Jesus Himself says to each of us, ask And it will be given you. And you will find knock. And the door will be open to you. Welcome, friends, to the line of fire. Michael Brown, as we continue looking at the words of Jesus here in the Sermon on the Mount.
Now in Matthew the seventh chapter, before we get to the Lord's teaching on prayer. He says in Matthew chapter 7, verse 6, Do not give dogs what is sacred. Do not throw your pearls to pigs. If you do this, they may trample them under their feet and turn and tear you to pieces. He's just taught about don't judge, meaning don't judge hypocritically, don't judge superficially, don't condemn, or you will be judged the same way.
And now he makes this one statement. Do not give dogs what is sacred. Do not throw your pearls to pigs. If you do, they may trample them under their feet. and turn and tear you to pieces.
So This is obviously something where we have to make judgment. where we have to discern what is a right and wrong thing to do. But the point is, there are treasures that God has given us. There are spiritual truths. There are things that are beautiful and eternal.
And they're not for everybody. That when you're around people who mock the gospel, You seek to bring them the word of truth. At a certain point, when they mock you, you draw back and you don't share with them sacred spiritual truths. They are just going to be despised. And It's a general principle.
by which we live. And it's part of the discerning judgment that we are to make to say, hey, I'm here to serve, I'm here to bless, but when I see the message of God, The sacred truths of God, the gospel, the blood of Jesus, when I see these things are being mocked. I'm not going to give you more. food and more fuel to to mock. Instead, I'm going to step back and pray for you and say, judgment that we make.
And now is as Jesus. comes to the close. of the Sermon on the Mount. After the introduction in Matthew 5, 3. through 516.
He then begins the sermon proper saying, I didn't come to abolish the law of the prophets in 5.17. And he comes to a close of the sermon proper in 712. Which tells us to do to others as we'd have them do to us. And then from 7:13 on is closing exhortation.
So the structure of the Sermon on the Mount. It starts with Introduction. Then the heart of the sermon And then closing exhortation. And the book ends on either side, Matthew 5, 17. I didn't come to abolish the law of the prophets, but to fulfill 7:12, do to others what you would have them do to do.
This sums up what you would have done to you. This sums up. The law and the prophets.
So, law, prophets in 517 and 712, kind of like bookends on the Sermon on the Mount.
So, now, He's coming to a close here. Remarkably, There are some sincere Bible teachers who claim that the Sermon on the Mount is not for believers today. It was a sermon just for the Jewish audience then to show them their need for God and how they could not be justified under the law and to show them their need for grace. It certainly does show us our need for grace, but these words, every single syllable, is for us today. And those things which had a particular application for that day, talking about the temple or sacrifice, we make spiritual application accordingly.
So now Jesus is going to give these words. Of course these words are for us. The Lord himself. Please hear me. God In the flesh.
The Almighty Creator. of the entire universe. The one who can speak a word and worlds come into existence. The one who knows the very number of the hairs of our head, who knows exactly how many. Sand.
Grains of sand there are on the seashore. This this God This God says to us through his Son on this earth. Ask. And it shall be given you. In Greek it is continuous.
Keep on asking. And it will be given you. Seek, keep on seeking. And you are fine. Knock keep on knocking.
And the door will be opened. For everyone who asks receives. And he who seeks finds. And the one who knocks, the door will be opened to him. This calls for Persistence?
Perseverance. And Faith. God is is not A liar. God is not a tease. These things are not just being thrown out to To disappoint us and frustrate us and just keep us going and going and going, and nothing ever happens.
No, this is an invitation to pray. This is an invitation to believe. This is an invitation to trust. This is an invitation to take God at His word. And and and Jesus, Yeshua so wants us to get this right.
that that he says, what man is there of you? If his son asked for bread, We we'll we'll give him a stone. Daddy, I'm I'm hungry. Oh, come on in, son. I've got food for you and he gives him a stone.
What? What person would do that? What normal human being, what father would do that to a child? Or if he asked for fish, we give him a snake instead. I got that fish, it was so good yesterday, you bet.
And here's some snake on the plate. What? He said, if you then being evil. And in comparison to God, that's us. If you then being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children.
How much more will your Heavenly Father give good things to those who ask him. Matthew 7, 11 or Luke 11, 13, how much more will your Heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him? Oh. Friends. I believe it was D.L.
Moody who said, next to the wonder. of seeing Jesus face to face will be the wonder that he used the power of prayer.
So Rarely. Or so little. There is so much God has available for us. if we will stop. and seek him.
There are so many things he would do. just for the advancing of his kingdom. just for using us for his purposes. along with blessing our lives with good things. No, we are not here in this earth primarily to have good things.
It's not God's purpose for us. If that was the purpose, we'd just be with Him in eternity because there are a lot better things there. And they don't rust. They don't go bad. They don't die.
At the same time, he does take care of us. He does bless us. He does meet our needs so we can be a blessing to others. But the biggest thing is... if we will persistently ask, if we will persistently seek, if we will persistently knock, We will be answered.
We will find what we're looking for. The door will be open. And you could say there's potentially an escalation. Not just asking, but seeking. You're looking for.
Not just seeking, you're knocking. And friends I I'll be the first to confess. that in 54 years in the Lord So many times in so many ways, I did not take sufficient advantage of the power of prayer. I mean, that's a massive understatement to say I didn't take sufficient advantage. And it's one of the things that I'll rebuke myself for the most.
is wasting time when I'm supposed to be praying. Have you ever wasted time while praying? that your mind is distracted? that you prayed an hour, but in reality you didn't even pray a minute? that the type of interaction you had with God would not work with a friend or a spouse because our minds are somewhere else or we're doing something else while just muttering words?
I'm a tongue speaker. I've been speaking in tongues since January 24th, 1972. And I will Speak in tongues sometimes for protracted periods of time, praying in the spirit, sometimes for hours. But doing that with a mind that is not engaged.
So I'm speaking as a charismatic to my fellow charismatics. Those who don't believe in it, then I'm not arguing with you about it here. But just because we are praying in the Spirit doesn't mean that Well, I'll just watch a football game while praying, and I can pray for hours like that. Where is our communion with God? Where is our focus on God?
Where is our interaction with God? Where is our Fellowship. With The spirit. Friends It is crucial. that we pray with focus.
It is crucial that we pray with purpose. It is crucial that we pray with determination. It is crucial that we pray until we see the answer. If we know something is according to the will of God, Then we pray and we seek him until we either see the answer or have the assurance in our heart that the answer is on the way. The answer is coming at the right time.
If we don't know if something is the will of God, we ask Him to lead us in our prayer. But as long as the need is there. As long as God has not given us a no, we persist. If only we would believe what Jesus said. He said to his disciples, Have faith in God.
I know. Things don't always go the way we expect. I know. that they're godly people. It seemed they got the opposite of what they prayed for.
I know we've all had disappointments in our own lives. You pray for enough sick people. You will see enough sick people not get healed. You will see sick people die. You step out in faith in different ways, and you will learn some lessons along the way.
But the bottom line is: what I know is, God is faithful. What I know is God's word is true. What I know is he means what he says. And I feel in my mind's eye right now, I'm speaking to some of you who are men and women of prayer, saying, The Lord's saying, go deeper. The Lord saying, pray with greater faith.
The Lord saying, take hold of my promises. This is Jesus looking us in the eye, taking us by the shoulders, and lovingly saying, Look at me, look at me. I'm telling you. On behalf of my father, Ask, keep asking, and it will be given you. Seek, keep seeking.
And you will find. Knock, keep knocking, and the door will be opened. If you know how to give good gifts to your children, if you won't give your son a stone, a rock when he asked for bread, if you won't give your son or your daughter a snake when she asked for a fish, If you, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the Heavenly Father? Your Heavenly Father, who loves you, who sent his Son to die for you. How much more will he give good things to those who ask and seek and ask?
And knock. Let's determine Let's determine in a deeper way than ever. I'm going to be a man of prayer. I'm going to be a woman of prayer. I'm going to make sure every single day I pray quality prayers and I will persist until I see answers from friends.
As you meditate on the word, as you take it in, as you think about it, as you chew on it, as you go over it and over it and over it and over it and over it, get it in your heart, get it in your mind, begin to act on it, you will see answers. You will see God come. you will see great blessing. It is as sure as the Son of God is. We are today to press in and prayer more just based on hearing these words afresh.
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