Seeking God
Steve Lennox · Tidal Church Moncton · August 25, 2024 · Kingdom Citizens series
Steve Lennox teaches from Matthew 7:7-12 that prayer is not a transaction but a conversation with a loving heavenly Father. God gives the right gift at the right time, and seasons of waiting shape what we ask, who we trust, and who we become.
More from Steve Lennox · The Kingdom Citizens series
Topics: Faith, Prayer, Discipleship
Transcript
[0:00] Take your Bibles and turn to Matthew chapter 7. We'll begin our reading in verse 7. And while you're turning, let me just say how great it is to be able to be with you. Always love being able to worship with you and especially to share with you your church. Moncton Wesleyan has been a strong supporter of Kingswood through the years before that, Bethany Bible College. You have our graduates on your staff. You have Pastor Jeremy, Pastor Marc, our part of our affiliate faculty team. You have trustees who come from this church and are part of Kingswood board of trustees. So, and you generous financial supporters. So thank you so much for making it possible for us to do what we do, which is to strengthen the church around the world and locally by raising up Christ-like servant leaders.
[0:46] That's what we do. We have more information out at the back in the table right by the door. Stop by and pick up some things, including we have information on Kingswood Learn, which I know some of you have already taken advantage of. These are free, absolutely free micro courses that are prepared to help you learn more about what it means to be a disciple and a leader for Christ's church. So I encourage you to check that out. We've got material out in the foyer on the table, or you can just take the connect card in the seat in front of you and indicate KL, Kingswood Learn, and put Pastor Jeremy's name on there and he'll get in touch with us with those names and we'll reach out to you. Alright, in Matthew, you should be, if you've been in the Sermon on the Mount for a while, you should be familiar with Matthew chapters, uh, 5 through 7.
[1:35] And we're looking at chapter 7, verse 7. And these are familiar verses. If you've been around the church at all, Jesus said to those gathered, "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 he give him a snake? If you, then, though you are evil," Jesus said, "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?
[2:32] Verse 12. So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets." Let's pray. Open our eyes, Lord. Open our ears. Open our hearts. We want to hear from You. We want Your Spirit to make this passage more understandable to us, more applicable to us. We want to take advantage of everything that You make available to us. So would You help that to happen in this time together this morning? We pray in Jesus' name. Amen. This has got to be one of the most encouraging promises that God makes in His Word.
[3:18] Just ask and we receive. Everyone will receive. This promise has got to be one of the greatest promises that God makes. Listen to me, which doesn't seem to work. Or am I the only one that stands at the celestial ATM and puts in my card and punches in my code and nothing happens? Am I the only one? You don't have to say amen 'cause this is a little embarrassing. And so I come back again with my card, and I put it in and I punch in the code this time with more faith. And nothing happens. There's no message on the screen, invalid code.
[4:10] It doesn't say out of service. It doesn't say insufficient funds. It doesn't say anything. Now you and I know that if you do that too many times, the machine will swallow your card. Here's what I'm concerned about. If that happens to us too many times, the machine's not gonna swallow our card. We're gonna leave our card in there and go away. Do you know that most Christians struggle with prayer? And I suspect one of the reasons is this dilemma, that we have this promise, which on the surface says that anyone, everyone who asks, receives, and then it seems that nothing happens.
[4:59] And so I wonder what's gone wrong. And I wonder if the problem might have something to do with the image or the metaphor that I use to illustrate the problem, which is the ATM machine. I wonder if the problem is that we think of prayer as a transaction. If we just do what we're supposed to do, put in the card, punch in the number, God will do what He's supposed to do and give us what we ask for. I wonder if the problem here isn't a problem of a picture. We have the picture of prayer as an ATM or a transaction, but God actually gives us a different picture of prayer, and He does it right in this passage.
[5:51] The metaphor that Jesus uses when He wants to describe prayer is a conversation with our heavenly Father. So here's what we're gonna do this morning. We're gonna walk through this passage thinking about prayer the way Jesus intended for us to think about prayer, as an aspect of our relationship with God. And I think it'll help. Now, I know whenever in a group like this you start talking about fathers, some people have problems because they had a father that wasn't an ideal father. And so when you say that God is like a father, it creates problems in our minds. Well, the good news is nobody had a perfect father, even though some of us had better fathers than others.
[6:41] Nobody had a perfect father. But the best news is that we all have a perfect heavenly Father. And so when we're talking about God the Father, we're not talking about your father big like God. We're talking about a heavenly Father who does everything right. Now, when the Bible oftentimes talks about God as a father, sometimes in reference to God as the source of everything, sometimes in terms of God as the protector, sometimes in terms of God as one who loves us. But Jesus, when He describes God as a father here, describes God as the perfect giver. "Which of you," He says, "who has a son would fail to give that son what the son needed?
[7:30] If you, then," Jesus said, "though you're evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more your heavenly Father." Jesus emphasizes this idea of God as the giver. Now, nobody in Scripture, as far as I can tell, said it better than James in chapter 1, where he describes God as the Father of lights who gives to us. Here's the phrase, every, say it with me if you can, "Good and perfect gift." When we think of God as our heavenly Father and we communicate to Him, here's the first thing we've gotta keep in mind: God gives every good and perfect gift. Now, that's an important phrase to keep in mind because when he says good and perfect gift, what he means is the right gift.
[8:29] Our heavenly Father, if you're taking notes, our heavenly Father always gives us the right gift. But the right gift may not be just the good gift. Here's what I mean. You And I, probably all of us, when we pray, we pray for good things. We pray to be healed. We pray to have provision, we pray for protection, we pray for direction. Those are all good things. But God's agenda is not merely to give us good things. His agenda is to give us the right things. Now, as a father or as a parent, this is one of the hardest parts of our job, but one of the most important parts of our job as earthly parents is sorting out the difference between the good thing and the right thing.
[9:21] So it's a good thing to get outside and play and be out of doors even into the early evening. That's a good thing. But if it's a school night, the right thing is to come in at a certain time so you can get your bath and get to bed on time. You see, your job as a parent is to figure out the difference between a good thing and a right thing and make sure that it's the right thing that you give to your children. It's a good thing to eat a healthy snack. But if you eat that healthy snack too close to dinner, it's not the right thing. You see how this works? So just as the earthly parents have to sort out between the good thing and the right thing, so does God. God's commitment is not merely to give us good things. His commitment is to give us the right thing.
[10:08] Can I get an amen? All right, you're still with me. So these right things may not be just good things, they will be good things, but they'll be really the best things 'cause they're the good and perfect things. But here's something else you wanna know about the right thing. The right thing doesn't always seem like the right thing. Vegetables don't seem as tasty as ice cream, but on a scale of good to rip, veggies are much better. Sorry to spoil the fun. This is many years ago, our daughter was about 18 months and she had breathing problems.
[10:57] And so we took her to the hospital and they put her in an oxygen tent. You know what I'm talking about? It's a hospital bed with the plastic all around and our little 18 month old daughter is inside that oxygen tent. It's zipped up. She's getting that saturated oxygen so that it would help her to breathe. And she's pitching a fit. She totally lost it in there 'cause we're standing right outside the oxygen tent. She can see us but she can't touch us and we can't pick her up. We can only just stand there helplessly looking on as she experiences the right thing, which in her mind is absolutely the wrong thing. Our doctor was very helpful at the moment.
[11:43] He said, "Well, you just need to explain to her that she needs to be in there." And that's when we realized that our doctor didn't have any children, because not only does the right thing sometimes seem like the wrong thing, often it's very difficult to understand why what seems so wrong is actually right. It's not that there isn't an explanation. It's not that God doesn't want to give us that explanation. It's just that our capacity to understand that explanation and allow that explanation to calm our hearts, it's just not gonna come through the right thing doesn't seem like the right thing often.
[12:32] And you may be thinking right now of situations that you're in that absolutely don't seem like the right thing. And what I'm asking you to think about is the right thing doesn't always seem like the right thing and yet it can still be the right thing. And the job of a parent is to not only identify the right thing but insist on the right thing even when our children don't believe it's the right thing. Can you see how that works with prayer? So while the right thing is a good thing, it's much more than a good thing. It's the right thing, but the right thing doesn't seem like the right thing very often.
[13:18] Here's a third thing you'll notice about right things. The right things have to come at the right time, right? The right thing at the wrong time is the wrong thing. It's a good thing for you to give the car keys to your son or your daughter so they can drive the car. But not until they're ready, like it's the wrong thing to give a 6-year-old the keys to your car. I, that's newsflash. It was the right thing to take our daughter outta that oxygen tent. And we eventually did, to everyone's delight, but only when the doctor said it was time. Anything before that, see, would've been the wrong thing. The right thing has to come at the right time.
[14:06] And if you're a parent, you understand this, you understand that that waiting is just a part of giving the right thing. Anybody like to wait? I hate to wait. I hate, I would rather turn around in traffic and go a hundred kilometers an hour in the wrong direction than sit in traffic. I hate to wait. But waiting is a part of the right thing. In fact, it may be accurate to say that it can't be the right thing if waiting isn't involved. But that's hard because while you're waiting, you're thinking, "Why do I have to wait?
[15:00] Does God not love me?" No. The cross is proof that God loves us. Paul said to the Romans, "He who gave His own Son up for us all, how will He not also freely give us all things?" Not a question of God not loving you. This waiting. And it's not a question of you lacking faith. It was one Sunday morning, our daughter was about three by this time. She continued to have health troubles. In fact, she has a rare immunological disease. And so she had all kinds of physical ailments. I was a pastor, a staff pastor at the time and I can still picture it in my mind.
[15:49] It was out in the lobby on that side and a gentleman came to us, a member of the church, came to us and he said, "You know, Steve, if you and Eileen just had enough faith, Abby could be healed." And you may not have that gentleman coming and talking to you. But I'd be surprised if in the midst of this waiting for the right thing, you didn't wonder if it wasn't a problem that you didn't have enough faith. Listen, it's not a problem. The amount of faith, Jesus makes this very clear, in order to interact with God, you don't need much faith. You just need a tiny little mustard seed size of faith. What makes the difference is that your faith has to be in the right One, and the right faith is the faith that's in the One we can believe in.
[16:40] But you only need a little bit of it. You know, a little bit of faith in a strong board will get you across the crick. A lot of faith in a weak board will just get you wet. But waiting raises this question. It's just a lack of faith. And I'm here to tell you, no, waiting just is a part of the deal because we're waiting for the right thing. But now I'm gonna say the most difficult thing that I've said so far, and it's the part that you're gonna struggle with the most if you're gonna struggle with anything in this message. We've said that God, the heavenly Father, like all parents, wants to give us the right things.
[17:34] But we've said that the right things don't always seem like the right things. And we've said that the right things often require us to wait. Here's what I want you to hear. This is what I think the Lord wants to say to us this morning at Moncton Wesleyan: when we wait, we are not waiting for the right thing. Waiting is the right thing. You're not waiting for an answer. Waiting is the answer. I told you that's hard 'cause here's what it means. It means that you and I have to believe that what we have right now as we turn and walk away from that ATM machine is the right thing.
[18:32] Well, let me just try to make this make more sense 'cause it doesn't make sense to me either. How can this be the right thing, God? But listen, I say that waiting is the right thing because in waiting, God has an opportunity to perfect our petitions. What we come to God in prayer and ask for isn't always what we should. I remember sitting in a church service, we were singing that song "Way Maker." "Way maker, miracle worker, promise keeper, light in the darkness."
[19:17] I was worshiping along until they got to that phrase, "promise keeper." And then I had a moment, a silent moment of conversation with God, and I said to God, "But You've not kept Your promises to us." Does this surprise you? You can have that kind of conversation with God. About a third of the Psalms are the psalmist having those kind of conversations with God. So yeah, you can have those kind of conversations with God. And I was having that conversation this morning. "Wait a minute, I'm singing about You being a promise keeper. We're singing about You being..." But in my circumstances, we had been praying for months by this time for a family member.
[20:04] We were praying for justice, we were praying for vindication. This person was going through some deep waters. It was a challenging time. We were praying for this person and God was not answering our prayers. And I said, "You're not keeping Your promises," and I kid you not, there was a moment of clarity as if the clouds in my mind cleared and I could see it for the first time. And it's as if God said to me, "Steve, I'm keeping My promises. You're just not praying as well as you should." I was praying fervently. I was praying with faith. I just wasn't praying for the right things. I was praying for something that was a good thing.
[20:50] And God made it clear at that moment that there was a right thing, and the right thing was to be praying for this person to allow these difficult circumstances in her life to develop her into the woman that God had made her to be. And as soon as He made that clear to me, I understood that's what I need to be praying for. I can keep praying for those other things too, but I need to be praying for what's the best thing. But you know what? I don't think I would've been able to come to that realization had it not been for the waiting. Imperfect petitions are made perfect in prayer, and it's through that waiting. See, I think waiting is the right thing in part because waiting clarifies what we're asking for.
[21:36] Here's the second reason. I think waiting is the right thing. Waiting clarifies who we're praying to. We say we're praying to God. Yeah, but I gotta tell you, as Christians we have an overwhelming tendency to try to keep God in a box, and it's natural, but we like a God that we're familiar with. We like a God we understand, we like a God we can kind of work with, we like a God who we can manage, a God who does the things the way He's always done the things for us. And this is God in a box. And I hope it's not disrespectful, but it's kind of like God's claustrophobic.
[22:26] He doesn't like to be in a box. And one of the things God does for us as we wait in prayer is He gets Himself out of the box and reveals Himself to us in a way that we hadn't seen before. It may be that this sermon where we move from an understanding of God as an ATM machine to God as a Father is God for you moving Himself out of the box that you've kept Him in. I think for many years I grew up in the church and I think for many years I thought of God like a business partner. So Eileen and I were in ministry, we were doing our job, we were serving the Lord. We had committed ourselves a hundred percent, we were doing our part, and our business partner was supposed to be doing His part.
[23:15] He was supposed to be answering our prayers and giving us the things that we needed to have. And when our daughter was born with all of those health problems, God said, "I think it's time for Me to get out of this box." And it was in the waiting, wondering what God is doing, why He isn't answering prayers the way we thought He would, that God introduced us to a more true version of Himself. But it could only have come from waiting. Who of us doesn't want Ephesians 3:20 answers, more than all we can ask or imagine? We want out-of-the-box answers to our prayers.
[24:02] Listen, you will never get out-of-the-box answers to your prayers if you keep God in a box. You've gotta let Him be God. And that may be a God you don't fully understand. That may be a God who doesn't do things the way He's always done things in your lives. But this is what waiting does. Waiting allows us to see Him as He more clearly is. I think that waiting is the right thing, not only because it clarifies what we pray for and who we pray to, but it also clarifies and develops who prays. We said a few minutes ago that earthly parents insist on the right things for their children.
[24:53] Why do they do that? Because they know that the right things at the right time will develop their children into the right people. And what God does in prayer, listen to me, more important to God than giving us things is for God to give us more of Himself, is for God to make us more like Himself. What God does in giving us the right things is to develop us into the right people. And waiting is an essential part of that. Sometimes we have to wait because we're not ready for the answers. I remember as I was graduating from college, I knew I was gonna be going into vocational ministry.
[25:41] I knew that who I chose as a spouse was gonna be absolutely crucial for the success of that ministry. And I had picked her out. I knew who was gonna be Mrs. Lennox, but God never told her. And I can still picture the night. She made it very clear to me that this wasn't gonna happen. And I'm so glad she did 'cause I was no more ready to get married and step into that aspect of life than these kids are not at that age. And it wasn't with her. It was with somebody way better than her. But only in waiting. Only in waiting could God develop me into the kind of person who could give me what I was asking for.
[26:35] Only in waiting does God clarify our motives. James talks about those who ask but don't receive because they ask so that they can spend it on themselves. When we first picked out this passage, Jeremy made this passage available and I picked this passage. One of the first things that I noticed was that attached to this passage on prayer was the Golden Rule: do to others as you want them to do to you. And I thought, what's that doing here? What's obedience gotta do with prayer? And then I thought, well, of course it has to do with prayer. Any parent will tell you that in order to get the right thing, you've got to be obedient. And the more I thought about it, the more I realized, of course obedience has to do with prayer.
[27:23] Of course, if we're not going to be obedient, God will withhold the things from us that we don't know what to do with and would squander if He gave them to us. Of course, obedience has to do with prayer. And then it occurred to me that there's a kind of obedience that goes deep, like the kind of obedience that involves motive. Not just blatant sin, but self-centeredness. And I realize how many times when I pray it's with self-centered motives. And so of course the Golden Rule belongs in a passage on prayer, because it's only when we understand that it's about others more than ourselves are we in a place where God can entrust us with the right things.
[28:13] You with me? You went all quiet here a few minutes ago. You're not sure what to do with me. Stay with me. I know it's a hard teaching that waiting is the right thing, but if waiting can change us into the right people, then that's really what God is after. Waiting does something else: it humbles you. That's why I hate waiting in traffic, 'cause I've got an agenda. I've gotta do what I've gotta do. And if I sit there in traffic, I can't do what I've gotta do. So I'm gonna go find another way. Waiting is a very humiliating thing. You can't answer your own prayers. You can't get what you need. You have to wait.
[28:59] That's humbling. But listen, humility is a source for healthy prayer. Or to say it the other way, pride is prayer's poison. Pride tells God how to answer this prayer. Pride tells God when to answer this prayer. Pride insists on it being done the way I want it to be done. And if it isn't done the way I want it to be done, then I resent God for that. Or am I the only person who has been tempted to say, "Really, God? Really, after all I've done?" That's just pride.
[29:49] Waiting is humbling, but humility is the key to prayer. This is why James referred to these as good and perfect gifts, because you and I don't deserve them. These answers, you and I don't deserve them. They're gifts, and they don't come from a business partner. They come from a Father who knows best. And I don't need to be in control. He's in control. 'cause God, what He's really after is to make us the right people. And waiting is one of the best ways for us to become those right people.
[30:38] Prayer is not a transaction. It's not about punching in the right numbers. Prayer is about a relationship. And if I suggested that God doesn't keep His promise in Matthew 7:7 and 8, hear me now. God keeps His promise. We ask, He gives. We seek, we find. We knock, the doors open to us, no fine print. The same One who made that absolute promise reminds us that waiting is an essential part of that. And so here's the way we're gonna close, 'cause I believe I'm talking to a room full of people who are, well, let's just say this is a waiting room.
[31:32] We're waiting for different things. But my guess is we're all waiting for something. And as we close in prayer this morning, I want us to recognize that we're right where God wants us to be. The question is, will we allow God to make this season of waiting a season of shaping so that we become more the right people that God seeks for us? Let's pray. Father, thank You for the truth of this word. It's hard. It's hard. It'd be so much easier if we could expound a theology of ATMs. So much easier. Just get everybody a card and a key code and go at it. But You want so much more for us than that.
[32:19] You want this relationship where You create in us a right understanding of Yourself. You create the right people. You allow us to become the people that we were made to be. And You choose to use prayer, and You choose to use waiting in prayer. And so we affirm today there are no such things as unanswered prayers. We may not like the answers, we may not find it easy, but this is Your weight room for strengthening our faith. And so help us to ask, keep on asking.
[33:05] Help us to persist. Like that widow persisted, like that friend who at midnight persisted, help us to persist in prayer. In this season of waiting, I'm praying for the people right now who are just about ready to give up. They don't think they can wait one moment longer. Would You remind them that they're right where You want them to be right now? As hard as it is, they're in that oxygen tent. They want to get out and You wanna see them released in the right time. Give them faith to believe. We thank You, Lord, for prayer. Teach us to pray. We pray in Jesus' name.
[33:54] Amen.