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Even after turning our lives over to Christ, we can still pray as though God were there to serve our wants and protect our plans. In Matthew 7, Jesus says, “Ask, seek, and knock,” raising a searching question for daily prayer: When we belong to Him, what should we be asking our Father to give?
The following study questions are AI generated and may contain errors.
The preacher distinguishes between asking God for earthly things (like food or possessions) versus heavenly or kingdom things. How do you discern in your own prayer life what qualifies as a “kingdom thing” worth asking for, and what counts as merely an earthly desire?
The sermon uses the illustration of living rent-free in someone else’s house—receiving everything for free but then complaining about the color of the car. How does this image challenge the way you approach God’s provision and your requests to Him?
Jesus said no to His own petition in Gethsemane (“remove this cup from me”), yet trusted the Father’s will instead. Can you think of a time when God said no to your request, and how did that shape your understanding of His faithfulness and love?
The preacher emphasizes that as Christians we have “died to ourselves” and should no longer seek what pleases us, but what pleases God. What does that death to self look like practically in daily decisions—work, relationships, entertainment, and finances?
What earthly desire or temptation most often distracts you from seeking God’s kingdom first, and how can fellow believers come alongside you to help you stay focused on Christ?
This transcript has been automatically generated and may contain errors.
(soft piano music) - Hey, welcome in and my am on, do you like? I’m singing, here we go, here we go. We love this, I love this too, technology. It was the end that we’re small, but you know, we gotta record, we got our friends online that like watching us, and people like watching us afterwards. But this is always a privilege, like I say, every time that Tim lets me come, and then we have new people to come too, so I don’t know what it has to do in common, but it’s always nice to be able to preach God’s word, to teach God’s word, and to learn as I present this to you. So we’re both in the room together, I’m just the one that has to do all the talking. So today, we’ve been, you know, this past week, we’ve been doing the blueprint of the church. We’ve been going through the end of the Sermon to the Mount, and if you’re familiar with that, we’re coming up to a very familiar passage, and this passage, as I’m gonna read it here in Matthew, and I didn’t get my clicker. You can click for me, there we go. It’s Matthew 7, 7-11, almost remind me of the 7-11s. There we go, thanks, all right. I am learning something new today, I’m gonna learn how to click myself away. So there we go, Matthew 7, 7-11, you can read along with me, and it says, “Ask and will be given to you, seek and you’ll find, “knock and will be open to you. “Ask and will be given to you, and the one who seeks, find, “and the one who knocks will be open. “Are which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, “will give him a stone, or if he asks him for fish, “will you give him a serpent? “If he’s in, who are evil, how would you give?” Whoops, I didn’t watch that part, didn’t I? Sorry, guys, see, we’re all learning. This is what I call the second string. “Are one of you asked for a fish?” Where am I at? I really, there we go, thank you. Yes, if you, then, are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more would your father, who is in heaven, would give, how in heaven would give things to those who you ask of him? Sorry, but anyway, so, that’s the verse, I’ll get through this. It’s a nice among family, you know? So, anyway, so the introduction. This part of the sermon, as you all know, a lot of people build their whole churches around,
Ask and God will give. Just ask. We’re going to learn the difference between what He really means in this part about asking and receiving and knocking.
A lot of people use it as a genie bottle, like “Let me get the scripture of the Lord. I’m going to open up the scripture, ask for this and that.” I don’t think that’s what He’s talking about. This part of the sermon is about the Sermon on the Mount, and it’s talking about praying every day but being in complete communication with our Father consciously. We are in complete communication with ourselves, but as Christians, we have died to ourselves and should be living for Christ.
So, you know how you say, “Hey, I want to drink water”? It’s not, “Oh gosh, I drink now,” but it’s kind of that similarity. Our focus is not on ourselves because, as I said, we gave that up. We turned our lives over to Christ. We have faith in Him and not in ourselves. When we start having faith in ourselves, where does that get us? It always gets me into trouble. It always takes me down a path I shouldn’t be because I’m thinking, “What does Jim want to do?” Remember, we gave up our lifestyles, and now we live for someone else.
Also, this is an example: let’s say I gave up my lifestyle and we’re going to move in with someone else. They’re going to feed me, give me a car, give me a house, take care of everything. All I have to do is abide by the rules. But what if I don’t like the color of the car? “Hey, I don’t like the color of your car. I’m just going to change the red to blue, and I’ll get in trouble later and ask for forgiveness.” Sometimes we walk around like that. You know, “I’m living in this house. It’s all free. I can do whatever I want. It’s been paid for. All my debts are paid. I don’t have to worry about anything.” But I keep on asking for food and this and that, like fried chicken, fried fish, cookies, cake, and all that stuff, which for some people is not very good.
Hey, you know, I’m getting everything, but the guy goes, “Here, take the car, go to work,” but I want a little bit of backup to cover for everything. “Okay, I guess I’ll give what I think I can afford. I’m going to give this, look at this, this—a hundred, no— a thousand dollars. I think you’ll do fine with my five bucks instead of what He has. He has to just give some back to me because I gave you everything.” Basically, that’s what this is talking about: as we die to ourselves for Christ, it’s all His, no matter what. So why are we asking for other material things and not things from heaven or kingdom-bound?
As a church grows, the church is asking, “How can we serve Christ? How can we be that light upon this hill?” So, I’m going to pray, and we’ll get going. Let’s bow as we pray.
Dearly Father, help me communicate Your message to Your people. Lord Jesus, I ask You. I’ve been asking all week what message You want me to prepare, and You gave it to me this morning. I look for Your prayer; I look for You. Everything I give is always focused on You, finding things that consort with the Lord. Lord, may You bless the preaching of Your Word today. Amen.
Alright, so the first part is—did I get that right?—how do we ask God? That’s, you know, like, “Okay, I should know this.” Excuse me. The first part of that, the mandate, is asking to be given to you as it should be given to you. We need to humble ourselves that God has great plans for us even though we may not see it. “Why does He always have me up here?” Maybe He has plans for me.
The process is we learn, we grow, and we repeat—just like the young girls learning how to lead worship. Things happen, and you learn from other people. That’s how we do our Christian walk. It’s always good to have other brothers and sisters come alongside and lead us, not just saying, “Hey, you messed up. You’re out of here.” No, we understand God. We understand that He wants His people to grow in His kingdom, that we may worship Him, just like our worship service. We realize we’re sinners. Remember the time we have to confess our sins and all that, and we worship God? Our songs sing about Him, not about ourselves. So, our motives change from looking at oneself to looking at what God desires for us.
Solomon asked back in 1 Kings 3, he asked for wisdom as a servant, and God granted it to him. So let’s look at John 16:24. It says, “Until now you have asked nothing in my name. Ask and you will receive, so that your joy may be filled.” Well, I asked for some fried chicken. I asked for a juicy hamburger, and that would be joyful. Some chocolate would be joyful, but is that good for my body? I have a possibility of having high cholesterol.
So, “Hey God, I’m asking, but You’re not going to do it because I’m asking for earthly things.” God would say no. What am I asking, Lord? “Who can I go to today and spread Your word? Who can I ask, Lord?” How can I be comfortable enough to say, “Hey, that person needs God and Christ?” That’s asking for heavenly and righteous things. Righteous things are not a juicy hamburger, chocolate, or fried chicken.
I know we haven’t eaten yet, so we need this. I apologize. I found this good answer to God’s questions in a resource I love going to. I think it gives a good insight on this part. It says, “Our prayers to God are unlike our requests to men. Our prayers are based on the request of the Father. When He asks His Father for something that is harmful, the request is denied. The child must be frustrated and unhappy when he does not get what he wants, but he should trust his Father.
Conversely, when the child asks for something that he knows is beneficial, the Father will provide it equally because He loves the child.” So, what is beneficial for me to ask—fried chicken or things like a healthy body? Is it beneficial for us to do something that gives a bad example? So anyway, let’s go on.
Just because we ask Jesus in Jesus’s name doesn’t mean that we’re going to get it. Jesus doesn’t promise anything and everything you desire. You might be thinking, “But, but, but, hey, you know, let’s play a little scripture game.” John 14:14 says, “And He said, ‘I have a Father. All things are possible for You. Remove this cup from Me.’”
I didn’t mean to run it that way. Whoops, I skipped that. That’s alright. Jesus said, “I have a Father. All things are possible for You. Remove this cup from Me.” You know what? Can you imagine if God said, “Okay, yeah, I think taking that cup in Gethsemane was a little too much, and maybe I’ll find someone else to do it”? That would be horrible, wouldn’t it?
Sometimes things in life may be hard for us, and we don’t understand why God says no because we want it so badly. But yet, “I’m going to do it because, Lord.” We may be afraid just to show people that we are Christians, but God will supply and help us through that.
God knows what is good for us, and it’s faithful and loving to say no to our request. Just like I’m learning how not to overeat a lot because I love food, I’m learning to say, “God says no; I supplied you with just this one little plate, and be happy with that one plate.” I’ve been doing well.
So remember, the disciple is asking. This is pretty… This goes— I kept thinking when reading this. I kept thinking of this verse and prayer we’re all familiar with—the Lord’s Prayer. Matthew 6:9-13—I didn’t put that in there because we all know it.
“Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil.”
You think of that model prayer; it’s all asking for heavenly things and asking for kingdom things. You can summarize it in your own words. Remember, you’re praying to your heavenly Father who is holy. I’ve had times I took it—I think there was one time I remember preaching that I changed it around.
When we think of who Christ is and who we’re praying to and asking for, we want to ask for heavenly things, not for, like, “Hey, I really want those new pair of Nike shoes,” or “Those really cool glasses,” or “Hey Lord, I really, really, really want this cool-looking bike.”
Next is—next part is seeking His kingdom things. Seek and you will find. That’s the next part: what are we seeking and finding? We’re not finding things that we need, but finding things God wants us to use us for.
I believe this is part of the growing process of our prayer life: it is seeking the will of God for you and His purpose. We are seeking His face and His favor to be shown to all of us. Pray for His will to be done in your life and not in the world.
You don’t want to look at, “What can the world like me? How would the world like me?” No, not your will, but God’s will be done. So God’s will will be done, not my own will.
What do I want to do? I want to be this famous preacher and pronounce all my words properly. It never really happens; I accept it. For some reason, God made me this way, and I’m not afraid of God.
Just like the story—sorry, the seeking earthly things. And once I have… Well, I don’t know why I wrote that in there, but our desire should be like, “I desire to eat that juicy cheeseburger.” Remember that juicy cheeseburger? I may have the desire to eat that, but it’s not what God wants from me.
God wants me to be healthy so that we can go out in the world and be healthy and be able to minister to people.
Maybe you’re not feeling it now. Maybe you don’t want to go out and do that. Maybe there’s a lot of things holding you down. Is there still sin heavy on your heart? Some anxiety? Some grief? Disappointment?
Maybe there’s something during our service that we try to reflect on—maybe a sin issue or something we haven’t given to God.
That’s what I love about our partner church, that middle part. I never experienced that before, where in the middle of the service there’s an assurance of conviction—not conviction that’s an apology—confession of sin and then our assurance of salvation because we forget that. We are still sinners and need to ask God for forgiveness.
Psalm 37:4 says, “Delight yourself in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart.” Then that desire in your heart should be doing the will of God, not what’s pleasing to you.
When we’re doing the will of God, then God will take care of everything because He already said, “I’ll give you everything.” Why are we worried about anything?
So next is, who’s knocking at the door? Or what door to knock on?
In the last part, it says, “Knock and it’ll be opened.” You know, it says, “Well, I’m knocking; who’s answering? Knock, knock, knock.” Are you knocking on the door with a bunch of words? Okay, but I think you get the point.
Are you knocking at Buddha’s door? Gandhi? Muhammad’s door? Jimi Hendrix’s door? Janis Joplin’s door? Miley Cyrus’s door? Did I say it wrong? Cyrus? Thank you. Are you knocking at Britney Spears’s door? Hilary Duff? Bob Dylan?
Come on, a lot of times we get this: are you knocking at your best friend’s door, hoping to get wisdom and effort from the neighbor next door? If you think about it, you’re forgetting something.
Are we knocking at the door of famous people, wishing to be like them? “I want to be like that person. I want to be like that person,” forgetting who we are really supposed to be like and who we died to.
Sometimes I look at biblical scholars and preachers who can do everything smoothly, and I think, “I’m going to be like that.” Then I realize God wants me this way for a reason, so I’m going to keep doing it.
Of course, I’m going to try to improve and all that, but how about godly men who can quote scripture off the top of their heads? I was mentioning something, and somebody goes, “Oh, that’s like 1 Corinthians…” I never thought about that.
Or people who can pick up any instrument and play perfectly, never missing a beat, got the right count. How do they do it? But we shouldn’t desire to be like them because God made us a certain way.
I’m not saying there’s no reason to improve. How about people who can pick up anything and play it perfectly, got the pitch, rhythm, and key right? I don’t understand keys because I’m not a locksmith, but I just keep going.
How about people who can take $10 and turn it into $100,000? Like, how do you do that? But a lot of that’s earthly things.
What about in the church and our own lives—seeking kingdom things? Do we look at how can I bring people into church, or bring people to know Christ? That should be our main focus.
God takes care of the earthly things. He says, “I’m going to supply all your needs.” Look what He did with the Israelites and manna. He supplied all their needs.
I know things take practice and time. They always do, but you have to keep asking, keep knocking, and keep seeking and repeating—keep asking, seeking, and knocking.
I know some of my desires may take me away from my trust in God. I would love to pick up an instrument and play. I would love to be able to sing all kinds of songs. But I believe if I start doing that, my desires will be, “Look how well I can do this. Look how well I can sing. Look how well I can make money.”
It’d be like, “Look, look, look.” I’m being content with what God gave me. That’s what we should be content with. If someone has the talent to do it, let them use it and praise God with it.
Some people are good at cleaning and organizing, putting up curtains so when the sun shines in, they can close them. That’s their talent. That’s what we do as the body of the church here.
It’s a good thing. Revelation 3 came to my mind. It says, “Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and dine with him and he with me.”
So it’s saying, who’s knocking at your door? Do you have the roar knocking, or is it Jesus knocking?
David Evans sings a song that popped in my mind: “I hear you knock, but you can’t come in.”
So, there’s a sentence in there: “I hear you knocking, but you can’t come in. I told you way back in ‘52, I never want you back in again.” How’s that?
Maybe we need to listen to Satan when he’s coming knocking at your door with all kinds of stuff he’s struggling with: anxiety, strife, stress, food, the bottle, drugs. He’s knocking at the door, saying, “Come on, I know you were tempted with this before. Let me tempt you again.”
So I was just thinking, we’re all probably believers here. You can say that louder to yourself. I’m going to repeat mine: “I hear you knocking, but you can’t come in. I told you way back in ‘74 when I got saved, I’ll never go back to you again.”
Here we go, one, two, three: “I hear you knocking, but you can’t come in. I told you way back in ‘74, you’ll never be back again.” Amen, amen. There you go.
So when you see temptation come along, remember that. Maybe you can follow with a Bible verse afterward.
He’s going to knock at your door because he wants to keep doing it. He wants to keep tempting.
Second Peter 1:3-4 says this. It’s a powerful verse, and I love it. I wish I could do all of it.
I know Pastor Tim preached on it a while ago; maybe you can find it in our archives.
It says, “His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness through the knowledge of Him who called us to His own glory and excellence, by which He has granted to us His precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption in the world caused by sinful desires.”
Think of that. His divine power. We have everything. God has granted us everything. Why don’t we use everything God granted us? Why are we worried about not having it?
He gave you power over everything, and we have to learn how to use that power—not for our benefit, but for the kingdom of God.
If I want to be that witness, the person that others need to follow and encourage younger people, I have to stand up too.
We all know each other’s struggles, and that’s how we can pull each other along.
If God granted us everything, what more do we need to ask for? And why? But to do His will and accept His will for us.
If I’m up here and Tim gives me an opportunity to do this, I love talking—if He had to know me better.
As we look at this blueprint for a godly church, that’s been our theme: we should be aiming to do the will of the Father, not the will of the world.
What does the world want this church to look like? “Be friendly and let everybody in.”
We should only worship and lift up God above all, and no one else above God.
I even went over this with Pastor Tim: We should preach and teach the gospel of the Word and not the gospel of mankind.
We should not look at others’ sinfulness but our own. Remember the little needle in the eye and the log? We’re sinful enough. Let’s not worry about someone else’s sin unless they come to us for help, then we’re going to help them. But I’m going to worry about Jim.
We should realize it’s not easy to follow Christ. We must take up our cross and follow Him. We must have others help us do that because we can’t do it on our own. It’s not a one-man show.
The Scriptures say, “Don’t forsake the assembly of believers,” just like our online people. We communicate with them as much as we can, just like you guys—with the prayer line and everything.
It’s very well communication because the world and Satan don’t want you to love Christ. He wants you to go back and be destructive to your own soul so that you can spend eternity in hell, in darkness and loneliness.
Some people may think, “Oh, I wouldn’t mind being lonely,” but not me. Who wants that? Sure, we have friends and relatives, and we need to pray to be good and close to them. That’s why we have each other to build one another up.
That’s why we have Sunday school afterwards to help build people up and nurture them in the Word of God because it’s easy to fall away into self-centered ways.
Once we stop going with the church, it’s easy to fall into our own habits where we don’t have a structure.
Jesus referenced this verse in Isaiah 56:7, the Song of the Syrians, when He was saying, “My house should be called a house of prayer.”
That verse speaks to people going to the temple where burnt offerings and sacrifices were accepted, and it was the way for them to commune with the holy God.
Now, we have a priest, Jesus. His blood is the sacrifice for our sins, and He provides a way to commune with the holy God who is our Father in heaven.
So if our body is the temple of God, where the Holy Spirit dwells, we are not our own anymore.
Just like that house wasn’t mine; I just dwelled there. Christ dwells in us. We were bought with a price—bought with the price of His Son dying on the cross.
So by asking, seeking, knocking, and repeating, we eventually find God’s answer to our problems—not what we think at the moment might be the right answer to our problems.
You know, “Yeah, I’m hungry, and I want this juicy hamburger. I want that candy now. Or I want a little bit of smoked weed or some liquor because that relaxes me.”
No, we shouldn’t want that. We should be seeking God.
Would you bring that stuff into God’s presence? If God’s not living in your body—and your body’s the temple of God—where would you take God’s temple? You wouldn’t take Him to some places.
That crosses my mind a lot—I’m like, “Oh man, what am I doing here?”
So by counting and doing this as a church and believer, we see our relationship with God becomes closer and closer as we walk.
The more we attend, the more we become with people.
By taking a moment, this affects our daily walk with Him.
That’s why we constantly, constantly—like how you talk to yourself.
“I’m kind of hungry. I can’t wait till I go home.”
So you eventually say to yourself, “Talk to God about it. God, I shouldn’t be doing this.”
Ask, seek, and repeat.
I had repeats of mine. I just thought, keep going because this doesn’t happen once.
So let’s just take a moment. I’m going to do something new. Pastor Tim said this was okay.
There’s another church that does this; I thought it was pretty good.
Let’s just take a moment and reflect for like a minute.
Close your eyes, bow your head, and think what God has said to you tonight.
Then I’m going to end in a word of prayer.
Holy Father, how great is Your name above all creation.
Direct my mind by Your Word.
Help us not to trip over ourselves.
Fix our eyes on You, Lord.
May our eyes always be fixed on You wherever I go.
And we’ll always have Your heart’s desire for the glory of my life. Amen.
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