I ask you to grab your Bible and open to Matthew Chapter 7 Now.
While you're grabbing it, you can grab your worship guide.
You'll be able to take notes there.
So I encourage you to do that as you follow along in the sermon
this morning. We are actually nearing the end
of the Sermon on the Mount portion of Matthew's gospel, and
Jesus has been teaching us through this, as we've said each
week, what life in his Kingdom is supposed to look like.
Now, Jesus has taught us what we're calling Kingdom citizens,
right believers. Jesus has taught us that Kingdom
citizens are poor in spirits, they're meek, they're merciful,
they're pure in hearts, they're peacemakers, they're willing to
suffer for righteousness sake or for the name of Christ.
He's added to those things a lot of other teachings, right?
Like He, he's taught us that our righteousness must surpass that
of the scribes and Pharisees, the the religious elites of the
day. He, He's taken us beneath the
surface of outward obedience and has pressed the law into the
heart of man. We see it this way.
Anger is murder in seed form. That's where it begins, in the
heart with hatred. Lust is adultery in the hearts.
Truthfulness must mark our speech.
Love must extend to our enemies. Giving, praying, fasting, all of
these things must be done before the Father and not for men's
applause. We must lay up treasures in
heaven. We must seek first the Kingdom
of Christ. We must not judge with
self-righteous hypocrisy. And so it's no wonder that every
week when you guys leave here, your toes are all curled up,
right? It's a lot.
Christ has laid out a lot for us.
A lot that causes us to be introspective and to wonder, how
in the world can I do this? How can I be a true Kingdom
citizen, right? How can I live for the glory of
the Lord? Like if you're listening to
those things week in and week out, and I know that you are,
then we may rightly ask, Lord, who is sufficient for these
things, right? Surely you feel that pressure.
How can I, Lord, live this way the way that you're laying out?
How can I reflect what it means to be a Kingdom citizen day in
and day out? Well, Jesus doesn't leave you
with this burden. His answer is in our passage
today, and his answer is wonderfully simple, right?
Christ knows that sheep are simple.
Not dumb, not stupid, just simple, right?
But it's deeply comforting as well.
Like, like it's a simple truth, but it's deep and it's comfort.
And here's what he says. Here's what he's going to say to
us. Ask your father.
Seek your father. Knock at your Father's door.
The Kingdom alive cannot be lived in self-sufficiency.
And that's really the tension you ought to feel after several
weeks in the Sermon on the Mount, right?
I It must be lived in prayerful dependence upon the Father.
That's what Jesus wants us to see today.
So if you're able, would you please stand as we read Matthew
7, seven through 11. When I'm finished reading, I'll
say this is the word of the Lord and you can respond, thanks be
to God. Chapter 7, verse 7.
Jesus is still speaking. Ask and it will be given to you.
Seek and you will find. Knock and it will be open to
you, for everyone who asked 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 ask him for bread,
we'll give him a stone, or if he asks for a fish, we'll 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? This is the word of the Lord.
But speak to God, let's pray. Heavenly Father, we are grateful
to be in a place of worship this morning where we can lift high
your name. And I thank you, Lord, that we
have done that already in our prayers and our singing, our
giving. Today, Lord, we want to lift
high your name in the preached word.
We're going to lift high your name.
As listeners today, Would you grant to us ears to hear and
eyes to see? Would you grant to us hearts
that contain good soil, that Your Word is planted in our
hearts, that it would bear fruit in the weeks and months and
years ahead? Father, I ask that you would
turn our attention to this text today, that we would hear the
words of our King, that we would receive our marching orders for
prayer from him today. And Lord, would you help us to
be a prayerful people as a result of having heard your word
preached and having believed it today, it's in the name of
Christ to pray. Amen.
You may be seated.
So at first glance, this text may seem like just a general
encouragement to pray, and it is to some degree.
But it's more than that, right? Jesus is not giving you in this
text a blank check for your selfish desires.
All right, we know this to be true.
But we are inundated with the message of the health, wealth,
and prosperity gospel. We're inundated with this idea
that we can come to God and He is like a cosmic Santa Claus who
will meet every need that we have so long as we ask, almost
as if he's a genie in a bottle doing our bidding, right?
But, but Christ is not teaching us to treat God like a vending
machine today, right? In a vending machine, you might
put in the right words, you may push the right buttons, and you
expect your selected option, your selected blessing to drop
down and you take hold of it. And you don't return to the
vending machine again until you need something.
Right now Jesus is teaching here that Kingdom citizens are to
come to God as their heavenly Father, right?
A vending machine gives you what you select if you make the right
payments. A father gives what is good
because he loves his children, right?
A vending machine responds mechanically.
You put your money in, you push the button, it drops down what
you've asked for. But a father responds wisely,
right? A vending machine gives you what
you choose. A father gives you what is good,
right? So the question in this text is
not having read ask, seek, knock, will God grant me
everything I want exactly when I want it right?
We we know that's not true. We might approach God that way,
but we know that that's not the way this works.
The the better question for this text is can I trust my Father to
hear me? Can I trust my Father to help
me? Can I trust my Father to give me
what is good as I seek his Kingdom and his righteousness?
And Jesus answer is yes, yes you can, right?
The main point, if you're taking notes from our text today, is
this. Kingdom citizens should pray
with confidence because their Father is good and he gives what
is good. All right.
Kingdom citizens should pray with confidence because their
Father is good and he gives what is good.
Now we're going to see this in three movements or three truths.
The first will be come to the Father with persistent
dependence. Secondly, we'll see trust the
Father's generous goodness. And 3rd and finally, we'll see
rest in the Father's greater love.
So let's look at the first truth now #1 come to the Father with
persistent dependence. So it's examining verses 7 and
8. Christ says again, ask and it
will be given to you. Seek and you will find knock and
it will be open to you. Jesus gives 3 commands here,
right? Ask, seek, knock.
These are simple words, to say the least, but they're not
shallow words, right They they describe the posture of a needy
disciple before a generous heavenly Father.
Ask of him, seek him, knock at his door.
What? To ask is to admit I have a
need. It's to admit I'm not
sufficient. It's the language of dependence,
right? The one who asked knows that he
does not have what he needs within himself to seek.
This is the idea of pursuing, right?
The prophet Jeremiah tells us that, and it's God speaking
through him. He says if they seek me, they
will find me. So this is the language of
active dependence, but it's the it's the coming to the Father.
So seeking him out, it's the heart that says, Father, I need
you. I, I need your Kingdom, I need
your righteousness, your wisdom, and your grace.
To knock is to come to the door and keep looking to the one who
can open it. All right?
It pictures urgency, persistence, expectancy.
It's knocking at the door. I know you're in there, right?
Open the door. No answer.
All right. Knock.
Be persistent. Ask persistently.
Seek persistently. Knock persistently, right?
Seek him out. Knock at his door.
Ask him. And so Jesus here is calling his
disciples those Kingdom citizens.
He's calling them to persistent dependence.
Prayer. Again, I think this matters a
lot for its placement in the text, right?
We want to consider the context. If we want to understand the
text, we have to understand where it falls.
We're in the middle of the Sermon on the Mount.
We're in the middle of all of those things I described earlier
in the intro, right? All these different commands,
all these different ideas that Christ is sharing about what
Kingdom citizenship looks like and how it must manifest itself.
And we must have a righteousness that's greater than the
Pharisees, right? I mean, think about it.
Jesus has not given us commands that we can fulfill by the
strength of our own flesh, has He?
I mean that there's not one in there that I can fulfill just by
pulling myself up by my bootstraps each week.
But I can't muster the strength for this.
He's described A righteousness that reaches down outside the
exterior of the man and into the interior of who he is.
It affects His heart. Now you and I don't have the
power to transform hearts, not even our own, right?
We might create some good habits, we might build some
healthy routines in our lives just by matter of strength,
right, by matter of discipline, but we cannot affect the heart.
We need the Father through His Son by the Spirit to transform
our hearts. That's what Christ is saying
here is if you're going to be a Kingdom citizen, then prayer is
not an optional part of your Christian life.
It's not optional. You don't pray only when you sit
down to eat. You don't pray only when you go
to bed at night, right? We need to ask repeatedly.
We need to not persistently. We need to seek the Lord
constantly. Prayer is essential to the
Kingdom life. It's the language of spiritual
poverty. That's how we express our need
for the Lord. This is what Kingdom citizens do
because they know that they cannot produce a Kingdom
righteousness apart from the grace of the God.
And so verse 8, verse 7, having given us the commands, verse 8
reinforces this great promise from Christ to us.
And it is a promise for everyone who asked receives and the one
who seeks fines and to the one who knocks, it will be opened.
You see, Jesus is just repeating the pattern that he's encouraged
us to do because he's encouraging his people with the
promise behind the pattern, right?
If you ask, you'll receive. If you seek, you'll find.
If you knock, the door will be opened.
Now you may say, well, not every prayer of prayer, not ever, not
every asking I've brought to the Lord, not every request, not
every seeking, not every knock has been answered or so who's
wrong? Is Christ wrong or am I missing
something? We can answer it if we ask it
that way, right? Christ is never wrong.
So what Christ is not saying is that every prayer is answered
exactly as requested. The rest of Scripture will not
allow us to interpret the passage this way.
But what Christ is saying is that the Father truly hears you.
The Father truly responds. He truly gives what is good to
his children. And so Jesus is inviting us here
to pray with confidence, to know that your Father hears this
passage tells us something about us and something about God.
What it says about us is that we are, we are needy.
We, we are dependent. And I don't mean needy in like a
bad way. I mean it is like an encouraging
way, right? We are needy, we're we're
dependent, we're weak, we're not self-sufficient.
And what it tells us about God is he.
He's totally different than all of those things, right?
He's the opposite of all of that and he's approachable.
Ask your father. Seek your father.
Knock at his door. He's approachable.
He's attentive. You don't have to wonder when
you pray or when you seek the Lord.
Is he paying attention? Of course he is.
He's attentive. We read here that he's generous.
All right, we'll see that further in a moment.
But he's generous. He welcomes the prayers of his
children. You see, the God of heaven, the
God who created all things, the God who is so high and so lofty
and so above us, is not irritated by the cries of his
people. Do you understand that?
He's not irritated when you cry out to him in the same way that
I'm not irritated when one of my sons cries out for my help.
And I'm an evil father, right? According to the text, he's not
distance from your cries, he's not cold towards you, right?
I don't know what your experience with an earthly
father might be. Some of you have a great
experience. Some of you may have a terrible
experience, or times of terrible and times of good, right?
Not sure, but what I want you to understand is you're talking
about a perfect father here, one who is not cold towards you.
He is your heavenly Father. And Hebrews 416 tells us that we
should draw near to Him with confidence.
We should come to the throne of grace with confidence that we
might receive mercy and find grace in our time of need.
So ask. Ask the Father.
In the book of James we read you have not because you ask not.
We also read you ask and do not receive because you ask with
selfish ambitions. That doesn't.
Neither one of those say don't ask.
They say ask right, Let the Lord train your heart, let the Lord
redirect your desires, Let the Lord answer the prayer right.
Ask God big things. When's the last time you asked
God to make you holy as He is holy?
When's the last time you asked God to grant you wisdom or ask
God to help you forgive someone? Or ask God to strengthen your
marriage. Ask God to make you patient with
your children. Ask God to help you fight lust
or anger or anxiety or bitterness or hypocrisy.
When's the last time you asked God to make you faithful in
secret, not merely impressive in public?
When's the last time you ask God to help you seek first His
Kingdom and His righteousness? When's the last time you ask God
to save someone who's lost? When's the last time you prayed
for God to grow his church or ask God to make you more like
Christ? You see what I'm saying?
There's all sorts of big lofty prayers and often times we don't
consider these things that we read in the text as
opportunities for prayer. And so we'll come to the Lord
with just really, they're not even trivial things, They're
things that matter, but they're typically always about someone
else or some health problem or and we really do kind of use
prayer like a vending machine, but prayer is meant to be a
major part of your communion with God, your daily fellowship
with him. But when you pray those big
prayers, the encouragement here in the text is not to ask once
and then stop as though God didn't hear it or didn't care or
didn't want to answer it. Well, he says ask, seek, knock.
Now the truth of a text like this, you know, it's not all not
painful. Anything Christ says is going to
hit us right between the eyes sometimes.
So the truth of this at times is some of us do not pray because
we are too self-sufficient, right?
We're, we're too dependent upon our own ability to do things.
We, we live as though we can manage life on our own.
Others of us do not pray because we are discouraged.
We've prayed before and we have not seen the answer we wanted,
and so we quietly drifted into prayerlessness.
I want you to know Jesus is speaking to both here today.
To the self-sufficient, He says ask why?
Because you are needier than you think you are.
You're not as sufficient as you have estimated.
Ask your father to the discouraged, he says, ask why?
Because your father is better than you fear.
He's a good God. But I want you to understand,
the confidence of prayer does not rest in the strength of our
asking right? It, it rests in the character of
the one to whom we pray. That's where the confidence of
prayer rests in His character. And that brings us to point #2
trust the Father's generous goodness.
Trust the Father's generous goodness.
Or which one of you? Verse 9 If his son asked him for
bread, we'll give him a stone. Or if he asked for a fish, we'll
give him a serpent. So Jesus is now just offering an
illustration from ordinary family life.
A son asked his father for bread, and the father, being
kind, does not give him a stone. A son asked for a fish, and the
father doesn't give him a serpent.
Now Jesus is using something pretty obvious here to make
something glorious plain to us. Even fallen human parents know
the difference between a gift and a danger.
They know the difference between nourishment and horn.
They know the difference between bread and stone, between a fish
and a serpent's. A decent father, Not even a good
father, but just a decent one, right?
He does not mock his child's hunger.
He doesn't trick his child. He doesn't give something
harmful when the child is asking for something that's necessary
to life. No, Jesus teaches us here to
reason from earthly fatherhood to heavenly fatherhood.
Now, the contrast is important. A small limestone rock, which
might look like a loaf of bread, could not nourish the child.
Rather, it would frustrate him. Me.
Picture it, Dad. I'm really hungry.
You have some bread? Yeah.
Here, here's some. And he bends down and picks up a
rock and hands it to the child. That would frustrate the kid,
right? He might hurl it at his dad.
A serpent would not nourish the child.
It would endanger him. Dad, do you have some fish?
I know we caught some fish the other day.
You got some left that we could eat?
Yeah, I do. Here.
Here's a a serpent, right? There's an endangerment there.
The the point is not merely that the father would refuse to give
something useless. The the point is that a father
would not deceive his child by giving something harmful instead
of something good. Jesus is using this to say to
us, Your Father in heaven is not cruel.
He's not deceptive, He's not careless about your needs, and
when you come to him, he does not toy with you.
This point highlights God's goodness.
When we talk about God's goodness, we're, we're saying
what what we mean is that he is benevolent, He's kind, he's
generous, he's wise and all his dealings with his people, right?
He, he's not good in a merely sentimental way, right?
We can think God's good and we can get kind of the warm fuzzies
about it and we can know that it's true and it is sentimental.
Like it comforts us to know that God is good, but it's not merely
sentimental. That's not what Christ is
explaining here. He, he's saying that God is good
in a sovereign way, right? His goodness is joined to all
that he is, to His wisdom, His Holiness, His power and His
love. What that means is that he knows
what is good, right? He has the power to give what is
good. He, he has the wisdom to give
what is good in the right way. He, he has the love to give it
for the good of his children. And This is why prayer requires
a deep trust in God. We can trust that he is good.
Psalm 100 verse 5 says that he is faithful, He's abounding in
love, and that he's good to every generation.
And I don't want you to miss the point of this.
We're we're not praying. You're not praying to a weak
Father who means well, but he's unable to help.
We're not praying to a powerful ruler above us who can help yet
doesn't care. We are praying to our Father in
heaven who is both sovereign and good.
I think this corrects some suspicion we might have about
God. You think suspicion about God?
Well, I think we can be more guilty of this than we realize,
because it's really subtle. Ever since Genesis 3, the the
fall of mankind in the garden, fallen humanity has been tempted
to question God's goodness. The serpent suggested that God
was withholding something good from Adam and Eve.
If you take that fruit, you will be like God, and he's trying to
keep you from that. I think that same suspicion
still creeps into our hearts. I mean, Satan is, he's a
tempter. He's the father of lies.
He's a deceiver, A murderer from the beginning.
This is one of his oldest tricks, and it's one of his most
useful tricks. We, we might say things like
this. If God is good, why has he not
answered my prayer yet? If God is good, why did he say
no to my prayer? If God is good, why is this
station in life, the circumstance, so hard?
If God is good, why did he give them that person over there?
What I've been asking for if God is good, why does obedience feel
so costly? If God is good, why are bad
things happening in my life? And what verses 9 and 10 do is
they call us back to the Father's heart.
Your Father is not handing you stones when you need bread.
Your father does not hand you a serpent when you need fish.
Your father is good, now does that.
That doesn't mean that you will always understand his answers,
You just might not. It It does not mean you will
always immediately see how his answer is good.
But Jesus calls you to trust the Father's heart when you cannot
trace the Father's hand. And then Jesus presses this
argument even further. He does not merely say the
Father is good, He goes on to say the Father is infinitely
better than even the best earthly father.
Which brings us to .3 verse 11. Rest in the Father's greater
love. Now Jesus presses the lesson
home, if you will. If you then who are evil know
how to give good gifts to your children.
Now we'll stop there because that phrase is quite striking.
If you then who are evil, can't say Amen, you say Ouch, right?
Ouch. Now Jesus is not about
flattering human nature, right? He, he tells, he tells the truth
about us, even the best earthly fathers.
What Christ is saying here is even the very best earthly
fathers are still fallen humans. We may love our children
sincerely, but we are not loving them perfectly.
We we are limited, we're inconsistent, we're impatient,
we're selfish, and we're sinful. Yet even fallen fathers know how
to give good, give good gifts to their children.
So Jesus is not saying that earthly fathers are perfect.
He is saying that even sinful fathers typically understand
that a hungry child should receive nourishment, not danger.
Right. And then comes this great
encouragement. How much more will your Father
who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him?
Now the phrase how much more really does kind of carry the
weight of this verse. How much more I like what Jesus
is doing here. He is arguing His point from the
lesser to the greater right. If fallen fathers know how to
give good gifts, how much more does your heavenly Father know
how to give good gifts? If sinful fathers can show
genuine care, how much more does your heavenly Father, who is
perfectly holy, wise, generous, and loving, care for his
children? And so the point lands right.
You can see it. Notice what Jesus says the
Father gives good things. It doesn't say that the Father
will give everything. We ask for exactly how we ask.
He says the Father gives good things to those who ask him.
Now that is not a smaller promise.
That's a better promise. Brothers and sisters, Amen.
That might be hard to agree with because again, in our
self-sufficiency, we think we know best.
We think we know what we need better.
But again, we're talking about the Heavenly Father here.
It's not a smaller promise, it's a better promise.
Our desires. Here's why it's a better
promise. Our desires are not always wise.
Our vision is limited. Our hearts can be mixed.
We can have two masters at times.
We we can ask for things that look like bread to us but would
become stones in our hands. We we can ask for things that
look like fish to us but would become serpents to our souls.
But your Father in heaven knows the difference.
He he knows what will nourish you.
He knows what will harm you. He knows what will make you
holy. He knows what will draw you
nearer to Christ. He knows what will serve his
Kingdom purposes the best, and he knows then what is truly
good. So Jesus isn't promising that
God will always give us whatever we would choose if we had his
power. He's promising something far
better. Don't don't miss his points.
Our Father will always give what is good according to his wisdom,
his will and his love. Now this first teaches us about
God's fatherly goodness. God isn't reluctant to hear his
children. He's not stingy with his mercy,
right? There's a reason we sing his
mercy is more around here. We believe it.
He's not annoyed by our dependence.
He's not cold toward our needs. He's not bothered when his
children come asking and seeking and knocking.
He is our Father in heaven, and that means that he's both near
and sovereign. He's near enough to hear.
He's powerful enough to act, He's tender enough to care, and
He's wise enough to know what is best.
He's generous enough to give, and he's holy enough to never
give you what would destroy you. So we can say rightly from the
text his yes is good. We can say rightly from the text
that his no is good. We can say rightly from the text
that his weight is good, his redirection is good, his
discipline is good, his comfort is good.
We could go on and on and on. He is good through and through.
Not because every circumstance feels good.
Many circumstances do not feel good.
Not because every answer is easy to understand, many are not.
But because the father himself is good.
He cannot deal with his children in a way that contradicts his
character and the greatest proof of the father's goodness.
It's not that He gives us everything, every earthly thing
we desire or demand. The greatest proof is that He
has given us His Son. He's given us Christ to be the
sacrifice for sinners. He's given His beloved Son to
live in perfect righteousness, to die in the place of his
people, all who will call upon His name, to rise from the grave
to bring us into the family of God.
This is the ultimate test of God's goodness.
When we come to God in prayer, we're not trying to convince a
reluctant God to be kind. No, we're we're coming to the
Father who has already revealed his heart at the cross.
He gives good gifts to His children.
So then you may have the question that I have, How then
should I pray? I'm going to walk you through a
few things. First, you should pray
confidently. Jesus invites us to come.
He says ask, seek, knock. Do not hold back because you
think your needs are too small. Do not stay away because you
think your sins are too great. Do not stop praying because the
answer has not yet come. Come to your Father.
Come confidently. Secondly, you should pray
biblically. Now, how do we know we're
praying according to God's will? We pray according to God's will
when our prayers are shaped by these three things.
Number one, God's Kingdom #2 God's character and #3 God's
word. So we walk through those, pray
in accordance with God's Kingdom.
Jesus has already taught us how to do this.
He's, he taught us to pray this way.
Your Kingdom come, your will be done.
So when we pray, we should ask questions like this.
Does this prayer seek God's glory?
Does this prayer submit to God's will, whatever may come?
Does this prayer align with seeking first His Kingdom and
His righteousness above all else?
Secondly, you should pray in accordance with God's character.
Bring your request to Him as your heavenly Father.
Trust that he is holy, that he is wise, that He's good, that
He's sovereign, that He's merciful and faithful and
generous to every generation. Pray according to his character.
Pray in accordance with God's word #3 the most practical way
to do this is to simply pray the Scriptures back to God.
To pray Scripture is simply to take God's words and turn them
back to Him in faith. If you're unfamiliar with this
idea, there's a great book by Donald Whitney called Praying
the Bible. Small little book, very helpful,
Praying the Bible. And here's essentially how we do
this. You read a command, and then you
pray it back to God, and you ask for grace to help you obey it.
You read a promise, you bring it up before the Lord in prayer,
and you ask for faith to believe it.
You read a warning, you bring it to God in prayer, and you ask
for mercy to heed the warning. You read about God's character
and you bring those things before the Lord, and you just
exalt, and you praise Him and you magnify His name.
You read about Christ and you cling to Him in prayer.
So I'll give you a few examples from the Sermon on the Mount in
Matthew 5. We read blessed are the poor in
spirit. We read blessed are several
folks, but blessed are the poor in spirit.
And you can just bring it to the Lord in prayer like this.
Heavenly Father, make me poor in spirit, heal, crucify my pride.
Teach me to depend upon you. In Matthew 6 we read Seek first
the Kingdom of God and his righteousness, and everything
else will be added unto you so you can pray it this way.
Father, would you reorder my desires?
I've got a lot of anxiety. I've got a lot of worry.
I've got a lot of concern about all these varying things going
on in my life. Would you help me now just to
teach me to seek first Your Kingdom in Matthew 7 or text
today, ask, see, knock. You can bring that before the
Lord in prayer this way. Father, I come to you today as a
needy child. I'm trusting You to give me what
is good. I understand that I don't always
know what's best for me, but you do, and I'm trusting your hand.
Help me trust your wisdom when your answer differs from what
I've expected. So I think Kingdom citizens hear
the kindness of Christ's invitation today.
At least I want you to. He's saying ask, seek, knock.
What he what he's telling you is do not try to live as Kingdom
citizens. Do not try to live the Christian
life in your own strength. Do not try to obey the Sermon on
the Mount by sheer willpower. Do not try to fight sin and
pursue holiness and love your enemies and forgive those who
wrong you and seek the King. Seek first the Kingdom, or
endure life's burns as though you are on your own.
Because you are not. You're not alone.
Your Father in Heaven is for you, and He's good.
He's better than the best earthly father.
He is wiser than you are. He is kinder than you can
imagine. He is more generous than you
deserve, and he gives good things to those who ask him.
And so I implore, implore you, along with Christ this morning,
come to your Father. Come to him needy, Come to him
honestly. Come to him persistently.
Come to Him submissively. Come to Him, trusting His heart
for your life. And if you are not in Christ,
you are not a believer. This invitation begins here.
You must come to the Father through the Son.
Hebrews 725 says of Christ that He is able to save to the
uttermost all of those who draw near to the Father through Him.
Romans 10 tells us that all who call upon the name of the Lord
will be saved. You cannot go know.
You cannot know God as a heavenly Father apart from Jesus
Christ, but through Christ and through the cross, through the
resurrection, sinners are forgiven, rebels are adopted as
sons and daughters, and the needy are welcomed home.
So I urge you, I implore you today from this passage, repent
of your sin and come to Christ in faith today.
Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you
for your word. God, I ask that you would help
us to be the kind of people who ask who see Kunak, who pursue
you with our prayers. We pursue you with our lives.
Help us to be the kind of people who come confidently to the
Father in our time of need, that we might find mercy and grace to
help. And Father, would you forgive us
of self-sufficiency? Forgive us where we have tried
to live independent lives. It's ingrained deep in our
souls. But Lord, would you help us give
up some independence today. Help us to lay that independence
on the cross of Christ, to crucify it there, that we might
be dependent upon our Lord, that we might come to you, Father, at
all times, in all things, and trust Your goodness, Your care
for us, Your love, Your holiness, to trust Your
decisions and Your will above our own.
Father, I pray for anyone here who doesn't know you, who's not
made Christ the Lord of their life, who has not been
reconciled to You, Father, through Him.
I ask that you would save them today, that you would grant them
new life in Christ, that you would help them to see that they
are poor, needy, spiritually dead sinners who are in need of
a new life. We're in need of a new heart
with new desires and God. May they call upon the name of
the Lord and receive His salvation today.
I'm going to give you a moment there in your seat to pray and
to seek the Lord. Ask him.
Seek him. Knock at his door now for all
that you need. Confess sin to him.
Be reconciled to God this morning.
Heavenly Father, it's my prayer that your people gathered today
have found mercy and grace as they have sought you.
Lord, would you help us to be more dependent, to be more
deeply trusting in your character and in your will in
every area of our lives. In the name of Christ, I pray.
Amen.