Asking, Seeking, and Knocking
102 years ago, the Wright brothers invented the first airplane. But it was only nineteen years ago that a man named Paul MacCready invented the first human-powered airplane—that is an airplane propelled solely by manpower. It was called the Gossamer Condor.
It was a fragile plastic and aluminum contraption enclosing a bicycle frame on which a rider would supply the energy needed to turn the propeller. In 1976 the Gossamer Condor became the first human powered aircraft to fly one mile. Paul MacCready won a prize of $100,000 for doing that.
But he wasn’t finished there, because next he set his sights on a prize of $250,000 for building the first human powered aircraft to fly across the English Channel.
He modified the design of the Condor and he called it the Gossamer Albatross. In June 1979, the Albatross took off from the shores of England headed for France. Inside was Bryan Allen, a professional bicycle racer.
The fragile airplane struggled against headwinds and several times it came very close to falling into the water. Finally, 2 hours and 49 minutes after taking off, and in a state of total exhaustion, Bryan Allen guided the Albatross to a gentle landing just beyond the water’s edge on the coast of France.
He had flown across the English Channel on manpower alone. That was an amazing accomplishment for a human powered airplane. But no one in his right mind would suggest that the Albatross was ready to cross the Atlantic. A human being just cannot supply the needed power to do that.
In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus makes a similar comparison. The difference between God’s righteousness and man’s righteousness is the same as the difference between a Boeing 747 with 400 people going 500 mph at 35,000 ft. altitude across the Atlantic, and the Gossamer Albatross with one man struggling to cross the English Channel at 11 mph just barely skimming the tops of the waves.
The best that we can do in our own power falls infinitely short of the standard of righteousness we need to achieve to be acceptable to God. So if that’s the case, then we’ve got a problem. How can we get to the place where we’ll be pleasing to God if we can’t get there ourselves?
Well, Jesus preached this whole Sermon in order to answer that question. Let’s do a little review. Let’s go back to the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount and see if we can’t follow Jesus’ line of reasoning up to where we are today.
Jesus starts out by saying that if you want to have a happy life, if you want to be blessed by God, if you want to be part of what God is doing, a citizen of his kingdom—then you’ve got to start with a paradox.
You know what a paradox is? A paradox is something that is true even though it seems to be a contradiction of what you think is true.
Jesus starts off by giving us eight paradoxes. We call them the Beatitudes. He says…
1. If you want to be truly rich, you’ve got to become poor—poor in spirit.
2. If you want to be really happy, you’ve got to mourn
3. If you want to get everything you’ve got coming to you, you’ve got to let everyone else go first—you’ve got to be meek.
4. If you want to have a full, happy, satisfied life, you get it by starving
…and so on. Paradoxes. In using those paradoxes, Jesus shows us that God’s standards are totally different from ours. We think we know how to live life—how to be happy, how to be fulfilled—but we really don’t have a clue.
God has a better way for us to live. But in order to live it, we have to come to the place where we’re ready to admit that our way was wrong all along. We’ve been on the wrong track.
And Jesus says if you get to that place, then you’re ready to be a kingdom person. You’re ready to be a person who is plugged in to what God is doing in this world. You become tuned into His wavelength. And when that happens, your life begins makes an impact in two ways:
1. You become salt. Your life makes other people thirsty for God.
2. You become light. You light up your little corner of this dark world. You help other people to see the truth for themselves.
Now at this point, Jesus anticipates a question. He knows that the people who are listening to him are hearing what he’s saying, but they’re filtering it through their grid. They’re thinking “Okay, Jesus. We think we know what you mean. You want us to become “religious” like the Pharisees, right? I mean, they are trying real hard to be good. They’re trying real hard to keep the Law, which represents God’s standard of righteousness. So that’s what you want us to do, isn’t it? That’s the way we’re going to become right in God’s eyes.”
And Jesus says: “No. And it’s not because there’s anything wrong with the Law. I didn’t come to abolish the Law. I came to fulfill it. No, there’s nothing wrong with the Law—there’s something wrong with you.”
Let’s go back to the Gossamer Albatross for a minute. The Gossamer Albatross flew by using the same laws of aerodynamics that a Boeing 747 uses to fly across the Atlantic. But the Gossamer Albatross just barely staggered for 20 miles, whereas a 747 can cruise for 6,000 miles non-stop.
The problem is not with the laws of aerodynamics; the problem is with the application of them. The Gossamer Albatross did not have the power necessary to be able to take advantage of those laws. Its power was human power only. It needed something more.
Jesus said “I don’t want you to become like the Pharisees, because their righteousness is just man-powered righteousness, and you sure can’t go far on that. In Matthew 5:20, Jesus says:
For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven.
And then he gives us a whole series of examples of what this surpassing righteousness will look like when you apply it in everyday life:
1. Instead of being angry, you’ll seek reconciliation
2. Instead of lusting, you’ll develop inner purity
3. Instead of being dishonest, you’ll be trustworthy—a person of integrity
4. Instead of retaliating when people do you wrong, you’ll forgive them
5. Instead of hating your enemies, you’ll love them
That’s what God-powered righteousness can do, but what man-powered righteousness can never reach.
Now Jesus anticipates what his disciples are thinking at this point. They’re thinking “Wow, if I do those things—if I live like that— people will think very highly of me, won’t they? They’ll come to really appreciate my spirituality. I’ll be a real saint in their eyes!
And Jesus says “Wait a second. You have to forget about caring what other people think. True righteousness is not a public relations campaign. That’s not what this is about.”
Your pride can trick you if you let it. You can start doing the right things for the wrong reasons. You can start playing to the grandstand in your spiritual life. And if you do that, people may applaud. People may throw you bouquets. But that’s all the reward you’ll ever get.
The righteousness of a kingdom person isn’t showy. He isn’t out to impress people:
1. When a kingdom person gives, he does it privately, without fanfare
2. When a kingdom person prays, he does it secretly for God to hear, not men
• and he prays about God’s priorities, not his own (That’s why Jesus gave them the Lord’s prayer: to show them how to pray, and what they should be praying for)
3. When a kingdom person fasts, he does it discretely—he doesn’t let everybody know he’s fasting so that they’ll think highly of him.
No, a kingdom person has his head and his heart focused on God. He has a heavenly perspective. And because he does, he begins to see this life in terms of the life to come.
1. So he doesn’t lay up his treasure on earth but in heaven
2. He doesn’t worry about his life needs; he simply trusts his heavenly father to provide
3. He doesn’t go around judging others because he knows that judging is something that is best left to God.
And that brings us right up to where we are today in Matthew 7:7. The people who are listening to Jesus on the side of this hillside in Galilee are saying: “OK, so how do I get this kind of righteousness? How can I become this kind of person?
“You’ve told us what a kingdom person looks like, what a kingdom person believes, how a kingdom person thinks, but I want to know how I can become one. How can I become right in the sight of God? How can I have this kind of righteousness you’re talking about?”
And Jesus says “It’s simple. Three letters: A-S-K—Ask, Seek, and Knock.”
It is very important to understand this statement in its context in the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus gives us this teaching about asking and seeking and knocking in light of the fact that kingdom righteousness is impossible for us to obtain on our own. We need God to give it to us because we can’t get it for ourselves.
In fact, the Bible says that “All our righteousness—our human-powered righteousness—is as filthy rags in God’s sight.” It doesn’t amount to anything.
What’s the highest mountain in the world? Mount Everest. Not too many people have ever climbed Mount Everest. The first man to do it was Sir Edmund Hillary and he did it in 1953.
If a man climbs Mount Everest, we think that he is something special. Through gruelling effort, sacrifice, and discipline, he manages to reach the highest point on earth.
But what is climbing Mount Everest compared to going to the moon? It’s nothing. It doesn’t even begin to come close. In the same way, the highest that our human righteousness can take us is nothing compared to where God wants us to be.
So how do we get there? A-S-K. Ask, Seek, and Knock.
When Jesus talks about asking and seeking and knocking here, he’s not talking about praying that you’ll get good grades in school, or praying that you’ll receive that promotion at work you’ve been hoping for. He’s not talking about asking God to heal your Aunt Matilda who’s dying of cancer.
No, he’s talking about asking and seeking and knocking on God’s door for the kind of righteousness that he’s just described to us. Those other things, as important as they are, pale into insignificance compared with the issue of whether we are the kind of people God wants us to be. That’s what the Sermon on the Mount is all about.
Jesus says “If you’ve caught a glimpse of what it really means to be righteous, and if you want that—if you aspire to be that kind of person with all your heart and soul and mind—then ask God to make you that kind of person, and He will.”
When Jesus said Ask, Seek, Knock, he was using a form of imperative in the Greek language called the present imperative. The real force of it is “Keep on asking, keep on seeking, keep on knocking.”
In other words, this isn’t a flash in the pan. It isn’t a passing whim. It isn’t where one day you get out of bed and decide “Boy, I really would like God to make me righteous today.” No, this is a constant desire, a growing desire, an all-consuming desire—an obsession, if you will—to be pleasing to God.
And Jesus says if you pray that way, if you pray for God to make you righteous, you can pray with confidence. Because that—above every other thing in this world—is what God wants for you.
When you keep on asking for it, you will receive it. When you keep on seeking it, you will find it. When you keep on knocking on the doorway of righteousness, the door will be opened for you. When you come to God—poor in spirit, seeking His face and hungering and thirsting for Him to have His way in your life—then you’re right where God wants you to be.
Proverbs 8:17 I love those who love me, and those who seek me find me.
The first key in praying with confidence is to pray for what God wants you to be praying for.
The second key is to pray with persistence and don’t give up. Keep on asking for righteousness, keep on seeking for righteousness, keep on knocking for righteousness. Back in the Beatitudes, Jesus said “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.”
The third key is to remember that we’re praying to our Father in heaven.
Matthew 7:9-11 “Which of you, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!
This is a very interesting word picture. Jesus says if your child comes to you asking for bread, would you give him a stone? In ancient Palestine, they used to make bread in little round loaves that looked just like the smooth round stones you might find on the seashore.
When Jesus was out in the wilderness, near the Dead Sea, the devil came to him after he had been fasting and said why don’t you turn all these stones into bread. The stones probably already looked like bread—that’s what made the temptation that much more tempting.
Jesus is saying here that you wouldn’t give your child a stone if he asked you for bread, even if that stone actually looked like a loaf of bread. No, you’d give him the real thing.
And then he says suppose your child came to you asking for a fish. Would you give him a snake?
The word for snake can also refer to an eel. Eels were commonly found in the Sea of Galilee. But the Jews wouldn’t eat them, because the OT law said you couldn’t eat a fish that didn’t have scales or fins. So eels were considered to be unclean. An eel was a fish, but it wasn’t the kind of fish that a Jewish person would eat.
Jesus is saying here that if your child came to you asking for a fish, you wouldn’t give him an eel, because he wouldn’t be able to eat it. It wouldn’t do him any good.
Over in Luke chapter 11, there is a parallel account of this teaching, except that Jesus adds one more detail. Jesus says “If your son asks you for an egg, will you give him a scorpion?”
Scorpions live in the land of Israel. They are about 4” long and have claws and a tail. Some of the species in Palestine are pale colored to blend with the sandy soil. In their tail is a stinger which can inflict a very painful sting which can be fatal to children.
Now when scorpions are sleeping, they roll up into a little oval ball that looks at first glance something like an egg, especially with its pale color. Jesus says if your child comes to you asking for an egg, you’re not going to hand him a scorpion, even if that scorpion looks like an egg. You’d never do that. It might kill him.
Jesus says “Look. Even though you are evil, you know how to give good gifts to your children. So how much more true is it that God, our heavenly father, will give good gifts to us when we ask him?
If we pray for righteousness, He’ll give us what we need. He won’t give us something false. Often we ask God for things that we think we need—things that we think will be good for us. But God knows that if he gives them to us, they’ll hurt us. They’ll be bad for us. We’ll break our teeth on them. Or they’ll make us unclean. Or they will sting us and kill us. So he doesn’t give us what we ask for.
That’s the reason for unanswered prayer. If God had given me everything I’d ever asked him for, I would be a very unhappy man today, and quite possibly dead.
We need to learn to ask God for His will for us. To make us righteous people. To change us from the inside out. To take away our sinful attitudes, and our selfishness, our anger, our bitterness, our hatred, and make us into the kind of people he wants us to be. And God will take care of all that other stuff for us.
Seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.
Kingdom people are people who make a difference in this world. If you want to be one, all you have to do is A-S-K.