Last time in our study of the Sermon on the Mount, we said that the verse of scripture most well known by the unsaved person is that of vs 1 of this chapter; “judge not, lest you be judged.” And though the interpretation of that verse by those people is not in line with the greater context of scripture, we did our best to show the correct interpretation. We showed that on the one hand Jesus was saying not to judge out of a sense of comparison and condemnation of others, but on the other hand, in verse 6, He then tells us we need to judge or show discernment between those that can appreciate things of God, and those that cannot.
But if vs 1 is the verse that most unbelievers think they know, and yet have it wrong, then perhaps the verse before us today in vs 7 is the one that Christians most often claim, but yet misunderstand. This verse is the proof text for the name it and claim it crowd. And the problem with their interpretation is that they tend to look at this verse out of context. We have to consider the context of the sermon in order to know the right interpretation of the Lord’s teaching. Unfortunately, a lot of Christians want to believe that in this verse God gives us a blanket approval or guarantee for anything we want to ask for. And yet I think a careful study of this passage will show that is not what these verses are teaching.
So for an accurate interpretation we must first consider the greater context of this passage. A lot of commentators believe that when you get to chapter 7, Jesus just gives a series of unrelated statements. But I don’t believe that’s the case at all. I believe there is a connection and a flow from principle to principle. And the connection to this principle is found in verse 6 which speaks of the need for godly discernment, or godly wisdom. The whole point of Jesus’s teaching in the Sermon on the Mount is to show that Christians have been regenerated, made into a new creature, a spiritual being, and that as a result of that transformation, we have received a new nature, a new way of thinking, because we are now the children of God, and being made in the likeness of God. So in that context, Jesus says we are not to judge like the world judges, comparing ourselves to one another for the purpose of trying to show superiority in righteousness, which is really just self righteousness.
But on the other hand, Jesus indicates in vs 6 that we are in fact to judge with righteous judgment. We need to have spiritual discernment, so that we may rightly divide the truth, and righty dispense the truth. When Jesus speaks of the dogs and swine, he is speaking of people who haven’t got spiritual discernment, and therefore cannot appreciate the truth of the gospel. I believe it was actually a backhanded reference to the Pharisees. They claimed to be superior to the disciples of Jesus, to be even more righteous than Jesus. And yet they were actually unspiritual, and they could not appraise spiritual things.
So the connection from vs 6 to 7 is the need for discernment, or wisdom. And to that end, Jesus is saying that we should seek from God the necessary spiritual wisdom and discernment. We need to seek wisdom from God because it’s not a natural trait. The natural man thinks that he can tell the difference between good and evil. But there is a great difference between natural wisdom and spiritual wisdom. As we learned in our study last Wednesday in 1 Corinthians, the “natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised.” So to understand spiritual things, to have spiritual wisdom and discernment, then we must receive it from the Lord.
And Paul says that in 1 Cor.1:12 saying, “Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may know the things freely given to us by God.” This spiritual wisdom, Paul says, is not of the world, not according to man’s distinctions, man’s judgment, but it’s a gift of God. It’s the grace of God spread abroad in our hearts through the Holy Spirit so that we might have spiritual discernment.
That spiritual discernment given by the Spirit of God enables us to judge with righteous judgment, so that as He says in vs 1 we will not be judged. As Paul says in 1 Cor. 1:15, “But he who is spiritual appraises all things, yet he himself is appraised by no one.” To appraise is to judge, to determine value, to distinguish. And Paul says if we are spiritual and led by the Spirit we are to judge all things with righteous judgement, and yet not be judged.
So there is a need to ask for wisdom because spiritual wisdom is from God, it’s not natural, and the natural man cannot ascertain it. James, the half brother of Christ recognized this need, and I believe in answer to that he wrote a parallel text in James 1:5, “But if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all generously and without reproach, and it will be given to him.” We have a resource for spiritual discernment, for judgement, for wisdom, and it is freely given to us by God our heavenly Father. Wisdom is an unmitigated promise to those who believe. But it’s something that we need to pray for, that we need to seek after, and strive for.
Paul, writing to the Philippians says that it was his prayer that they would have wisdom and discernment. Phil. 1:9-11 “And this I pray, that your love may abound still more and more in real knowledge and all discernment, so that you may approve the things that are excellent, in order to be sincere and blameless until the day of Christ; having been filled with the fruit of righteousness which [comes] through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God.”
Notice Paul is making the distinction there that they are spiritually mature, that they would exhibit Christian love but with knowledge or wisdom and discernment. He desires that they reach the stage where they could not only discern between bad and good, but between what is good and best. That they would grow in maturity to approve the things which are excellent, and that spiritual maturity brings about fruit, which is righteousness, which glorifies God.
We raise our children to be able to discern between good and bad when they are babies. But as they grow we hope to train them in wisdom and discernment that they may also be able to discern between what’s just good, and that which is best. That’s why Paul could say, “all things are lawful, but not all things are profitable.” To be able to judge what is best, what is God’s best, requires spiritual discernment. And God promises to give His wisdom to those that seek it with all their heart.
We see the flip side of that far too often in modern evangelicalism. The popular preachers, the television preachers especially often present a gospel that is superficial, that is a form of merely pop psychology in the name of Christianity. And so they find some verse like the one we are considering today and they may read it, but then they formulate opinions and interpretations of it that are devoid of spiritual truth. It’s simply the wisdom of the world, the wisdom of psychology, of the power of positive thinking, or whatever it is to make you feel good, under the name of Christianity. It’s intended for the spiritual naive, for the carnal Christian, or for the unbeliever. But it’s not the wisdom of God and so it’s actually destructive heresies. Peter warns of that in 2 Peter 2:1 “But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will also be false teachers among you, who will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, bringing swift destruction upon themselves.”
So Hosea 4:6 says “My people perish for lack of knowledge.” That’s why Jesus said in the last chapter, “If then the light that is in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!” If you think the darkness is light, then you are in real trouble. If you are listening and ascribing to pop psychology while thinking it is the truth of God then your faith is in danger of being shipwrecked. We need to have discernment that sees the truth of God because only the truth can set you free. Whereas a half truth will cause you to end up on the rocks.
The writer of Hebrews speaks of this need for spiritual maturity in chapter 5, saying in vs 11 that he had many more things to say to them, but it was hard to explain because they were only interested in fleshly things. They had no appetite for deeper spiritual truth. He said they needed to mature beyond that of being babies, beyond just feeding on milk. Solid food he said is for the mature, it’s for the discerning. And then he says “who because of practice have their senses trained to discern good and evil.”
It takes practice, in the sense of perseverance, a continual striving, in order to train your spiritual senses to discern good and evil, between truth and error, and between good and best. It’s like that guitar over there. I can buy the same guitar that some rock star has, and I can even try to play the same song on that guitar, but if you listen to him and then listen to me it will be obvious that I do not have the skill that he has. But I can assure you that he wasn’t born with that ability. It came by hours and hours and possibly years of practice. And as Christians we have to practice, by diligence, by perseverance, putting our faith into practice, putting God’s word into practice and by diligently seeking and following the leading of the Holy Spirit.
And I think that is what Jesus is saying here, “ask and you shall receive,” the verb indicates a continual asking. Keep seeking, keep knocking. It’s not that God isn’t listening, but that spiritual maturity and wisdom is a continuing progression as we are obedient in faith to what we have been shown. Our discernment is trained by constant practice, by constant reliance upon the spirit of God as we persevere in the truth.
So far from being a blanket promise that God will do anything I ask Him to do, that He will give me whatever I ask for, regardless of what it may be, we can be sure that God’s purposes are much greater than simply the gratification of my fleshly desires. If anything, we ought to be glad that is not what Jesus is saying. There have been many things in my life that I have asked for, prayed for diligently, and yet God did not give me what I wanted. And though I was disappointed at the time, today I can look back and say I thank God that He knew what was best for me. We can thank God that this is not a blanket promise to fulfill our wishes, but that it is a promise to fulfill what I need in order to be spiritually mature and complete.
Paul speaks of this dichotomy between the natural and the spiritual in 2 Cor. 4:16-18 “Therefore we do not lose heart, but though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day. For momentary, light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison, while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal.”
So if we are going to apply this doctrine which Jesus is teaching us here, then the first thing that is necessary is that we need to realize our need. We see that inherent need expressed in Jesus’s instruction to ask, seek and knock. The Lord simply wants to emphasize that we are to show persistence, perseverance and diligence. In Luke 11, Jesus gives a parable of a man who had a guest arrive at midnight, and since he had no food to set before him, he went to a neighbor to ask to borrow bread. And because of his persistence in knocking, He said, the neighbor eventually gave him the bread.
So these three words emphasize the element of perseverance that is so necessary in the Christian life. How often have we taken stock of our walk as a Christian, and we realize that we are not where we ought to be? So we make a fresh commitment to go to church more regularly, to read my Bible more diligently, to pray more often, and then we make some progress for a few days, or maybe a few weeks, and then we find that we have lost our resolve. That is what the Lord is talking about. If we are really going to reach the level of spiritual wisdom and maturity that God desires us to have, it’s going to take persistence and perseverance, which is expressed by asking, seeking and knocking.
Jesus indicated that this characteristic was an element of the new nature of a Christian when He gave the Beatitudes at the beginning of the message. He said blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled. But it’s an ongoing filling. In the natural state we don’t eat once and then we are forever filled. But we eat continually, day after day. And so we need to go on hungering and thirsting, day after day for the spiritual food, for the wisdom from God so that we might discern between good and evil and bring about the fruits of righteousness.
I think this idea of hungering and thirsting for righteousness is collaborated by the illustration that Jesus uses of a son asking his father for a loaf of bread in vs 7, or asks his father for a fish in vs 8. Jesus correlates this continual seeking with food, because I believe this promise has to do with spiritual food. And through perseverance we receive that which we ask for.
And that segues into our next principle that is taught in these statements, and that is that God is our Father. We have emphasized this point repeatedly several times in our study of this sermon, because Jesus Himself emphasizes this point so often. God is our Father. He says if our earthly fathers does so for us, then how much more will our heavenly Father do good for us that ask Him.
But let me emphasize that Jesus is not teaching the universal fatherhood of God, or the universal brotherhood of man. That isn’t a biblical principle. And what Jesus says here illustrates that it isn’t biblical, because He says, “if you then being evil…” He doesn’t include Himself, because there was no evil in Him. But He includes the whole of mankind. “If you being evil” indicates that we not only do things which are evil, but that we are evil. Our human nature is essentially evil and those who are evil are not the children of God, but as Jesus says elsewhere; “You are of your father the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father.” So by nature we are the children of wrath, we are evil, we are enemies of God, and we are not HIs children.
We can only become the children of God by regeneration. We must be born again. 1 John 1:11 says, “But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, [even] to those who believe in His name.” You can become a child of God only when you are born again through faith in Jesus Christ. And only as a child of God can we have the indwelling of the Holy Spirit by whom our spirit is made alive in Christ. So then we have a Helper, a teacher, who Jesus said will lead us into the truth.
And because God is our Father and we are HIs children, we can be confident that He will not give us anything that is not good for us, or good for HIs purposes. Again the comparison Jesus makes is to the human father, saying "Or what man is there among you who, when his son asks for a loaf, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, he will not give him a snake, will he?” If human fathers are like that, then how much more is our Heavenly Father? The devil loves to try to tell us that our Father doesn’t care when something happens to us that we think is bad. But Jesus tells us that our Heavenly Father can never give us anything that is evil.
And to add to that point then we must realize that God never makes a mistake.He knows the difference between good and evil far beyond what we can imagine. Sometimes as a father I have decided upon some action in regards to my children, and then sometime later I have realized that I made a mistake. I meant well at the time, but I didn’t realize how it would turn out. But God knows the future and the past, and He can never make a mistake. He gives us what is best, though we sometimes have to trust Him in that because at the time it may not seem like the best thing to us. But God knows the future, and He is working all things for His good purposes.
The last thing we can take from this passage is that God gives good things to them that ask Him. What good things is He talking about? Is He talking about a new house, or a new car, or a pay raise in your job? No, those things may or may not be good things. I often find myself asking God for something, perhaps that He would allow me to get some more money. I used to be an antique dealer before I became a pastor. And every few months it seemed I would find what I called a national treasure - a home run. And I would make a lot of money off of that one item. It happened so often that I thought it would always be that way.
Today of course I no longer am an antique dealer. But I confess that somewhere back in my psyche I still kind of have that prospecting bug, that sense of wanting to find a treasure. But on my budget I am relegated to scrounging through the neighborhood thrift store instead of going to pricey antique shows. But still, I will admit that I sometimes pray that God could still allow me to find another national treasure. I pray kind of like Samson when he was captured by the Philistines and grinding at the mill, “Lord, give me strength one more time.” But God hasn’t seen fit to do that. And though I would like to think I could handle it ok, perhaps even do a lot of good things if I found something like that, yet God knows what is best for me. Perhaps God knows, if I found a national treasure it might tempt me to not take my ministry quite so seriously, maybe even cause me to be tempted to quit the ministry when things don’t go the way I want them to. So I have to trust that God knows best.
So what are the good things that God promises us? Well the answer is found in a very similar message that Jesus preached which is recorded in Luke 11. Jesus there says in vs13, ”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?”
The Holy Spirit then is the good thing that God promises to give us. Three times in Jesus Upper Room Discourse, on the night before He was crucified, He gave the promise of the Holy Spirit. Notably Jesus called Him the Spirit of Truth. In John 14:17 He said, “that is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it does not see Him or know Him, [but] you know Him because He abides with you and will be in you.” Then in John 15:26 He said "When the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, [that is] the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, He will testify about Me” And in John 14:26 "But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I said to you.”
Listen, this is so important. I am afraid that some of us here today would rather have the promise that God will give you whatever it is you ask of Him. But He has given you a better promise than that. He has promised to give you the Spirit of Truth, the Spirit of Wisdom, the Spirit who will lead you and guide you into all truth as you rely on Him and seek Him to guide you. He is an ever present Helper. He is always with us. And He has discernment and wisdom that He is able to give to those who seek Him.
The Holy Spirit is the giver of all good gifts. He is the giver of life. We are born of His Spirit. He is our Heavenly Father. We have His Spirit living in us to guide us and give us wisdom and discernment in all things. It’s so amazing how this section of the Sermon on the Mount we are looking at today ties in so closely with what we were studying in 1 Corinthians 2 last Wednesday night at Bible study. And in that study you should remember we read from
1Cor. 2:12 which says, “Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may know the things freely given to us by God.”
This is the best gift that we can receive. If we have the Holy Spirit, then we have an ample supply of everything that we need for life and godliness. Through Him, God will richly supply all our needs according to His riches in glory. So "Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.”
Eph. 3:20-21 “Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us, to Him [be] the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever. Amen.”
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