This month we’ve been looking at the Sermon on the Mount in the gospel of Matthew. Everything that Jesus says is good, but the Sermon on the Mount is the “best of the best”. And it’s all together in one place.
So. We’ve been through the Beatitudes. We’ve been through Jesus’ teaching about living by the spirit of the law. We’ve been through the Lord’s Prayer. We’ve heard Jesus talking about trust and anxiety.
We spent a long time listening to what Jesus has to say about judgment, about not judging our fellow human beings. “The measure you give, will be the measure you get. Don’t judge, so that you will not be judged yourself…” That warning is at the heart of what Jesus had to say to his followers.
Today, I want us to move on to the second-to-the-last section of the Sermon on the Mount, where Jesus tells us just how far we can push this life that he’s been talking about. Again, it’s a very famous passage. And again, it’s one we need to listen to, as though we were hearing it for the first time.
Ask, and you will receive. Seek, and you will find. Knock, and the door will be opened for you. Everyone who asks, will receive. Everyone who seeks, will find. And the door will be opened, for everyone who knocks.
Would any of you give your hungry child a stone, if the child asked you for some bread? Or would you give your child a poisonous snake, if the child asked for a fish? As bad as you are, you still know how to give good gifts to your children. But your heavenly Father is even more ready to give good things to people who ask.
Treat others as you want them to treat you. This is what the Law of Moses and the writings of the prophets are all about.
Matthew 7:7-12
Different parts of the Sermon on the Mount move me in different ways. Some parts challenge my faith, other parts challenge me to love more deeply, other parts challenge my intellect.
What Jesus is saying todayis a challenge for us to test the limits of everything he has said to us. He’s saying, “Don’t be afraid to try any of this stuff out. Take it to the top. Push it all the way, right to the floor. Go for the limit…”
That’s what this morning’s reading is saying.
He’s saying, “Ask. Ask for anything. Go ahead!”
He’s saying, “Seek. Look anywhere. Anyplace you like!”
He’s saying, “Knock. Go ahead. Pound on that door! Knock on every door. I’ll be there. Waiting for you.”
That is the essence of what Jesus is saying to his friends. There is nothing we can’t ask for. There is no place we can’t look. There is no door which is closed off to us.
A lot of people feel that Christianity is basically a timid religion. One famous critic said that it was a religion only fit for slaves. Another famous writer said that Christianity was a drug, something used to anesthetize people.
Based on what Jesus says here in the Sermon on the Mount, that that is nonsense. Jesus came to set people free. And Jesus came, as he said one time himself, in order that people might live, and in order that they might live abundantly. (John 10:10)
I think it’s worth going back, and spending some time looking, in detail, at what Jesus is telling us this morning. I think that it’s pretty important.
When Jesus says, “Seek, and you will find…”, that’s an incredible challenge, and it’s an incredible assurance.
Jesus isn’t talking about blind faith here. He’s not telling us to accept anything just because anyone says so. He’s saying, “Go ahead and look. Look at the world. Look within yourself. Look at the universe. Search for God there. Dig deep, as deep as you like…”
When Jesus says, “Seek, and you will find…”, he’s talking about prayer. Prayer is seeking. It’s an exploration. But he’s also talking about every form of search and inquiry and intellectual endeavor.
Jesus doesn’t want people who are too lazy to look, who are to scared to search. Jesus doesn’t want people who have turned off their minds, or stopped asking questions. Jesus dares us to seek for God, to seek for truth, to seek for meaning, and to seek for those things anywhere.
Did you know that one of the earliest names for the Quaker church was the Seekers? The early Quakers called ourselves the Seekers. Sometimes they called themselves the Seekers of Truth, because truth was what they were looking for. If we are Jesus’ friends today, I don’t think that we can really be anything else.
No matter what we’ve already discovered, no matter what we think we already know, we still have to be seekers.
Our church isn’t a place where people have all the answers. We know about a few important things, but we’re still looking. This church welcomes people who ask questions.
And our church tries to comfort people who are struggling with questions which are too big for them. We may not know what to say, in every situation. But our experience is that God is here, at the end of every question.
If you gotten to know me, you know that I’m a seeker. I’m always looking. I’m always talking to people, and I’m listening to them. I’m turning over blades of grass, and watching the stars. I’m always looking at the hills and at the far horizon. I want to know what’s going on, and I’m not afraid to keep asking questions until I find out. I’m a seeker.
Jesus says that if you look for something hard enough, you’ll find it. If you are seeking peace, for example, if you seek peace with all of your heart, you will find it, even if you wind up finding it in the midst of craziness and chaos.
Or if you’re seeking truth, if you seek it sincerely, if you’re willing to set aside your preconceptions and look for the truth, then you will find it.
One of the most famous Quakers of the 1800’s was a woman named Elizabeth Fry. Elizabeth Fry once said, “I give myself this advice: Do not fear truth, let it be ever so contrary to inclination and feeling. Never give up the search after it; and let me take courage, and try from the bottom of my heart to do that which I believe truth dictates. . .” That’s the Quaker way.
Whether the object of your search is to know yourself, or to know God, or to know other people, or to know the natural world, you can go ahead and push for knowledge, and not be afraid of the answers. “Seek, and you will find…”
In the same way, Jesus challenges us: “Ask, and you will receive…”
That’s a challenge, because most of the time, we’re too scared to ask for anything important. We’re too scared to pray.
We’re afraid that if we ask, that we’re going to be disappointed. We’re afraid God’s going to let us down.
And Jesus says, “Go ahead and ask. I dare you. Ask for anything.” One time, Jesus said to his friends, “Whoever puts their trust in me, will also do the same works that I do; and you will do even greater things than I do…If you ask for anything in my name, I will do it…” (John 14:12, 14)
The key to asking is always faith. And as you know, faith doesn’t just mean belief; people who hang around with God are going to see some pretty unbelievable things happen.
Faith means trust. It means trusting God, from the bottom of your heart. It means stepping out of the boat, and taking a few steps toward Jesus.
Faith can change lives. It can let people be healed. It can break down walls. Jesus once said, “…if you had faith the size of a mustard seed, you could say to that mountain over there, `Move!’, and it would move. Nothing is impossible to you…” (Matthew 17:20)
So, go ahead and ask! Ask for whatever you need. Don’t just ask for your daily bread and for clothes on your back or a job. Ask for anything. Jesus said that God wants to give us the kingdom.
I wonder if we’ve ever really thought about what that means. God wants us to ask. God wants to give us, not just the little things; God wants us to inherit the kingdom, the world.
I wonder what it would be like to ask for that. I wonder how many of us have ever prayed, “Lord, I ask you now to please give me the kingdom…” Does that sound ridiculous? But it’s what Jesus told us to expect, when we pray.
I really think that we could afford to open up a little bit, when we pray. I think we can raise our sights a bit more than we do.
We can pray, and trust, not in our own faith, which God knows isn’t all that great. But we can trust in the love and mercy and power of God. And we can go ahead and ask. No limits. That’s what Jesus says we can do.
Just as Friends are basically a seeking church, I would like us also to be an asking church. I want us to ask for a lot more things, all the way up to and including the kingdom.
Maybe the results won’t always be what we expect them to be. God can answer prayers in pretty unexpected ways. But pray for anything — daringly, trustingly. And expect results. “Ask, and you will receive. . .”
And then there’s the third challenge. “Knock, and the door will be opened…”
In some ways, that’s the same thing we’ve been talking about already, phrased in a different way. But it’s worth looking at more carefully, just for a second.
A lot of you probably know the old saying, “Opportunity knocks but once. . .” Have you ever heard that? It means you only get one chance. You’ve got to be awake. If you miss that time, when something good comes along, if you blow it, you won’t get another opportunity.
A lot of people feel that way. And a lot of people think that they’ve already blown their opportunity, they’ve messed up their one big chance, they’ve fumbled the ball forever.
Well, I think what Jesus is saying here is, “You make your own opportunities. Don’t just wait for the right knock to come on the door. You go and knock on doors yourselves.”
That’s a very positive message. “Knock, and the door will be opened. . .”
Sometimes we wait for God to knock on the door. That’s part of what our quiet prayer time is all about. Jesus once said, “Behold, I stand at the door and knock; whoever hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and sit down and eat with them, and they will eat and drink with Me…” (Revelation 3:20)
Sometimes we just need to be quiet for a while, because there’s so much noise in our lives. We’ve got so many distractions and desires that drown out the sound of God knocking.
But every door has two sides. And if God can knock on the door of our heart, then we can knock on our side of that door, too. “Knock, and the door will be opened…”
Prayer goes both ways. We can reach out to God, just the same way God reaches out to us. And if we knock, if we persist, that door will be opened. And there will be so much joy when it happens.
And just as I said that we are a seeking church, and I want us to be an asking church, I also want us to become a door-knocking church.
I want us to start pounding on some doors that we have been neglecting lately. I want us to dare to reach out to God, and dare to reach out to that of God in other people.
All of these challenges — “Ask, seek, knock…” are matched by their promises — “Receive, find, be opened…”
All of them are challenges to go to the limits with our faith. And Jesus says that we will be overwhelmed by God’s response.
But no matter how scared we are, no matter how timid we feel, Jesus tells us to go ahead. Because the love that God has for us is a love much deeper than anything we can ever know. God loves us even more than we love ourselves.
“Ask, and you will receive. Seek, and you will find. Knock, and the door will be opened for you. Everyone who asks, will receive. Everyone who seeks, will find. And the door will be opened, for everyone who knocks. . .”
Jesus said it. May we all believe it.