God Wants Us to Ask, Seek, and Knock

Matthew 7:7-12

We are nearing the end of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5-7, and if we’re honest with ourselves, this has been a challenging journey. Jesus’ teaching in the Sermon on the Mount tests us and confronts us at every turn. Jesus calls His disciples to a life that is so breathtakingly beautiful, and yet at the same time so difficult to live out.[1]

Throughout the Sermon on the Mount, Christ has been teaching about the Kingdom of God and His righteousness (Matt. 6:33). In Matthew 5, He examined God’s righteousness. He began with the beatitudes (Matt. 5:1-12), the characteristics of those who belong to the Kingdom. Contrary to the ways of the world, they are poor in spirit, mourn over sin, are meek, hunger and thirst for righteousness, are merciful, pure in heart, peacemakers, and they rejoice in the face of persecution. They are salt and light in the world, glorifying God in their good works (Matt. 5:13-16).

Then Christ contrasted the outward righteousness of the Pharisees with the inward righteousness of God’s kingdom (Matt 5:20). Throughout the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus isn’t satisfied with superficial, external righteousness, He keeps exposing our very hearts, insisting on an inward purity.

In Matthew 6 Jesus exposed false righteousness. He showed that even the good religious things we do are often tainted by self-promotion and hypocrisy—giving, fasting, and praying to be seen by others, rather than to honor God. Instead, the child of God is to do these things out of the sight of others to please God. He taught that rather than seeking and storing up the things of this world and worrying about this life, we are to seek first His kingdom and righteousness.

In the first part of Matthew 7, Jesus commanded His disciples not to judge others condemningly or hypocritically. Instead, before we help others take specks out of their eyes (referring to personal sin), we must first get rid of the log in our own eye and be discerning about those with whom we share the precious things of God.

This has all been challenging. If we take these things seriously and evaluate our lives by Jesus’ standard of righteousness, we are bound to fall short. We are crushed by Christ’s commands. How can we rejoice in persecution (Matt. 5:12)? How can we love and bless those who hate us (Matt 5:44)? How can we always guard our eyes from lust (Matt 5:28)? How can we be perfect as our heavenly Father is perfect (Matt 5:48)? How can we keep from seeking the approval of men (Matt. 6:1-18)? How can we not worry and seek first God’s kingdom (Matt. 6:33)? How can we judge ourselves more than others (Matt. 7:1-6)? This is hard to live out. Jesus’ teaching has nailed me to the floor.[2]

And then we come to today’s passage and it’s like an oasis in the desert. It is sweet relief; it’s comfort to the soul. It’s as if Jesus knew how hard these teachings have been for us, and so He stops to give us encouragement.[3] Christ realizes the difficulty of the kingdom’s standards and therefore teaches the disciples the secret to developing and maintaining them. Simply said, they must ask, seek, and knock.[4] Jesus knows that what He has taught is impossible to live on our own, so He invites us to pray.

So we see first,

1. The petition (Matt. 7:7)

Jesus, the Son of God, gives His disciples here a remarkable and authoritative invitation relating to His Father. He teaches, “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.” The verbs ask, seek, and knock grammatically are imperatives. That means that Jesus is commanding us to ask, seek, and knock. They are also in the present tense, which means that they are a command to be obeyed continually or habitually. They have the force of: Keep on asking! Keep on seeking! Keep on knocking! This is an invitation, but it is also a command to take up a regular habit of life.[5]

And notice the progression in our petitions. First Jesus says, “Ask”. Asking is simply expressing your need to God. The word “seek” intensifies the process. We seek when we know what we need, but we can’t easily find it. Seeking takes concentrated time and effort. So yes, prayer is asking, but it is not a hit-and-run. We spend time seeking God in prayer and in His word. Seeking is a process, and it doesn’t happen all at once. The word “knock” intensifies the process even further. Knocking implies that what you seek is behind a closed door that stands in your way.

Any of us who have children knows what this is like. Little children ask something from their mother or father. They will ask; but if they don’t get the answer, they will get up from where they are and seek their mother or father so they can ask again. And if they seek their parents, but are met by a closed door, they will knock so they can ask yet again. Children are persistent! Jesus is not only inviting us to ask the Father as His beloved children, but He’s urging us to be like children and be persistent in our pursuit of what we ask.

So, we know that Jesus is teaching us to always ask, seek, and knock. But what are we asking for? Is Jesus telling us that all we ask for will be given to us? Will we find everything we seek? Will every door be opened if we just keep on knocking? When Jesus says, “Ask, and it will be given to you,” what is the “it”? Does “it” refer to everything you might ask for?

Certainly, from the context of the Sermon on the Mount we would have to say “No, that’s not what it means.” Just a few verses before Jesus warned us about the danger of greed. He told us not to seek and store up treasures on earth. Obviously, God is not promising to be a genie that grants all our wishes. Prayer is not a blank check to pray selfishly for whatever you want. We read in the book of James: “… you do not have because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask amiss, that you may spend it on your pleasures.” (James 4:2-3).

I believe that Jesus is chiefly wanting us to ask, seek, and knock for something specific that He has already emphasized throughout the Sermon on the Mount. In the Beatitudes he taught us: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, For theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” (Matt. 5:3). The poor in spirit desperately know their need for God and so they are not afraid to ask. He said, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, For they shall be filled.” (Matt. 5:6). What Jesus has been teaching about is the Kingdom of Heaven, the righteousness of God. Jesus has shown us how far we fall below God’s standards, and so we ask, seek, and knock for righteousness that we may be filled. Jesus said, “For I say to you, that unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven.” (Matt. 5:20). On our own we could never produce this kind of righteousness.

In the Lord’s Prayer, we learned that we are to pray for God’s concerns first, and then for our own needs. So, we ask, seek, and knock concerning God’s name, God’s kingdom, and God’s will, and then we pray for our three main human needs: physical provision, forgiveness for our sins, and spiritual protection.

In Matthew 6:33 Jesus taught us, “But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.” (Matt. 6:33). So, we are to seek God and His kingdom, trusting that God will provide everything else that we need.

In the parallel passage in the Gospel of Luke Jesus says,

⁹ “So I say to you, ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. ¹⁰ For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened. ¹¹ If a son asks for bread from any father among you, will he give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will he give him a serpent instead of a fish? ¹² Or if he asks for an egg, will he offer him a scorpion? ¹³ If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him!” (Luke 11:9-13).

The good that God gives to those who ask, seek, and knock is the ministry of the Holy Spirit. In Romans 14:17 Paul writes, “for the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.”

That’s the petition. Next, let’s consider,

2. The promise (Matt. 7:8)

Look at how, in Matthew 7:8, Jesus affirms the invitation He just gave in Matthew 7:7. First, He stressed the command: “Ask, seek, knock”. But now in Matthew 7:8, He stresses the results: “For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened.“

I love the word “everyone”! There are no exceptions. Salvation is open to all who come to Christ, and He has never turned anyone away. If you seek God, you will find Him. Romans 10:13 says, “For ‘whoever calls on the name of the LORD shall be saved.’” I know it sounds too good to be true, but straight from the mouth of Jesus, if you have recognized your sinful state before God, and yet desire to be righteous, then ask Him for it. If you want to be a child of God, seek Him. If you want to be in the Kingdom of Heaven, knock on the door. He will answer. You will find a Heavenly Father who loves you. You will be welcomed into the Kingdom by God’s grace through faith in His Son Jesus Christ. We come to salvation by asking in faith.

In the original language, our Lord uses three present tense participles to describe a kind of person, literally calling such a person: “the ‘always-asking’ one; or the ‘always-seeking’ one; or the ‘always-knocking’ one”. And when He stresses the results of these actions, He again uses the present tense of the verb to describe an ongoing, habitual result. The sense of Jesus’ words could be translated this way: “For every ‘always-asking’ person keeps on receiving, and every ‘always-seeking’ person keeps on finding, and every ‘always-knocking’ person keeps on finding the door opened to them.”

If we came to salvation by asking in faith, then we grow in our salvation the same way. If we are going to grow in kingdom character, we must pray with persistence. God wants us to come after Him and His kingdom with all our heart and soul—to pursue Him and His righteousness with prayerful persistence. The person who asks, seeks, and knocks like this God will work mightily through them for His purposes (2 Chr. 16:9). Will you be that person?

We have seen the petition and the promise. Now we see,

3. The provider (Matt. 7:9-11)

Jesus moves from God’s promise to answer prayer to God’s principle in answering prayer. Here we see why righteousness is promised to those who ask, seek, and knock.

⁹ “Or what man is there among you who, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? ¹⁰ Or if he asks for a fish, will he give him a serpent? ¹¹ If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask Him!” (Matt. 7:9-11).

Jesus makes a comparison. He says that human fathers give good things to their children. If your child is hungry and asks you for bread, you wouldn’t give him a stone instead. If they asked for some fish, you wouldn’t give them a snake. If your child asks you for something good, you’re not going to give them something bad instead. You wouldn’t do that because you love your child. Human fathers and mothers give good gifts to their children.

But Jesus goes one step further in this illustration. He says, “If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children.” Human fathers are sinful, and yet they still give good gifts to their children. Suppose one of your kids comes up and asks for something to eat. How might you respond? You might say, “In a minute” (which communicates that my time is more important than your hunger). You might say, “Get it yourself” (which communicates, I don’t want to be bothered). You might say, “Ask your mother” (which just passes the buck). Why do we respond like that? Because we are selfish, lazy, and greedy. Man is evil. Yet even an evil man will eventually give what is good when the child keeps asking.

The point is that if even sinful, evil fathers will give good things to their children, “how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask Him!” (Matt. 7:11). God is perfect, loving, and righteous. If our sinfulness doesn’t get in the way of giving good gifts to our children, then “how much more” will God who is perfect, loving, and righteous give good gifts to those who ask Him?

God is your heavenly Father. You are His precious child, and He loves you! He will not leave you knocking at the door like the traveling salesman. God is good and so He gives. Our receiving is not based on how well we ask, seek, or knock. God does not give righteousness based on your ability to ask for it. Righteousness is guaranteed because the God who gives it is good. We don’t earn it. We don’t achieve it. We don’t deserve it. God gives it because God is good. God gives it because, in His great love, He sent His only begotten Son into the world to atone for our sins through His death on the cross. That is why everyone who asks receives.

So, we have seen the petition, the promise, and the provider. Finally we see,

4. The proof (Matt. 7:12)

This is where Matthew 7:12 comes in. “Therefore, whatever you want men to do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets.” (Matt. 7:12). This saying of Jesus is what many have called, “The Golden Rule”. We must treat others as we would want them to treat us. It is another way of saying the simple commandment that we are to love our neighbor as ourselves (Lev. 19:18). When someone asked Jesus what was the greatest commandment in the law, He said,

“… ‘You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ ³⁸ This is the first and great commandment. ³⁹ And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ ⁴⁰ On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.” (Matt. 22:37-40).

Jesus taught that the first great command is to love God with all our heart, with all our soul, and with all our mind. To treat others as ourselves, we don’t start with looking at our neighbor, and we certainly don’t start with looking at ourselves! Instead, we look to God. Only when we first love God with all our being will we be able to look to ourselves and ask what we would want done to us and get a holy answer! Only then can we truly love our neighbor as ourselves. Loving others in this way is a fruit of loving God. And loving God is a fruit of salvation.

The conjunction “Therefore” at the beginning of this verse tells us that this Golden Rule does not stand alone. It connects to what Jesus has just taught. He has just taught that God is a good Father who gives good gifts to His children when they ask Him. God gives righteousness to those who ask, seek, and knock. He gives us the kingdom. The proof that we have received His righteousness is that we do good to others just as God has been good to us.

Selfishness is the opposite of righteousness. That’s why if we desire to follow Jesus we are told to “deny self” (Matt. 16:24). That’s what makes treating others the way you want to be treated a fruit of genuine righteousness. In fact, Jesus says, “for this is the Law and the Prophets.” All the righteousness that the law commands, all the righteousness that the prophets preach, all the righteousness that the scriptures describe, can be summed up in this phrase treat others as you want to be treated or love your neighbor as yourself. That is the essence of righteousness.

The word “whatever” means it is a comprehensive command. In the original language, the way Jesus puts this almost strains at being as all-encompassing as it can be. A literal way to translate it might be, “All things therefore, as much as it ever occurs, that you may wish that people may do to you . . .”[6] This rule is binding on your behavior towards all people at all times under all circumstances. God expects you to display and use the righteousness He freely gives.

Think about what we have learned today. God is willing to give righteousness to an evil sinner like me. And the only thing He requires as a result is that I put it to use. Because I am justified in Christ, God pours out His love into my heart through His Holy Spirit (Rom. 5:1-5). Then He expects me to love others as He has loved me (1 Pet. 1:22).

That is like someone giving a glass of water to a man who is dying of thirst, expecting that the thirsty man will drink it. Or it’s like giving a steak to a starving man, expecting the starving man to eat it. God will gladly give us righteousness if we ask. He has provided it in Jesus Christ our Lord. He only desires that we put it to use. This is what it looks like to be in God’s Kingdom. This is how children of God live—they imitate their Father. In Ephesians 5, Paul writes, “¹ Therefore be imitators of God as dear children. ² And walk in love, as Christ also has loved us and given Himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling aroma.” (Eph. 5:1-2).

God is good and will give righteousness to all who ask in faith in the name of Jesus Christ. He will make you a child of God who walks in self-sacrificing love even as our Savior Jesus did. And this morning that is what I encourage you to do. Ask, seek, knock. Come to God who loves you and wants to give you His gift of righteousness through His Son. Let God give what you cannot earn or receive anywhere else. Let Him give you His perfect righteousness made possible through the death of His Son. Then live that life of righteousness by loving God and others. It’s what His children do.

[1] Ray Fowler, God Wants You to Ask. https://www.rayfowler.org/sermons/matthew/god-wants-you-to-ask/

[2] Rory Mosley, How to Be Righteous. https://fbcspur.org/righteous-matthew-77-12/

[3] Ray Fowler, God Wants You to Ask. https://www.rayfowler.org/sermons/matthew/god-wants-you-to-ask/

[4] Gregory Brown, Growing In Kingdom Character (Matthew 7:7-12). https://bible.org/seriespage/31-growing-kingdom-character-matthew-77-12