REVIEW
FLIP CHART: SOM’S KEY VERSE, GOAL, MOTTO
“But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness ….” (Mt. 6:33a).
The law sends us to Christ for justification; Christ sends us back to the law for sanctification.
FLIP CHART: Show new “Perfect Righteousness” chart explaining steps to coming to Christ (As a worm, mourning, meek, spiritual hunger/thirst with the result of legal righteousness). Explain: moral righteousness, immediate moral change at conversion, gradual change through life’s challenges and speeding up moral change via CCRC (Concentration, Choice, Reflection and Confession/Thanksgiving). Key verse, “By one sacrifice He has made perfect forever those who are being made holy” (Heb. 10:14).
FLIP CHART: John Stott’s outline of SOM.
“Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened.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! So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.” (Matthew 7:7-12)
INTRODUCTION:
QUESTION / FLIP-CHART: Tell the class I am going to mention a noun and they are to write down immediately (only have three seconds) the first adjective that comes to their mind to describe the noun. Then, once they are ready say “God” and give them just three seconds to write. Use my timer….
OUTLINE FOR TODAY:
KEY QUESTIONS ABOUT PRAYER
PRAYER – QUESTIONS, ANSWERS & CONCEPTS
I. Why Should We Pray? (Jesus Prayed, Relationship, Partnership)
II. Why Doesn’t God Answer Every Prayer? (Holy, Won’t Abdicate)
III. Why Does God Delay in Answering prayer?
1. Conflict, Opposition from Satanic Forces
2. He Loves to Hear Our Voice, Fellowship with Us
3. Humble us, The Answer is not Due to Our Merit
4. We’re not Ready to Receive the Mercy We Seek
5. We Must Become More Unified with Object of Our Prayer
6. Must Work in Others First, Many Pieces to the Puzzle.
7. Answer Will Be More Prized, Sweeter When It Comes.
IV. Perseverance in Prayer
1. The Parable of “The Friend at Midnight”
(Shameless Boldness, Perseverance)
2. The A.S.K. Promise of Mt. 7:7-8
(Encouragement, Intensity, Fervency)
V. Fatherhood of God and Prayer
1. Character of God – The Foundation for Prayer
2. God’s Fatherhood – Our Encouragement to Pray
3. Our Father – The Giver of Good Gifts
4. Our Clinching Argument When We Pray
FATHERHOOD OF GOD & PRAYER
I. CHARACTER OF GOD – FOUNDATION FOR PRAYER
A.W. Tozer said that “What comes into your mind when you think about God is the most important thing about you. The history of mankind will probably show that no people have ever risen above its religion, and man’s spiritual history will positively demonstrate that no religion has ever been greater than its idea of God.” (Pursuit of God)
FLIP-CHART: What are those ideas about God that are foremost in our minds? Go over the words on the Flip-Chart.
In Matthew 7:7-11 Jesus basis and grounds the power of prayer in the character of God. The text assumes the sovereignty and omnipotence of God and focuses on the fact that God is omni-benevolent.
QUESTION: Why is God a God we like to pray to? Add any words that work on to the Flip-Chart.
QUESTION: Where do we see the goodness of God specifically emphasized in our text?
“ . . . how much more will your Father . . . “
Dallas Willard wrote, “Only a vivid assurance of God’s greatness and goodness can lay a foundation for the life of prayer.” (The Divine Conspiracy, p. 243)
“If the gods are capricious, as the Greeks believed, then men will come warily and will be on their guard. If the god is vengeful, a man will be fearful. If God is gracious, as Jesus Christ declared the true God to be, then the one who believes in him can come boldly. And he will not fear to ask for good gifts of the One who is declared to be his Father.” (Boice, 234)
ILL: In my devotional book I have listed the various attributes of God that I review every Monday morning when I pray: God is: Omni-present, omniscient, omnipotent, omni-benevolent, consistent, sensitive, dependable, righteous, merciful, just, patient, long-suffering, gentle who loves me personally with a great passion and because He is infinite gives me His full attention when I pray.
All of these attributes of God give us the assurance that God will hear us and John Stott wrote that the assurance that we will be heard by God motivates us to pray.
II. GOD’S FATHERHOOD, OUR ENCOURAGEMENT TO PRAYER
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! (7:9-11)
WHO IS THE PROMISE OF 7:7-11 FOR????
In Luke 11:10 it says, “For everyone who asks receives.”
But it is clear that this promise is not a blank check for the worldly and the selfish.
James Boice writes, “The promises do not concern Buddhists. They do not concern Mohammedans. They do not concern nominal Protestants or nominal Roman Catholics. They are promises only for those in whose hearts God has performed the miracle of the new birth, so that while at one time they were without Christ, were aliens to Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world, they are now seen to be fellow citizens and members of God’s spiritual household (Eph. 2:12, 19). (Boice, 236)
FLIP-CHART OF BEATITUDES: We have seen over the time of our study that the Beatitudes are the way of life for those who have come to the Lord …. Those who have come through the low gate of spiritual poverty (poor in spirit), have mourned, who have been broken, have hungered for righteousness (Mt. 5:3-6).
“Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become the children of God – – children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God” (John 1:12-13).
PRAYER: Have someone offer thanksgiving that our Father has made us to be His sons and daughters!
THE UNIQNESS OF CALLING GOD “FATHER”
“Professor Jeremias has demonstrated the novelty of this teaching of Jesus. He writes that, with the help of his assistants, he has carefully examined ‘the prayer literature of ancient Judah – – a large, rich literature, all too little explored’, but that ‘in no place in this immense literature is this invocation of God as Abba to be found . . . Abba was an everyday word, a homely family word. No Jew would have dared to address God in this manner. Jesus did it always . . . and authorizes his disciples to repeat the word Abba after him.” (Stott, 185)
Martin Lloyd-Jones in the beginning of his commentary on the Sermon on the Mount says that SOM is a picture of children in relationship to their father wending their way through the world.
In the Luke passage (Lk. 11:1-13) you see Jesus using the term in the Disciples Prayer and then immediately he unpacks the impact of being able to use the term “Father” …. first there is the parable of the friend who is reluctant to get out of bed to meet a mid-night request for bread and then the wonderful ask-seek-knock promise followed by a comparison between the kindness of an evil, earthly father and our heavenly Father.
QUESTION: What are some of contrasts between the “sleeping friend” in the parable in Lk. 11:5-8 and our Father?
1) Locks himself in; God is omnipresent, with us always.
2) Busy with others, the children; God is the omni-multi-tasker
3) Has selfish reasons for not responding; Is self-less concerning us.
4) A neighborhood friend; Our Father via the new birth.
5) Reluctant to help; Loves to help, never reluctant
6) Available certain hours; available all hours
7) Unaware of need; Omniscient
8) Sleeps; neither slumbers no sleeps
We must be very careful to never limit our understanding of the fatherhood of God to our own human fathers.
USING THE APPELATION ‘FATHER’ IN PRAYER
It is clear that “Father” was never a throw-away label with Jesus. It was intimate appellation that was used lovingly.
“We must never use the word Father in regard to God cheaply, easily, and sentimentally. God is not an easy-going parent who tolerantly shuts his eyes to all sins and faults and mistakes. This God, whom we can call Father, is the God whom we must still approach with reverence and adoration, and awe and wonder. God is our Father in haven, and in God there is love and holiness combined. (Barclay, 204)
William Barclay writes, “Never call God ‘Father’ lightly, but call him ‘Father’ often.
There is no question that our text, Mt. 7:7-11 really focuses on the value of calling God Father.
I would encourage all of us to training ourselves in our prayer life to call God Father. I often cringe when I hear someone pray, including myself, using the word God in such a light way. We should approach prayer reverently and in awe and sincerity appealing to God as our Father.
CALLING GOD ‘FATHER’ & BOLDNESS IN PRAYER
Jesus’ major argument for boldness in prayer is that our Heavenly Father is so much superior to our good but “evil” earthly fathers … “…how much more will your Father in heaven …” (Mt. 7:11)
You can pray saying, “But you are my Father …, Father, why won’t you help in this, ….Father, would you please help me now ….”
John Piper asks this question, “If God gives us the gift of son-ship, will he not meet the needs of his sons and daughters?” Think of what the Creator of the universe has gone through to bring us into His family … the death of the eternal Son. If He went to that extent to include us in His family, why would he not meet our needs?”
Those attributes about God that I listed in my devotional book are really the attributes of my Father!!!!
ILL: In my devotional book I have listed the various attributes of God that I review every Monday morning when I pray: God is: Omni-present, omniscient, omnipotent, omni-benevolent, consistent, sensitive, dependable, righteous, merciful, just, patient, long-suffering, gentle who loves me personally with a great passion and because He is infinite gives me His full attention when I pray.
Another thought. Note that vs. 12 is “Do to others what you would have them do to you.” Our Father wrote this Golden Rule and He lives by it. It should give us great confidence that the author of the Golden rule is our Father. He will certainly treat us how He wants us to treat Him.
So John Piper writes, since we have such a wonderful Father, prayer is just running into His arms and filling His ears with arguments.
III. A GOOD FATHER ONLY GIVES GOOD GIFTS
Mt. 7:9-10 is a deliberately absurd illustration to encourage us to prayer.
Why did Jesus use comparison between a bread/stone? Because many stones in Palestine look similar to the loaves of bread. Remember Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness.
As to fish/snake – there is an eel like fish in Palestine that looks somewhat like a snake. According to Jewish food laws an eel could not be eaten, because an eel was an unclean fish (Lev. 11:2). An eel did not have fins and scales and thus an abomination to a Jew.
Luke 11:13 adds the comparison of egg/scorpion. Barclay writes that there is a pale kind of scorpion in Palestine, which, when folded up, would look exactly like an egg. (Barclay, 271)
ILL: “Those who do not know the true God have no divine source to whom they can turn with assurance or trust. Most pagan gods are but larger than life images of the men who made and worship them. Greek mythology tells of aurora, the goddess of the dawn, who fell in love with Tithonus, a mortal youth. When Zeus, the king of gods, promised to grant her any gifts she chose for her lover, she asked that Tithonous might live forever. But she had forgotten to ask that he also remain forever young. Therefore when Zeus granted the request, Tithonus was doomed to an eternity of perpetual aging (Homeric Hymn to Aprhodite[5.218-38]). Such are the capricious ways of the gods men make. (MacArthur, 445).
Our Savior uses the most selfless human relationship he can think of, a parent to a child, to illustrate to selfless relationship of our Father to us. We are more likely to sacrifice for our children, even to the point of giving our life, than for any other persons in the world. Yet the greatest human parental love cannot compare to our Father’s love for us (MacArthur, 446)
Of course the foremost proof of God’s loving care for us in the Cross!
Our Father is a “Giving Father” and will give us what we need. But He will NEVER give us what is evil, what is not good for us.
If human fathers, who, although they love their children, have an evil nature, will overcome that evil nature to only give good gifts to their children, how much more will God, who gave His own eternal Son for us, give us good gifts.
“Certainly our heavenly Father would never give us something harmful, even if we asked for it urgently and repeatedly, for the simple reason that he gives his children only ‘good gifts.’” (Stott, 189).
If the son had asked for a stone, snake or scorpion, would the father have given it? Obviously “No!” Sometimes God’s children ask for stones, snakes and scorpions. Our heavenly Father will not answer such prayer requests if the results are not good for us. Good fathers give good gifts to their children.
The text implies that our Father will go beyond what we ask for and give us “good” things, those things that are best for us. So our Father will straighten out our misguided requests and give us good things if we ask amiss.
“. . . no good thing does he (God) withhold from those whose walk is blameless” (Ps. 84:11)
IV. OUR CLINCHING ARGUMENT WHEN WE PRAY
Note, “. . . though you are evil . . .” (vs. 11). Jesus asserts inherent human sinfulness in the text.
We are the children of God through the sacrificial death of Christ and through the new birth … sons and daughters of the Creator of the universe, but the native corruption in our souls has not been obliterated. We still have a sinful nature, a propensity to evil.
Even when we do good things, take care of our children as we should (or serve others, give to the poor, pray for the lost, witness etc) we are still “evil” and still have an “evil nature” within us.
“At the same time, Jesus does not deny that bad men are capable of doing good. One the contrary, evil parents give good gifts to their children for ‘God drops into their hearts a portion of his goodness’. (John Calvin). What Jesus is saying is that even when they are doing good, following the noble instincts of parenthood and caring for their children, even then they do not escape the designation ‘evil’, for that is what human beings are.” (Stott, 185)
The argument that Jesus uses here is from the lesser to the greater. An argument that we use and is often used in Scripture.
“Consider the ravens: They do not sow or reap, they have no storeroom or barn; yet God feeds them. And how much more valuable you are than birds!” (Luke 12:24)
“If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today, and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, how much more will he clothe you, O you of little faith!” (Lk. 12:28)
FLIP-CHART: “Earth is crammed with heaven and every bush aflame with God. He that has eyes to see takes off his shoes. The rest of us sit around and pluck black berries.” (Elizabeth Barrett Browning)
“The blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer sprinkled on those who are ceremonially unclean sanctify them so that they are outwardly clean. How much more, then, will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself unblemished to God, cleanse our conscience from acts that lead to death, so that we may serve the living God!” (Heb. 9:13-14).
SO WHAT???
1. How we view God will have a great impact on how we how we relate to Him in prayer?
2. We need to call God ‘Father’ and approach Him as our ‘Father’ when we pray. We must never use the appellation ‘Father’ lightly but we must use it often!
3. We can always count on our ‘Father’ giving us the perfect answers to our prayer but He will only give things that are good for us.
4. When we note God’s care of creation and the fact that He has given us the eternal Son as our Redeemer we can have great confidence that He will grant us our needs, the requests we ask that are good for us!