SERMON ON THE MOUNT
ASK, SEEK, KNOCK
DR. JIM DIXON
MATTHEW 7:7-11
DECEMBER 16, 2001
On September 11th of this year, United Airlines Flight 93 nose-dived into the earth 80 miles southeast of the city of Pittsburgh. It formed a crater 40 feet deep. Now, we all know that that plane, United Airlines Flight 93, had been hijacked by radical Islamic terrorists who were targeting Washington, D.C. Perhaps they wanted to fly that plane into the capitol building, perhaps some other structure, but their plan was thwarted because of courageous people onboard the plane. One of these people was a man named Todd Beamer. I think many of you have read stories relating to Todd Beamer and his wife and family in the newspapers.
Todd Beamer and his wife Lisa went to Wheaton College and graduated from Wheaton in 1991. Wheaton College is a Christian Liberal Arts College near the city of Chicago. Todd and Lisa were Christians, and they were soon married.
On September 10 of this year, Todd and Lisa returned from a romantic vacation in Italy. They could not wait to see their boys, their 3-year-old son named David and their 1-year-old named Andrew. Their family reunion was to be very brief because the next day, on September 11th, Todd needed to fly to Northern California. He was an executive with Oracle, and there was a meeting of sales representatives in Northern California. The morning of September 11th, he said goodbye to his boys and to his wife Lisa, who was 5 months pregnant with their third child. He went to the airport in New Jersey and boarded United Airlines Flight 93 bound for San Francisco.
They were only 90 minutes into the flight near the region of Cleveland when the hijacking took place, and the plane turned around and began to head toward Washington, D.C. Todd and three other men resolved that they were going to try to do something about it. They assumed that the pilots were already incapacitated. Of course, the Captain of the plane, a man whose name was Jason Dahl, was from here in Denver. Just this morning in The Denver Post, there was an article on Jason Dahl and his wife Sandy.
Todd and these three men resolved they wanted to do something about this hijacking. Todd decided to place a phone call. He talked with a GTE operator. He asked her to communicate to his wife how much he loved her. He explained to the GTE operator what was going on, that their plane had been hijacked. She told him what had taken place in New York City. And so, Todd Beamer and the others knew that they were not likely to survive this. Todd Beamer asked the GTE operator if she would pray the Lord’s Prayer with him. This she did. She prayed the Lord’s Prayer with him. Todd concluded the prayer by saying, “Help me, God. Help me, Jesus.” The last words that the GTE operator heard Todd Beamer speak were, “Are you guys ready? Let’s roll!”
No one knows what happened after that. No one knows exactly what happened. We know only that Todd Beamer and these other men were able to thwart the plans of the hijackers. We know that the plane crashed into the earth. We know that all onboard that plane died, but we also know that countless lives were saved in Washington, D.C., because of the courage of these people. We do not know the eternal destinies of those who died in that crash that day. That’s not for us to judge. That judgement is for God alone.
We do know, on the basis of scripture, that Todd Beamer is in heaven. He loved Jesus Christ. He had accepted Christ as his Savior and Lord. He was committed to the kingdom of Christ, and he sought its righteousness. He taught Sunday school in his local church every single week. He loved Christ, and he is with Christ today. I think it is safe to assume that virtually all on that airplane were praying in those final minutes. I mean, Todd Beamer wasn’t the only one who said a prayer that day. Surely everyone on United Airlines Flight 93, in the midst of that panic, in the midst of that evil, were crying out to God. Christian and non-Christian, they were all praying.
We come this morning to the subject of prayer. We understand that Christ calls His people to pray at all times, not simply in times of crises, but at all times. As Christians, our lives are to be characterized by prayer, and our strength is to be derived from daily prayer.
In this passage of scripture before us today, Jesus gives us two teachings concerning prayer, and these comprise our two teachings this morning. First of all, prayer takes time. That’s what Christ is telling us. Prayer takes time. It requires of you a commitment of time. In this passage, Jesus says, “Ask and it shall be given to you. Seek and you shall find. Knock and it shall be opened to you.” These words, “ask, seek, knock,” are, in the Greek language, present imperatives which means that they imply continuous action. That’s why, in some of your translations, this verse is rendered, “Keep on asking, keep on seeking, keep on knocking,” because these are present imperatives and they imply continuous action. Perhaps they imply perseverance in prayer. Certainly, they convey the concept that our prayer life is to be constant. Our prayer life is to be constant, it is to be daily, and it is to be a regular part of our daily existence. Keep on praying. Prayer is a commitment of time and requires a time commitment.
Time is finite, and time is precious. It’s a great gift. Every single day God gives you 86,400 seconds. That’s what He gives us every day, 86,400 seconds. Once one of those seconds is spent, it’s gone forever. You can’t get it back. The sands are moving through the hourglass.
George Harrison, one of the Beatles, died just recently. Of course, his remains were taken to India and they were thrown into the Ganges River because George Harrison believed in reincarnation as all Hindus do. He believed that you could live many times on this earth. The time given to us in one lifetime is not really that important because you’re going to have many, many lifetimes on this earth. But the Bible says no. The Bible says that just isn’t so. The Bible says, “It’s appointed unto men once to die. After that, the judgement.” Time is finite and it is precious. We only have so much time on this earth.
The Bible tells us that many live three score and ten years. Some live four score or more by reason of God’s blessing. My prayer for you, my hope for you, is you all live five score! I would love to see all of us live a hundred years in this world and have such a long span of life, but it really doesn’t matter. The important thing is not how long we live in this world but what we do with the time that we have, what we do with the time that is allotted to us.
If you have 70 years in this world, how are you going to spend it? Studies show that in a 70-year life, the average person in America spends 20 years sleeping—7 hours a day, 7 days a week, 49 hours a week. That works out to 20 years out of a 70-year life spent sleeping. Now, of course, scientists tell us that some need more than 7 hours. Perhaps some need less. A lot of people are sleep deprived, but the average person sleeps 7 hours a day, and that is 20 years out of a 70-year life.
They also tell us that the average person in America spends 20 years out of a 70-year life working. That also is an average of 7 hours a day—49 hours a week for the average American, according to the ILO, the International Labor Organization. So, there’s another 20 years out of your 70 years – 20 years sleeping, 20 years working. Then authorities tell us that the average person spends 6 years out of their 70 years eating. Six years eating—2 hours a day! Some people spend less. Some spend more. Some spend 2 hours over lunch! But 2 hours a day on the average, making 6 years out of your 70 years spent eating.
Then the average person spends 5 years out of 70 dressing themselves, grooming themselves, and undressing themselves. You get up in the morning, you take a shower, you wash, you shampoo your hair, maybe you use conditioner, you wash your face, you brush your teeth, you floss your teeth, you comb your hair, you may blow-dry your hair. It all takes time, and then you dress for work. Before you go to bed at night, you undress, perhaps brush your teeth again. It all takes time. Five years out of 70. So, there’s 20 years sleeping, 20 years working, 6 years eating, 5 years dressing, undressing and grooming. That’s 51 years. You’ve only got 19 years left!
Incredibly, government statistics reveal that the average person in the United States of America spends 2,463 hours a year watching television—2,463 hours! That seems incredible to me. Perhaps that statistic just reveals the average number of hours the average television set is on in the average American household, but that works out to 6-1/2 hours a day, which virtually takes the other 19 years out of 70. There’s your life. For many people, that IS their life. They get up in the morning, they wash, they brush, they dress, they eat a little breakfast, they head out to work, they take a lunch break, come back to work, they go home, have dinner, turn on the television set, they watch TV, they undress, and they go to bed. They get up the next morning and do the whole thing all over again. That’s how they spend their 70 years, their three score and ten years, their four score or more. It’s all spent like that—eating, sleeping, working, dressing, undressing, and watching television.
If that’s true of you, if that’s how you spend your whole life—if that’s how you spend a day, if this is the summation of your time—you need to repent. If this is the summation of my life, I need to repent. If all I do is go to work, sleep, eat, dress, undress, and watch TV, I need to repent. If that’s true of you, you need to repent because time is precious.
The whole point of the Sermon on the Mount is that the primary purpose a Christian should have is to “Seek first the kingdom of God and its righteousness.” That’s what life is supremely all about, seeking first the kingdom of God and its righteousness. That should impact our time and the way we use our time as we live our days on this earth.
Last Sunday we invited people to be inner city tutors and to go into the inner city with the love of Christ and tutor an inner-city child through our Whiz Kids Program or Save our Youth. We had 20 people volunteer, 20 people who said, “I’ll take time to demonstrate the love of Christ.” We need hundreds more, people who will find time to minister in the name of Christ and to love people for the sake of Christ. We invite people constantly to teach in the Sunday school. It takes 400 regular volunteers to keep our Sunday school working—people who are willing to give time, people who seek first the kingdom of God and its righteousness.
It takes time to sing in the choir. Last weekend during the Christmas at the Ranch, the members of our choir performed six different times counting Sunday morning. There were countless rehearsals. It’s a major commitment to give your gifts in the service of the kingdom of heaven. It takes time.
Of course, it takes time to pray. There’s a passage in scripture where we’re told how Jesus, the night before He went to the cross, went to the Garden of Gethsemane to pray. He asked the disciples to pray with Him. When He was through praying, he came back and found the disciples asleep. He said, “Could you not tarry with Me one hour? Could you not pray with Me one hour?” Some have mistakenly interpreted that passage of scripture to mean that we’re all supposed to pray an hour a day, and of course that’s not what the passage of scripture tells us. There are some devout Christians who pray less than an hour a day. Some pray more, but it takes time to pray. Every day we need to take that time. You need to find a place of solitude, a place apart. Maybe get a cup of coffee. But find a place where you can commune with God and spend time with Him.
1945 was one of the most incredible years in Christian history. In 1945, three different men appeared on the stage of history, three different men who appeared to be the greatest evangelists since the apostolic age. The first of these three was named Billy Graham. He was 27 years old in 1945. People were beginning to fill tents and auditoriums to hear him speak and proclaim the gospel of Christ. He seemingly came out of nowhere, and the power of God was upon him. But he was not considered the greatest of the three.
A second man was Chuck Templeton. Chuck Templeton was 26 years old, and people were just flocking to tents and auditoriums to hear him speak. Those tents and auditoriums were not only filled, but people were turned away outside. Everyone wanted to hear Chuck Templeton speak. He was endorsed by seminaries and schools of theology across the nation. He was considered to be deep in his knowledge of the Word.
But even Chuck Templeton wasn’t as great as the third. The third was a man named Bron Clifford, and he was considered the greatest of them all. He was 25 years old. Hundreds and thousands of people were turned away everywhere Bron Clifford spoke. He spoke at Baylor University in the chapel. He spoke in the chapel service for hours. He just went on and on. They cancelled classes and nobody left their seats. Everyone was at the edge of their seat just waiting to hear what Bron Clifford had to say. His homiletical ability was considered to be the greatest in America, perhaps around the world.
Today, no one has ever heard of Bron Clifford. No one has heard of Chuck Templeton. But you’ve all heard of Billy Graham. And why is that? You’ve all heard of Billy Graham because Billy Graham understood something very special. He understood that all ministry is really based on prayer. He said, “There are three keys to effective ministry: prayer, prayer and more prayer.” Billy Graham has spent hours every day in prayer. He has surrounded himself with people of prayer who will commit their time and give their time to be communing with God in prayer. The whole key to the ministry of Billy Graham has been prayer. It’s not his gifts. It’s not his ability. It’s God and it’s the power of God and it’s the anointing of God, all sought in frequent prayer.
It’s not for us to judge Chuck Templeton. It’s not for us to judge Bron Clifford. But what happened to them? Well, Chuck Templeton sought fame and fortune. He sought great wealth. He was offered a lucrative contract with radio and ultimately with TV as an announcer. Then he became a newspaper columnist. He entered the secular world, and he ultimately became more and more liberal. He rejected his faith in Christ and renounced Christ.
What happened to Bron Clifford? He became an alcoholic. He ultimately divorced his wife and left his children, and he died of cirrhosis of the liver at the age of 35. That’s why you’ve never heard of Bron Clifford, and that’s why you’ve never heard of Chuck Templeton. But while we do not judge their lives, we know this: Prayer is powerful. Prayer is not only the key to ministry, it’s the key to your life. A life centered on prayer is a life well worth the living. You need to take time every single day to bask in the presence of God.
So, that’s the first teaching Jesus gives us. Prayer takes time. Keep on praying, present imperative. The second teaching is this: It brings blessings. Prayer takes time, but it brings blessings. “What father amongst you, if his child asks for bread would give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish would give him a serpent? If you, being sinful, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more would our Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask Him?” Prayer brings blessings.
I read recently a story in Christianity Today regarding a woman named Lois Spoon. It’s an amazing story. Lois Spoon was single. She was a Christian. She was very, very poor, and she was very ill. She had miraculously survived cancer that was considered to be terminal. In all the cancer treatments that she had undergone, they had taken their toll, and she was suffering with lymphedema. Her arms were horribly swollen. Her doctor and her physical therapist wanted to help her, and they had grown to love her because she was such a wonderful person. They invited her to go to a conference in Indianapolis dealing with lymphedema, believing that she could find encouragement and help at that conference. Because they cared so much about her, they said, “Lois, we’re going to pay your admission to the conference, we’re going to pay for your hotel, we’re going to pay for your food. All we ask is that you pay for your flight.”
They didn’t realize how poor she was, and she knew she was going to have a hard time paying for that airline ticket. It was a few weeks away, so she began to pray, “Lord, I so much want to go to this conference. Please, dear Lord, provide the money.” The physical therapist wanted to meet Lois on a certain day at the travel agency to buy the tickets. Lois checked the price. It was $153.27, and yet she couldn’t afford it. Well, she just kept praying. The day came when she was to meet the physical therapist at the travel agency at 2:00 in the afternoon and she was to buy the ticket. She still didn’t have the money. She just had a little more than $20. That’s all she had, but she still prayed.
She got a phone call from the church saying that a missionary from the church that she attended was in town from Romania and would she be willing to take the missionary out to lunch. Lois said, “Sure.” She took the missionary out to lunch. When they were finished with lunch, it was just about 1:30, and the missionary said, “I don’t have any money,” so Lois used all of her money, a little more than $20, to pay for the lunch. Now Lois was broke. She was supposed to be at the travel agency in a half-hour and that was a 15- minute drive. She left the restaurant, went out into the parking lot, and just sat in her car, broke. She began to pray, “Lord, I’ve been praying. I trust you. I’m supposed to be at the travel agency in a half-hour and buy this ticket. I have no money. Lord, I feel like You led me to tell nobody. I’ve only told You. Please help!”
A woman then drove into the parking lot, and she parked right next to Lois. She got out of the car and she said, “Lois, they told me at the church that you would be here and that you had taken one of our missionaries out to lunch. I’m so glad you’re still here! I know you don’t know me that well, but I felt led a few weeks ago to begin to set money aside for you. I’ve never had this happen before, but I just felt the Lord prompting me. Every day I just took loose change and maybe a few bills and put them in an envelope. A few days ago, I just sealed the envelope. I was going to give it to you, but I’ve been afraid because I didn’t know how you’d react and whether maybe you’d be offended, but here’s the envelope.”
Lois took it and the woman drove away. Lois had a few minutes before she needed to go to the travel agency. She opened the envelope and began to count the change and the bills, and it came to exactly $153.27, the exact amount of her airplane ticket.
I don’t know how you feel when you hear a story like that. I don’t know how you feel when you read a story like that. Maybe you just feel incredulous. Maybe it’s hard for you to believe, but I have no trouble believing it. I believe that story is true. Christianity Today is a reputable magazine, and I believe that that story is true. You might say, “Why? Why would God give her only enough money for her ticket when she was so poor? If God was going to provide for her, why didn’t He just give her a lot of extra money?” But, you see, I believe God wanted her to know that He had heard her specific prayer and He had responded to that specific prayer. I think God wants you to know that. God wants you to know He hears your specific prayers, and He can respond to your specific prayers. He has power. Prayer takes time but it brings blessings.
Some of you may have heard of Robert White. Robert White was 15 years old in 1962. That was the year that Robert White wrote a letter to President John F. Kennedy’s personal secretary. Her name was Evelyn Lincoln. He wrote asking for President Kennedy’s signature. Evelyn White sent him a facsimile signature, and that was the beginning of 33 years of correspondence between Robert White and Evelyn Lincoln, who had been President Kennedy’s secretary.
Through the years, Robert White asked again and again for memorabilia relating to President Kennedy. Evelyn Lincoln, who was so impressed with Robert White’s passion for presidential history, often responded by sending him some memorabilia. She had collected everything from Kennedy’s life. Every time Kennedy was in a conference, Evelyn Lincoln would take the papers that Kennedy had doodled on. She took those. She took everything she could. Then, through those 33 years, she sent most of it to this man Robert White.
Well today, Robert White is 53 years old and the greatest collector of John F. Kennedy memorabilia in the world. He has over 50,000 individual pieces of memorabilia from the life of John F. Kennedy. It’s considered a treasure. How did he get it all? By asking. By asking again and again and again, and then being blessed again and again and again. I believe that God wants us to know (and our Lord Jesus is telling us through the Sermon on the Mount) that we need to ask again and again and again, that we might be blessed again and again and again in prayer.
We need to understand this contextually. We could easily misinterpret this promise of blessing. When you think about the needs in your life and the needs in my life, God can only respond in one of three ways. God can say, “I’m going to do it.” I think on some things, God just says, “I’m going to do it. Whether you pray or not, I’m going to do it.” After all, He causes the sun to rise on the just and the unjust. There are certain things He’s just going to do. You don’t even need to pray for it. There are other things where God says, “I’m not going to do it. Even if you do pray, I’m not going to do it.” The student who had just taken an exam in geography and knew he blew it, when he heads home and he prays, “Lord, help Paris to be the capital of England,” the answer is clear. God is just not going to do it. But then there are other things where God says, “I’ll do it if…” He makes His blessing contingent on your prayers. “I’ll do it if you pray.”
I think God does this because He wants to encourage us to pray. He wants to encourage us to commune with Him, knowing that we desire His blessings. He’s provided prayer so that we might seek Him and that we might develop intimacy with Him and friendship with Him and that it might be daily. But we do need to understand this promise in its context.
When Jesus tells us, “Ask, seek, knock,” when He says, “Keep on asking, keep on seeking, keep on knocking,” He says it in the context of the Sermon on the Mount where the theme is “Seek first the kingdom of God and its righteousness.” That’s the theme. The assumption in this passage is that your prayers are going to focus primarily on the kingdom of God and its righteousness.
So, Jesus speaks to us saying, “Blessed are the pure in heart.” But have you prayed for a pure heart? If you knock, He will open. Jesus tells us, “Blessed are the meek,” but have you prayed for meekness? Have you sought that? Have you asked for that? His blessings are just a prayer away. Jesus says, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness.” Maybe you don’t hunger and thirst after righteousness, but have you prayed for it? Have you prayed for that hunger?
Jesus, in the Sermon on the Mount, talks about the problem of lust. He talks about the problem of anger. He talks about problems in marriage. Do you pray that God would bless you by helping you overcome lust? Do you pray that He will help you overcome anger? Do you pray that He will bless your marriage?
In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus talks about judgementalness. “Judge not, that you be not judged.” Do you pray about that? Do you ask? Do you seek? Do you knock? Because it’s all in the context of the kingdom of God and its righteousness. It’s in the context of ministry. As we seek to serve the kingdom of God, He is there to provide for us as we seek to minister in our neighborhoods, at work in our communities, in church, in the Sunday school classroom, wherever we are. If we pray, He is there to bless. That’s the context of this promise in this passage of scripture.
As we close, I want to say something about George Müller because you can’t speak on the subject of prayer without mentioning George Müller. George Müller was one of the greatest prayer warriors in the history of the Christian world. George Müller’s life spanned most of the 19th century. He was born in England in 1805. He died in England in 1898. He lived 93 years in this world.
It was George Müller who, in his love for Christ, founded orphanages throughout the region of Britain, throughout the region of England, Scotland, and Wales. He served thousands and thousands and thousands of orphan children and abandoned children, and he loved them with the love of Christ. He went all over the world encouraging the formation of additional ministries to children in nations all over the earth. It was incredible.
In the beginning of his ministry, George Müller felt led of God to never take a salary and to never ask for money. George Müller never believed that God was leading all people the way God had led him. He didn’t think there was something wrong with taking a salary. He didn’t think there was something wrong with asking for money. But he felt personally, in his life, the Spirit of God wanted him to not take a salary and to not ask for money so that he could be an example of what God could do simply through prayer.
George Müller felt led of God to pray three hours a day. He prayed three hours a day, and it’s incomprehensible what God did and how God provided. I think you know some of the stories. One day in his orphanage, with hundreds of kids, they had no food and yet George Müller, that morning, brought all the kids into the dining hall where he had all the plates set—the silverware and the napkins—but no food. All of these kids sat down and then George Müller led them in prayer saying, “Lord, for what we’re about to eat, we thank you.” The kids looked around like, “Where’s the food?”
There was then a knock at the door of the orphanage. It was a baker. He said, “I’ve been up all night baking for you. I just felt prompted by God to bake for you. Do you need bread? I’ve got a whole truck load of bread out here, freshly baked.” That was God’s blessing. A few minutes later there was another knock on the orphanage door, and it was the driver of a milk truck. The milk truck had just broken down outside of the orphanage. It has a full load of milk. The man hadn’t had a chance to deliver any of it. He couldn’t fix his truck. He said, “I don’t know what to do with all this milk. Could you use it?” A whole truck load of milk! That’s how God provided.
There is just story after story like that in the life of George Müller. One of the more incredible things is that in the last twenty years of his life, from 73 to 93, he spent 17 of those twenty years traveling. God always provided, even though he was old. He’d been invited to speak at this great conference in Canada. He so wanted to go and so many people would be there. He was onboard this ship crossing the Atlantic, and there was a great storm at sea. This was in the 19th century, when transatlantic travel was not always that easy.
In the midst of the great storm, they were making no progress. Days were being lost. It was clear he wasn’t going to make it on time to Canada unless they got moving. He went to the captain, and he said, “God wants me in Canada, and He wants me there on time. Get this ship moving.” The captain said, “Hey! We’re in the midst of a storm. I can’t do anything about this. Only God can change this.” George Müller said, “That’s a good point. Why don’t you come below deck with me and let’s get on our knees and pray together.”
They went below deck and they both got on their knees. The captain felt very awkward, as he was a nominal Christian at best. He listened to George Müller pray. The incredible fervor and confidence of the prayer, “Lord, take this storm away. Create a calm sea that we might arrive in Canada on time. I pray, Lord, You’ll do it now!” The captain said, “George, do you want me to pray?” George said, “No, you don’t need to pray for two reasons. First of all, you don’t really believe God’s going to do it. And secondly, I believe God already has.” He said, “Let’s go up on deck.” They went up on deck, and I know it’s hard to believe, but the storm had completely abated. It was eradicated. It was gone. The sun was shining. It had broken through, and the sea was calm. They made it to Canada on time.
The amazing thing about that story is that it wasn’t told by George Müller. It was told by the captain of the ship. You see, George Müller lived a life like that, taking time for prayer and then seeing the blessings of God. So, “Seek first the kingdom of God and its righteousness,” and do this in prayer. It takes time, but it brings blessings. In the Book of James, the 4th chapter, the second and third verses, it says, “You have not because you asked not. You ask and you do not receive because you asked wrongly to spend it on your passions.” Let’s try praying with a focus on the kingdom of heaven and its righteousness and see the power of God released in our life and church. Let’s close with a word of prayer.