prayers.

And prayer is much bigger than just like a mechanical or transaction, like I asked for this, I get this, I asked for this, I get this.

No, no, no, it's surrender, it's stillness, it's peace, it's transformation.

It's inclusive of God moving inside of us even as we ask for that which we'll never get.

It's relational.

Point number four is this as we come alive to God as sovereign Abba, our prayers are transformed by trying to control God to communing with God.

Prayer for me has just moved less from about praying lists of things I think should happen into a lot more surrender about those very things.

It's more about the fact that I need to pray these things because they're inside of my heart and my being.

I need to release more control.

And I don't have to control everything.

I get to release those things.

Now, to our Atlanta Braves, our beloved Atlanta Braves.

You knew I was gonna get there, because you know I'm a big fan, right?

Like you know, I have been an Atlanta Braves fan.

I told you last week, I have been an Atlanta Braves fan for so many days.

Eight games.

Eight games I've been a fan.

And like most of you, Tuesday night, I watched the game while I was watching other shows.

I watch us bat, and then I turn the channel to watch something else.

Just like most of you, you won't admit it.

And in the seventh inning, when we had that lead, I'm so confident in Art Land of Braves.

I went to sleep, so confident in their capability.

I know many of you weren't that confident, you stayed up, but I have the confidence, that's how strong my fandom is.

Is that amount of confidence in their capability that I can go to sleep when they had that lead?

I went to sleep in the seventh inning, and I woke up the next morning on Wednesdays, I didn't even get out of bed, grabbed my phone, looked who won, and I was truly so happy and really refreshed from all the sleep.

Like I really, really, I felt refreshed from that long night's sleep and really joyful.

I really was joyful, and I didn't swing a bat, I didn't throw a ball, I didn't watch an entire game.

I don't even own a Braves like article of clothing.

I'm a miserable fan in this way, like really, it's really bad.

And I'll tune in next year.

Like if they make it the World Series, I'll tune in next year at that point.

That's when I'll tune in.

That's where I'm at.

That's where I'm at.

And that's just miserable.

Like that's a miserable fan.

And some of you are real fans, you're like, you are awful.

You are an awful person.

Um, yes, I am.

And then here's also what's so offensive to you is then like also just as a like a citizen of Metro Atlanta, I still get to share in the joy of the victory.

That's insane because I've only been a fan for eight games.

Like, it's so offensive to devoted fans that I don't even own a Braves thing, and I share the joy.

And you can't say I don't, because Wednesday, I was more joyful all day because they won.

I'm still a little more joyful today than I was last week because they won.

And you can't steal that from me.

That's just true because I'm a citizen of Metro Atlanta, right?

They win, they win, and all of us, even the most miserable, right, are kind of caught up in the victory and in the joy.

What a beautiful image of imputation and love.

I mean, that's like a gospel economy that's going on here.

That we are made righteous because Christ's work on the cross forgives and deems us righteous, not because we're all put together and the most devoted, it's because of what he did and his good work.

And we're caught up in that as those who follow him and surrender into him.

The Heavenly Father doesn't reserve his love and his righteousness and his acceptance and that welcome.

He doesn't reserve that for the put together or the most devoted.

It's even for the most miserable and half-hearted that he cares for and he died for and he forgives and deems righteous, and he desires to hear their prayers.

And even they, even the sinner, even you and even me, share in the joy of the God who says, Call on me.

Call on me.

And when you call on me, call me Abba Father.

Let's pray together.

God, thank you that you are not just creator, judge, and king.

You are the Heavenly Father, and this side of Jesus, we are fully welcomed and accepted just as we are, and that you pursue us.

Thank you for your grace that doesn't just welcome us into relationship with you.

It is the way in which we have relationship with you.

Thank you for your care and sovereignty that is above even our suffering.

Help us to be able to voice even more of our concerns to you, not for transactions for answers, but because of this relationship of grace and care and welcome and acceptance.

That we would want to commune with you for the stillness and the peace that you grant hearts that are in relationship with you.

Thank you that you love us, you care for us, and you call us to a life of prayer.

In Jesus' name we pray.

Amen.