WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:10.519 Paul Miller, in his book, A Praying Life, opens with a story, and it's worth retelling here. 00:00:11.220 --> 00:00:18.400 He took his five kids… no, took five of his kids on a camping trip, while his wife and his other 00:00:18.400 --> 00:00:25.060 child, Kim, who was eight years old and who had never spoken because of a developmental delay, 00:00:25.059 --> 00:00:35.299 stayed at home. As they climbed out of their van to begin to unpack, he noticed his 14-year-old 00:00:35.299 --> 00:00:42.759 daughter standing in front of the van, upset. This is the story, he says. This is how he recounts it. 00:00:42.759 --> 00:00:50.200 When I asked her what was wrong, she said, I lost my contact lens. It's gone. I looked down with her 00:00:50.200 --> 00:00:56.920 at the forest floor, covered with leaves and twigs. There were a million little crevices 00:00:56.920 --> 00:01:04.719 for the lens to fall into and disappear. And I said, Ashley, don't move. Let's pray. 00:01:05.900 --> 00:01:13.719 But before I could pray, she burst into tears. What good does it do? I've prayed for Kim to speak, 00:01:13.719 --> 00:01:22.659 and she isn't speaking. He goes on to share his own thoughts. Would I make the problem worse by praying? 00:01:23.079 --> 00:01:29.659 If we prayed and couldn't find the contact, would it just confirm Ashley's growing unbelief? 00:01:29.980 --> 00:01:34.599 I had little confidence that God would do anything, but I prayed silently, 00:01:35.140 --> 00:01:40.900 Father, this would be a really good time to come through. You've got to hear this prayer for the sake 00:01:40.900 --> 00:01:47.300 of Ashley. And then I prayed aloud with Ashley, Father, help us to find this contact. 00:01:49.700 --> 00:02:00.260 What God intended to be a gift can be so hard, can't it? Do we really think God will work in our 00:02:00.260 --> 00:02:08.659 everyday lives? Can God do impossible things like find a contact lens on a forest floor in central 00:02:08.659 --> 00:02:14.620 Pennsylvania? Does prayer really do any good? And what if it feels like it doesn't? 00:02:16.979 --> 00:02:25.280 These are the questions that, if we do pray, we've all asked. And maybe if we don't pray, 00:02:26.180 --> 00:02:32.300 it's these questions that keep us from praying. But this brings us to our passage this morning. 00:02:32.300 --> 00:02:41.939 We continue in Matthew 7, in Jesus' words, in the Sermon on the Mount. And I want to begin by saying that 00:02:41.939 --> 00:02:51.420 I always seek, as I prepare a sermon, to let it run through my own soul and for it to affect me deeply. 00:02:51.419 --> 00:03:02.679 But this one's affected me more than usual. I have felt the Holy Spirit shining a spotlight on places where 00:03:02.679 --> 00:03:11.079 I need to grow and where I need God's help in this, revealing how much I struggle at times in prayer. 00:03:11.819 --> 00:03:18.419 So, I want you to know that as I speak to you this morning, I speak to you as one who needs this word 00:03:18.419 --> 00:03:26.379 as much as any of us. So, let's look at Matthew 7. We're going to look at the verses, verses 7 through 11 00:03:26.379 --> 00:03:34.139 in Jesus' Sermon on the Mount, as He's giving instructions to His disciples on what it looks 00:03:34.139 --> 00:03:42.439 like to live in His kingdom. This is what He says. Let's read together. Oh, this is on page 762 in the Pew 00:03:42.439 --> 00:03:47.680 Bible. If you want to watch along, it will also be on the screen up above. 00:03:50.259 --> 00:03:51.520 Jesus says this, 00:03:51.520 --> 00:03:52.520 If you ask, 00:03:52.520 --> 00:03:58.900 ask, and it will be given to you. Seek, and you will find. Knock, and it will be opened to you. 00:03:59.580 --> 00:04:06.340 For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks, it will be opened. 00:04:07.480 --> 00:04:11.040 Or which of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? 00:04:11.719 --> 00:04:14.360 Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? 00:04:14.360 --> 00:04:21.160 If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, 00:04:21.960 --> 00:04:29.379 how much more will your Father, who is in heaven, give good things to those who ask Him? 00:04:31.259 --> 00:04:35.819 Well, given that, let's do what He says. Let's pray together. 00:04:35.819 --> 00:04:45.819 Lord Jesus, we do ask for Your help this morning. Lord, we want to be praying people, 00:04:46.300 --> 00:04:51.740 but we confess that we struggle. Lord, I pray this morning as we 00:04:51.740 --> 00:04:55.680 sit under Your Word that Your Holy Spirit would help us. 00:04:57.100 --> 00:05:04.079 Lord, that You would imprint upon us the truths of this Word. Lord, so that we might obey You 00:05:04.079 --> 00:05:13.859 joyfully and with a heart filled with faith and hope, confident in the God that we pray to. 00:05:14.800 --> 00:05:18.240 Lord, I pray for Your help this morning, that I would speak as I ought. 00:05:19.300 --> 00:05:23.019 Lord, and that together we might receive and sit under Your Word. 00:05:24.079 --> 00:05:27.479 We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. 00:05:27.480 --> 00:05:35.280 Amen. Why should we pray? It's the question that Jesus asks us answers in this passage this morning, 00:05:35.379 --> 00:05:40.160 I believe, and I think there are two things. So, if you're an outline person, we have two main points. 00:05:40.259 --> 00:05:49.780 The first one is we pray because God knows we need Him for all things. Secondly, we pray because God 00:05:49.779 --> 00:05:57.579 responds with goodness in all things. So, that's your outline. We're going to explore this together. 00:05:57.579 --> 00:06:06.019 So, first, we pray because God knows we need Him in all things. This is what verses 7 and 8 tell us. 00:06:06.279 --> 00:06:14.119 And it is a very simple structure if you look with me at it. Verse 7 is threefold pattern of a command 00:06:14.120 --> 00:06:23.019 and then a promise that uses what theologians call a divine passive. So, he says, ask and it will be 00:06:23.019 --> 00:06:29.840 given. That is, God will give it to you. Seek and you will find. That is, what you seek, God will help 00:06:29.840 --> 00:06:38.160 you find. Knock and the door will be opened. That is, God will answer at the door as you seek Him in 00:06:38.160 --> 00:06:45.780 prayer. And verse 8 in some ways is just a restatement of that, saying everyone who seeks 00:06:45.780 --> 00:06:54.240 God in this way will find God and He will respond. There's not a lot of exegetical complexity to this 00:06:54.240 --> 00:07:04.040 passage. Jesus is saying, we should do this and God will respond, which raises the question, of course, 00:07:04.040 --> 00:07:13.720 God will respond. If we believed, if we obeyed, we would pray, right? But we don't. Why not? 00:07:15.740 --> 00:07:22.759 Why? I have two thoughts about our heart condition that has to do with the fact that we don't actually 00:07:22.759 --> 00:07:31.800 believe that we need God as much as we should. The first reason we do this is what I call the pitfall 00:07:31.800 --> 00:07:40.639 of self-sufficiency. And that is that we think that our lives are what we make of it. We live in a 00:07:40.639 --> 00:07:46.720 culture that tells us that make your own way, make your own life, determine your success, choose your 00:07:46.720 --> 00:07:54.780 own adventure. We think it's up to us to do these things. I know many of you are way too young to have 00:07:54.780 --> 00:08:01.720 seen this movie, but you remember Tom Hanks marooned on an island in the movie Castaway. And after 00:08:01.720 --> 00:08:07.740 halfway through the movie, he finally makes fire and he dances around this fire and he says, look what 00:08:07.740 --> 00:08:14.800 I have created. And he's so proud of himself. And this is what we do with our lives. We build our 00:08:14.800 --> 00:08:22.460 lives in our careers and in our families and in our self-understanding and our self-presentation to 00:08:22.459 --> 00:08:26.239 others. We're always building things and we think it's all up to us. 00:08:29.479 --> 00:08:36.960 And in our pride, God becomes very small. And so, we don't pray to Him. 00:08:40.379 --> 00:08:41.759 I also think 00:08:41.759 --> 00:08:51.079 that we don't think He cares or is able. Well, yeah, I pray to God about, you know, my 00:08:51.080 --> 00:08:58.800 spiritual lethargy, but I don't pray to God about my career. Like, what's He going to do to change my 00:08:58.800 --> 00:09:06.200 advisor's mind about my project? That's crazy. We don't think we need Him because we don't think 00:09:06.200 --> 00:09:16.580 He's involved. We think it's up to us. Do you see how that saps our confidence in praying? 00:09:16.580 --> 00:09:20.680 If we don't need Him, there is nothing to ask for. 00:09:22.540 --> 00:09:28.040 I think there's a second reason why we think we don't need Him that's even more profound and flows 00:09:28.040 --> 00:09:36.100 out of the context of this passage. And that is that we lose…we have lost sight of the amazing nature of 00:09:36.100 --> 00:09:45.800 God's kingdom. Because if we really wanted God's kingdom to come, we would pray more. Think about 00:09:45.800 --> 00:09:51.120 what we've learned as we've looked through the Sermon on the Mount. Think about some of the commands and 00:09:51.120 --> 00:09:55.860 what it would look like if these things were actually true, if we loved our enemies, if we gave 00:09:55.860 --> 00:10:03.100 sacrificially, if we didn't worry, if we didn't lust or hate, if we went the second mile with those who 00:10:03.100 --> 00:10:11.920 were persecuting us and making our lives difficult, if we embraced being weak and meek and even persecuted 00:10:11.920 --> 00:10:20.279 for righteousness' sake, if we loved others the way we ought to, if we served others, if we lived 00:10:20.279 --> 00:10:27.980 distinctly for Jesus, if this were what filled our hopes, if these were the things that we set our hearts 00:10:27.980 --> 00:10:36.759 on, oh, friends, would we not pray? Because we can't do any of these things, can we? 00:10:39.500 --> 00:10:47.180 So not only do we have this pride about building our own life in all of its specifics, but specifically 00:10:47.180 --> 00:10:54.480 in our spiritual life, we have lost sight of how great God's kingdom is, and we've reduced our 00:10:54.480 --> 00:10:59.580 spiritual aspirations to things we can do, and then we don't need God in it. 00:11:01.980 --> 00:11:07.080 But the Sermon on the Mount says God has called us to a far greater kingdom, 00:11:09.200 --> 00:11:16.680 something we can't just work up by learning a new technique, by buckling down and trying a little 00:11:16.679 --> 00:11:24.219 harder or being a little more disciplined or finding a new prayer strategy, journal card system, 00:11:24.299 --> 00:11:28.459 whatever it is. And those are all great. I'm not saying any of those things are bad. But at the end 00:11:28.459 --> 00:11:33.699 of the day, they're never going to produce the kingdom of God in our hearts and in our lives. 00:11:34.399 --> 00:11:43.179 Only God can change hearts. Only God can strengthen our weary limbs. Only God can give us faith when we 00:11:43.179 --> 00:11:56.559 are struggling or facing persecution. Only God can produce His kingdom in us. This is why James says 00:11:56.559 --> 00:12:03.659 that every good and perfect gift, every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, 00:12:04.399 --> 00:12:12.259 coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change. 00:12:12.259 --> 00:12:19.220 The Apostle Paul, in confronting the spiritual pride of the Corinthian church, says, 00:12:19.360 --> 00:12:25.819 what do you have that you did not receive? And if you did receive it, then why do you boast of it 00:12:25.819 --> 00:12:35.580 as if it were up to you and not a gift from God? Friends, if our view of the kingdom of God was great, 00:12:35.580 --> 00:12:50.200 then we would pray. And I know the race is long. And sometimes it's hard. We grow weary 00:12:50.200 --> 00:12:58.620 of longing for things that we can't do on our own. But this is the reason why God gave us prayer. 00:12:58.620 --> 00:13:05.440 This is the reason why this passage is in the center or is in the middle of this section, 00:13:05.560 --> 00:13:12.340 this sermon on how to live in God's kingdom. Because we were meant to depend on God and to ask 00:13:12.340 --> 00:13:21.259 for Him and to seek Him and to knock on the door of His faith or of His kingdom so that He would answer 00:13:21.259 --> 00:13:31.100 and bring so that He would respond and show His care and His goodness. When we embrace our dependence upon Him, 00:13:31.620 --> 00:13:37.779 God shines in this picture as He provides for us and as He cares for us. 00:13:37.779 --> 00:13:52.439 So we do need Him. And we need to confess that we don't always admit that. And we need to hear the call to return 00:13:52.439 --> 00:13:57.659 to a place of saying, God, nothing in my hands I bring, 00:13:57.659 --> 00:14:11.719 but I come to you and ask and seek and knock. This is, I believe, the first reason why Jesus has given us 00:14:11.719 --> 00:14:18.279 that we ought to pray. We ought to pray because we need Him in all things. 00:14:20.199 --> 00:14:24.659 But Jesus goes on in verses 9 through 11 and tells us the second reason, 00:14:24.659 --> 00:14:32.459 a second reason why we can be moved to prayer. And that is that we pray because God responds with 00:14:32.459 --> 00:14:38.659 His goodness in all things. Jesus continues in the section. If you look, you can see that there's an 00:14:38.659 --> 00:14:43.319 illustration here. And it's an illustration that we've, I feel like we've already talked about this 00:14:43.319 --> 00:14:51.159 because I preached on God as a heavenly Father at the beginning of the prayer, the Lord's prayer. 00:14:51.159 --> 00:14:54.839 I preached on this when we preach about prayer because in verse 7 it says, 00:14:54.980 --> 00:14:58.539 your heavenly Father knows what you need before you ask. I feel like I've preached on this a lot, 00:14:58.620 --> 00:15:05.860 but we're going to go back and live and drink this well one more time because it's such important 00:15:05.860 --> 00:15:14.679 truth about God. The illustration is this in verse 9. Which of you, if your son asks him for bread, 00:15:14.799 --> 00:15:19.959 will give him a stone? Now, the bread in the first century was round like a stone. It wasn't, 00:15:19.960 --> 00:15:25.740 you know, rectangular and come in a box pre-sliced. You know, so it looked like a stone. So there's a 00:15:25.740 --> 00:15:32.800 reason why there was an analogy. Why stone instead of bread? Well, they look similar. But who would give 00:15:32.800 --> 00:15:41.340 their child a stone when they ask for bread? And Jesus goes on and He says, which Father, if 00:15:41.340 --> 00:15:48.780 your child asks you for fish, would give him a serpent? Now, again, there's a surmise that there 00:15:48.780 --> 00:15:56.040 was a fish there that was long and thin, maybe like a gar or something like that, that was eel-like, 00:15:56.280 --> 00:16:03.060 right? Or serpentine. And so, again, you have something that's similar. And Jesus says, when a child comes 00:16:03.060 --> 00:16:10.240 to a parent and asks him for the basic sustenance of life, for this bread and this fish, these were the 00:16:10.240 --> 00:16:14.639 staples. This is like if your parent, if your child comes and asks you for peanut butter and jelly, 00:16:15.259 --> 00:16:20.120 right? Or yogurt or whatever it is that's your stapled food in your household. 00:16:21.919 --> 00:16:27.539 Why would you give him something else that's at best useless and at worst dangerous? 00:16:27.539 --> 00:16:40.299 Jesus' argument is, no human parent typically does that. Now, he knows that human parents don't always 00:16:40.299 --> 00:16:48.259 do this perfectly. And some of you may recognize, my human parents don't do that or haven't done that. 00:16:48.879 --> 00:16:54.099 And I have a struggle to see God that way because I didn't experience God that way. 00:16:54.100 --> 00:17:02.519 Don't let this derail you. Jesus is using an illustration of what is typically true. 00:17:02.800 --> 00:17:10.620 And we see that because verse 11 makes it very clear. If you who are evil, right, even parents 00:17:10.620 --> 00:17:18.180 who don't know God and live completely self-centeredly in sin, you who are evil know how to give good 00:17:18.180 --> 00:17:27.320 gifts, that this is the normal pattern of humanity, how much more will your Father in heaven give good 00:17:27.320 --> 00:17:39.980 gifts to His children? Jesus says, this is why we should ask and seek and knock, because God is a loving 00:17:39.980 --> 00:17:54.319 heavenly Father who delights to give good things. And again, this is so simple at one level. You know, 00:17:54.400 --> 00:17:59.180 we could be done 20 minutes early. That was a great sermon, right? 00:17:59.180 --> 00:18:07.400 God is your heavenly Father. He delights. Go to Him. Ask, seek, and knock. Go to Him in prayer because 00:18:07.400 --> 00:18:17.060 He loves you. But we don't do it, do we? We don't believe this because we don't believe it's true of 00:18:17.060 --> 00:18:25.640 God. And why is this? I think there are actually two reasons. Again, and I'm going to unpack these. 00:18:25.640 --> 00:18:32.160 First, I think there's an intellectual barrier to believing that God responds by giving good gifts. 00:18:32.660 --> 00:18:40.160 Some of you are pretty smart, and you're sitting there and you're saying, does God really give us 00:18:40.160 --> 00:18:53.700 anything we want? What if I ask for a thermonuclear bomb? Or what if I ask for 00:18:53.700 --> 00:18:58.759 everyone else in the world to die so that I can get everything that I want? 00:19:01.240 --> 00:19:06.779 Right? We can imagine conceptually, intellectually, there are all sorts of things we could ask for, 00:19:06.819 --> 00:19:13.519 and we're like, God isn't going to give us that. That's our instinct. He doesn't always respond. He 00:19:13.519 --> 00:19:20.779 doesn't give good gifts when we ask Him. How do we think about this? Well, there are a couple 00:19:20.779 --> 00:19:27.359 things we need to say. First, we need to recognize that James in chapter 4 unpacks the human heart a 00:19:27.359 --> 00:19:33.660 little bit and the dynamic of prayer with a little more granularity. So, in James 4, 2, he says, 00:19:33.779 --> 00:19:39.500 you desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. He's 00:19:39.500 --> 00:19:45.000 obviously dealing with conflicts in the church, and he's trying to say, what's the root of that? You do not 00:19:45.000 --> 00:19:53.519 have because you do not ask, and you ask and you do not receive because you ask wrongly to spend it on 00:19:53.519 --> 00:20:02.960 your passions. So, James reminds us that sometimes we don't receive what we ask for because we don't 00:20:02.960 --> 00:20:08.980 ask, but sometimes we don't receive what we ask for because we ask with wrong motives, that our hearts 00:20:08.980 --> 00:20:17.319 are set not on God and not on His kingdom, but on ourselves, right? And God might rightly say no to 00:20:17.319 --> 00:20:24.000 those prayers because the God of the Bible is not a cosmic vending machine where we put in our coins of 00:20:24.000 --> 00:20:31.759 prayer and get the candy bars that we really want out of the vending machine. God isn't that at all. 00:20:31.759 --> 00:20:39.839 The God of the Bible is a heavenly Father, which means many things, but it means He is a sovereign 00:20:39.839 --> 00:20:49.240 Creator. He is a compassionate Shepherd, and He is the best of all fathers who knows what His kids need, 00:20:49.720 --> 00:20:58.420 who is able to provide for them, and who's committed to doing good for them, but maybe not 00:20:58.420 --> 00:21:08.080 exactly the way we ask. I want to quote at length a commentator, R.T. France, on this because he wrote 00:21:08.080 --> 00:21:14.420 so eloquently about how we wrestle with this problem. He says this, 00:21:15.220 --> 00:21:22.880 the good things which God will surely give do not necessarily include everything that His children 00:21:22.880 --> 00:21:29.960 might like to have. The carte blanche approach to petitionary prayer does not find support in the 00:21:29.960 --> 00:21:37.820 New Testament as a whole. It is God as the Father in heaven who knows what is, quote, good for His 00:21:37.820 --> 00:21:44.920 children. And as with a human parent, His generosity may not always coincide with the child's wishes. 00:21:46.220 --> 00:21:52.480 But for all that necessary caution, there is an openness about verses 7 and 8 which invites not 00:21:52.480 --> 00:21:57.500 merely a reason to be a Christian to be a Christian. It is not merely a Christian, but a willingness to 00:21:57.500 --> 00:22:07.140 explore the extent of His generosity, securing in the knowledge that only what is, quote, good will be 00:22:07.140 --> 00:22:15.000 given so that mistakes in prayer through human short-sightedness will not rebound on those praying. 00:22:17.019 --> 00:22:22.059 Tim Keller was quoted in a sermon. I couldn't find his actual quote, but he was quoted in a sermon 00:22:22.059 --> 00:22:29.980 as saying, if God actually gave us everything we wanted and we were honest, we would stop praying 00:22:29.980 --> 00:22:36.720 today because we know how foolish we can be and that we ask for wrong things sometimes and they're 00:22:36.720 --> 00:22:42.639 not good for us. And we would ask our friends to stop praying for us because they're not going to pray 00:22:42.639 --> 00:22:50.440 well either. And if God is merely simply a wish fulfillment for fallen humanity, what a terrible 00:22:50.440 --> 00:23:05.820 thing that would be? If my five-year-old asked me for a flamethrower because it's cool, what father 00:23:05.820 --> 00:23:15.160 would give him that? Maybe a squirt gun, but not a flamethrower. God knows better than we 00:23:15.160 --> 00:23:23.060 what is good for us. And so, as Tim Keller puts it in another place, God will either give us what we 00:23:23.060 --> 00:23:29.519 ask or give us what we would have asked if we know everything that He knows. 00:23:34.160 --> 00:23:43.740 We may not fully understand how God will respond, but do you see what R.T. France is saying here, 00:23:43.740 --> 00:23:51.420 that we're meant to go to God in freedom because we go to one who is smarter than us, who is wiser than 00:23:51.420 --> 00:23:59.160 us, who is more pure in His heart and motives than us, who knows what is good better than we do. And so, 00:23:59.240 --> 00:24:04.579 we can ask Him for the world and He will give us everything that is good for us to have. 00:24:04.579 --> 00:24:16.619 He's a good Father. And when He responds to our prayers, maybe not the way we want it to, 00:24:17.319 --> 00:24:21.579 we can still look at it and say, this is not a stone. 00:24:21.579 --> 00:24:31.639 This leads us to the second barrier. And that is, there's not only an intellectual barrier, 00:24:31.939 --> 00:24:38.179 but there's an emotional barrier to believing that God responds to our prayers by giving good gifts. 00:24:38.180 --> 00:24:49.039 We're not sure that He cares to respond to our prayers in giving us good things. We are worn down 00:24:49.039 --> 00:24:57.019 by life in a fallen world where He doesn't fix everything that we think He ought to fix. 00:24:57.019 --> 00:25:11.160 And so, we stop praying. We don't know if He cares about our residency immigration application 00:25:11.160 --> 00:25:20.960 to a very fallen and broken bureaucracy. We don't know if He cares about helping us in the face of 00:25:20.960 --> 00:25:26.900 chronic pain or financial difficulty. We don't know if He cares that we run into a traffic jam. 00:25:27.019 --> 00:25:34.500 And are late to our job interview. We don't know if He cares when we keep falling into that habitual 00:25:34.500 --> 00:25:44.400 sin again, again, and we've prayed for it to stop. We don't know if He cares when wars continue 00:25:44.400 --> 00:25:54.660 to ravage the world that we live in, where discrimination continues to reside in and express itself 00:25:54.660 --> 00:26:03.340 in societies throughout the world. We don't know if He cares when our marriage feels so barren and so 00:26:03.340 --> 00:26:14.160 broken. And we've been praying for restoration for so long. And often we don't care, we don't think He cares 00:26:14.160 --> 00:26:23.759 about little things like a lost contact lens on a camping trip. Our own experience of trials and of 00:26:23.759 --> 00:26:32.019 suffering and of loss accumulate. And we pray, but it feels like God isn't responding. 00:26:32.019 --> 00:26:44.460 And we know it's good to pray about these things. And we know that God can do things. Look at Jesus in 00:26:44.460 --> 00:26:50.500 the gospel, right? He heals the leper. He gives sight to the blind. He raises the dead. He forgives and 00:26:50.500 --> 00:27:03.079 embraces sinners, cast out by everyone else. But He doesn't always give us what we want. He doesn't always fix 00:27:03.079 --> 00:27:12.460 those things. I'm so encouraged as I try to navigate these dynamics of the chapter 11 of the book of Hebrews. 00:27:12.460 --> 00:27:19.240 You know, this is the great chapter of faith. These are the great saints of the old. You can go back and 00:27:19.240 --> 00:27:29.240 read it later where Abraham and David and Joseph and on and on and on. All these people, they believed God. 00:27:29.840 --> 00:27:38.579 And God answered them and did miraculous things to continue His work in the world and to bless them 00:27:38.579 --> 00:27:45.500 with good things. But if you've read through to the end of the chapter, you remember there's a turning 00:27:45.500 --> 00:27:50.879 point in verse 35. And in fact, it's one of the most comforting parts of the Bible for me. 00:27:52.220 --> 00:27:59.980 Because I realize the Bible talks about our real experience. There is a God who parts waters 00:27:59.980 --> 00:28:07.819 and makes dry land in the middle of the Red Sea. There is a God who produces food for 5,000 people out of 00:28:07.819 --> 00:28:14.059 nowhere. But it is also true. And I'm going to read Hebrews, the end of Hebrews 11 for you. 00:28:16.139 --> 00:28:20.379 All these lived in faith and saw God do great things. But then He goes on and says, 00:28:20.460 --> 00:28:25.980 some were tortured, refusing to accept relief so that they might rise again to a better life. 00:28:26.379 --> 00:28:31.980 Others suffered mocking and flogging and even chains and imprisonment. They were stoned. They were sawn in 00:28:31.980 --> 00:28:37.700 two. They were killed with a sword. They went about in skins of sheep and goats, 00:28:37.700 --> 00:28:46.420 destitute, afflicted, and mistreated, those of whom the world was not worthy, wandering about in 00:28:46.420 --> 00:28:51.799 deserts and in mountains and in dens and caves on the earth. And all these, though commended through 00:28:51.799 --> 00:28:58.519 their faith, did not receive what was promised, since God had provided something better for us, 00:28:58.519 --> 00:29:02.680 that apart from us, they should not be made perfect. 00:29:07.000 --> 00:29:14.420 So the Bible tells us that God is not a genie who waves His magic wand to make everything better. 00:29:15.259 --> 00:29:23.019 The Bible is consistent in saying that God sovereignly allows difficulty, trial, opposition 00:29:23.019 --> 00:29:30.480 in our lives. In fact, He says suffering is a normal part of life and that suffering is part of His 00:29:30.480 --> 00:29:37.759 goodness to us on a global sense because it is producing something better in us. And this is what 00:29:37.759 --> 00:29:45.900 we see in Hebrews. Those Old Testament saints didn't see the promised land because the promise was yet to 00:29:45.900 --> 00:29:58.240 come. Many of us in this room have experienced difficult things, and we've prayed, and we've thought, 00:29:58.340 --> 00:30:07.360 God, why don't You respond? Why don't You fix these things? And the accumulation of disappointment, 00:30:07.360 --> 00:30:15.720 of pain, of loss, of suffering, of grief, it swallows up our prayer lives, doesn't it? 00:30:16.759 --> 00:30:18.800 And it makes us want to not pray. 00:30:22.259 --> 00:30:24.840 This is where God's challenged me in this passage. 00:30:27.500 --> 00:30:34.680 As I sat and watched my first wife battle cancer, finally succumb to it, we prayed, we trusted, we 00:30:34.680 --> 00:30:41.660 believed, we hoped. We knew that healing would come either in this life or in the next, and we treasured 00:30:41.660 --> 00:30:45.300 the hope of eternal life together. And when she died, I did not curse God. 00:30:45.900 --> 00:30:53.600 Or stopped believing in Him. But I have seen my prayer life suffer, and the Holy Spirit has shown me that 00:30:53.600 --> 00:31:04.740 this week. My trust in God has been dulled. It's easy for me to become more resigned than hopeful. 00:31:04.740 --> 00:31:13.039 It's hard sometimes for me to believe that God wants to give good gifts. 00:31:15.140 --> 00:31:17.279 And I don't ask for things 00:31:17.279 --> 00:31:22.120 as much as I ought to. 00:31:22.119 --> 00:31:33.419 How do I say with faith, this is not a stone? 00:31:33.420 --> 00:31:45.019 Well, friends, you can pray for me, and I will pray for you. But there's only one answer to this 00:31:45.019 --> 00:31:54.960 question. There's only one place where we can go to know for sure and be renewed and restored in our 00:31:54.960 --> 00:32:10.960 life. And it is in the gospel that we all believe as Christians. It is at the very core of our faith. 00:32:11.660 --> 00:32:14.160 Romans 8 31, Paul says this, 00:32:14.160 --> 00:32:37.360 How can I pray to God? 00:32:37.359 --> 00:32:44.039 Because Jesus came, and He lived, and He died, and He rose again. 00:32:45.039 --> 00:32:51.579 So that I might be saved from my sin. So that I might be brought from darkness to life. 00:32:52.139 --> 00:32:58.339 So that I might have confidence that He hasn't abandoned this world to its fallenness, but His 00:32:58.339 --> 00:33:05.259 redemptive work is sure and certain, and it is inexorably leading towards a glorious future 00:33:05.259 --> 00:33:11.980 when we will see the fullness of redemption. And right now, the work that He's doing is saving 00:33:11.980 --> 00:33:16.539 more and more people through this very message of the gospel. 00:33:20.240 --> 00:33:27.859 He saved me from sin so that I might have a renewed life, so that I might have a renewed relationship 00:33:27.859 --> 00:33:35.219 with God, so that the sin that had separated me from Him is now taken away because Jesus bore it on the cross. 00:33:35.579 --> 00:33:42.139 And instead, I am reconciled, I am adopted, and I have a heavenly Father who loves me 00:33:42.139 --> 00:33:48.639 and has delivered me and is delivering me and will deliver me. 00:33:48.640 --> 00:33:59.040 When I look at the cross, I can trust. When I look at the cross, I can believe. 00:34:00.620 --> 00:34:08.960 Whatever my circumstances are, whatever your circumstances are, I can look at it and say, 00:34:08.960 --> 00:34:16.960 this is not a stone because I know my heavenly Father would not give me a stone. 00:34:20.059 --> 00:34:29.539 We will suffer. We will face trials. But whatever they are, they are not a stone. 00:34:29.539 --> 00:34:43.239 And they are not a serpent. God gives good gifts to those who ask and seek and knock. 00:34:47.820 --> 00:34:53.960 Remember Ashley and her crisis of prayer? Paul Miller continues and says, 00:34:54.159 --> 00:34:57.820 when I finished praying, we went down to look through the dirt and the twigs. 00:34:57.820 --> 00:35:04.440 And there, sitting on a leaf, was the missing lens. Prayer made a difference after all. 00:35:07.700 --> 00:35:15.039 But what about Kim, their eight-year-old who was developmentally delayed? Though they had prayed 00:35:15.039 --> 00:35:25.059 when she was being born that God would keep her from harm, she was not healed. But God used her. 00:35:27.820 --> 00:35:34.180 God used her to heal their family. Paul writes, Kim saved our family beginning with me. 00:35:35.059 --> 00:35:43.200 God used Kim to wake me up spiritually by redirecting his self-centered life and his self-providing plans 00:35:43.200 --> 00:35:48.800 and instead turning towards ministry, which he did for the rest of his life. 00:35:48.800 --> 00:35:56.640 He writes this, we thought that the harm was a daughter with disabilities. 00:35:58.680 --> 00:36:03.700 But this was nothing compared to the danger of two proud and willful parents. 00:36:04.580 --> 00:36:10.960 Because Kim was mute, Jill and I learned to listen. Her helplessness taught us to become helpless too. 00:36:10.960 --> 00:36:19.099 Kim brought Jesus into our home. We needed Jesus to get from one end of the day to the other. 00:36:19.860 --> 00:36:21.579 We'd asked for a loaf of bread. 00:36:24.260 --> 00:36:29.820 Instead of giving us a stone, our Father had spread a feast for us in the wilderness. 00:36:32.519 --> 00:36:35.679 Kim had her faith placed in Jesus as well. 00:36:35.679 --> 00:36:39.639 And she testifies to his goodness in her life. 00:36:41.519 --> 00:36:45.399 Paul says, thank you, Jesus, for Kim. 00:36:48.419 --> 00:36:52.460 Friends, this is the testimony of one who has seen God 00:36:52.460 --> 00:36:57.319 and who has learned through trials and hardships 00:36:57.319 --> 00:37:00.919 to ask, to seek, to knock. 00:37:00.920 --> 00:37:04.400 Because we have a heavenly Father 00:37:04.400 --> 00:37:07.180 who delights to give good gifts 00:37:07.180 --> 00:37:09.460 to his children. 00:37:09.680 --> 00:37:10.300 Let's pray. 00:37:15.579 --> 00:37:18.400 Lord, we are thankful this morning to you for 00:37:18.400 --> 00:37:27.240 for your steadfast love 00:37:27.240 --> 00:37:28.860 for your children 00:37:28.860 --> 00:37:30.260 that endures forever 00:37:30.260 --> 00:37:34.960 Lord, we confess how little we believe you 00:37:34.960 --> 00:37:40.620 how often, Lord, we don't want to risk trusting you 00:37:40.620 --> 00:37:43.620 how fearful we are 00:37:43.620 --> 00:37:45.660 to go to you in prayer 00:37:45.660 --> 00:37:50.840 Lord, we confess that we don't acknowledge you 00:37:50.840 --> 00:37:52.700 as you have revealed yourself to be 00:37:52.700 --> 00:37:55.700 and we make you small in our hearts 00:37:55.699 --> 00:38:00.399 Lord, how often we live our life 00:38:00.399 --> 00:38:03.559 apart from you 00:38:03.559 --> 00:38:05.500 or as if you weren't involved 00:38:05.500 --> 00:38:10.919 but Lord, we know that life in your kingdom 00:38:10.919 --> 00:38:13.519 is meant to be a life of 00:38:13.519 --> 00:38:16.980 seeking and asking 00:38:16.980 --> 00:38:17.819 and knocking 00:38:17.819 --> 00:38:19.519 and walking with you 00:38:19.519 --> 00:38:23.139 oh Lord, be our help in these things 00:38:23.139 --> 00:38:26.320 we pray in Jesus' name 00:38:26.320 --> 00:38:27.579 Amen