Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Welcome to Truth for the Journey from Clifford Baptist Church, 635 Fletcher's Level Road in Amherst. Please join us today as Pastor Jeffrey Campbell leads us in an in depth study of the Sermon on the Mount. Today's scripture is Matthew, chapter 7, verses 7 through 11. And the sermon is entitled A Commitment to Prayer. I'm grateful to be working through this Sermon on the Mount as we have worked, I'm going to say three quarters of the way through it, there might be four sermons left. There might be. It might be five or six. I don't know. I haven't planned out that far. But I know it's at least sermons left in this chapter and I'm grateful. Tonight, if you have your Bibles, go to Matthew, chapter number seven, Matthew seven.
[00:00:41] And we're going to pick up where we left off last week with verse number seven. But before we get there, we come to a subject that has been talked about in this Sermon on the Mount already as Jesus has touched the subject of prayer. Do you ever get tired of the preacher maybe saying the same old thing over and over? Some people do, right? Some people do. But there are things that you have to touch on and that you have to continue to touch on. And so I'm grateful that Jesus even displays that he's shown us in chapter five, verse number 44, that we need to pray for our enemies. How many of you understand that? That Jesus is teaching his followers that you have to pray for your enemies and the ones who despitefully use you and persecute you. In chapter six, we learn that we don't need to be seen in the public and standing on the corner praying that the greatest development and the greatest prayers are in the prayer closet in the secret place. And we talked about that. Hopefully that jogs your memory a little bit of the time we spent there talking about the prayer closet and the secret to prayer. And Jesus reminds us also that the Heavenly Father knows what we need before we even ask.
[00:01:50] And so we also look in this sermon from Jesus about the Lord's Prayer. It is a pattern for prayer and I'm grateful for that. As we went through the Lord's Prayer together, I just wrote this question, what use is it to have a pattern if you don't use it? And so one of the biggest challenges, and I'm gonna touch on it a couple times tonight. The biggest challenges, One of the biggest challenges of praying is this. You gotta pray. You simply have to pray. And so when we think about that, we have a pattern to go by. And Jesus himself gave us that pattern, and we understand that it's through that prayer. Prayer, prayer. In this Sermon on the Mount, Jesus is showing us the importance it is to talk to him. So tonight, we're gonna talk to or talk about our commitment to prayer. Okay, so that's involving, yes, you've gotta pray, but a commitment to pray. What does it look like when people of God are committed to pray?
[00:02:49] And I know sometimes it may look like people that show up at church faithfully, Wednesday after Wednesday, week after week, time after time, and they just pray. You know, last week, I cut into our prayer time. I'm not gonna try to do a whole lot of that this week, so I'm gonna keep on moving. But one of the things a prayer meet should do is you should pray. We should pray as the church, and so I'm grateful for that. And as we understand that commitment to prayer, we're talking about that commitment that you and I have. There's a story about a pastor named George Muller. He lived in the 1800s in England, and he's known for caring for over 10,000 orphans. I love kids, but I don't know that I love kids that much. Okay, I'm gonna be honest with you. But over 10,000 orphans. And here's the reality of it. In the 1800s, he did it solely on prayer and.
[00:03:43] And the Lord's provision.
[00:03:45] He didn't have Facebook, he didn't have to market. He didn't have to beg. He just. He hit his knees and he prayed and God supplied, and he was able to take care of those orphans. But here's also a commitment, a story that's told about his lifetime. He made a commitment to pray for five of his friends to get saved.
[00:04:08] Now we think, oh, that's not too hard. I can do that. Maybe you and I know five people that we can pray for that need to be saved.
[00:04:16] Right?
[00:04:17] Well, George Muller had five of his friends, and he was gonna pray that those five friends came to Christ. The first one came to Christ five years after he started praying.
[00:04:32] Two more came to Christ 10 years after he started praying. And after 25 years of praying, the fourth friend came to the Lord.
[00:04:43] And Mueller prayed for that last friend for over 50 years.
[00:04:48] And over 50 years of praying for that last friend.
[00:04:51] He left earth before he seen that friend saved.
[00:04:56] So he passed away. He entered into heaven before he's seen that last friend. But shortly after his death, after his funeral, that his friend attended, that fifth friend surrendered his life to the Lord.
[00:05:12] And so tonight, when we think about our commitment to prayer. Can you think 50 years of praying for somebody, for one person, just to know Jesus?
[00:05:26] Is that wasted time?
[00:05:28] Absolutely not.
[00:05:31] So tonight, that story and what we're going to read from God's Word is going to challenge us in our commitment to pray. I'm going to read from Matthew, chapter seven, and I'm going to do this. I normally don't do this, but I'm going to read everything that we're going to talk about tonight. It's only a handful of verses. Verses 7 through 11.
[00:05:53] Ask and it shall be given you seek and ye shall find.
[00:05:57] Knock and it shall be opened unto you. For every one that asketh, receiveth, and he that seeketh findeth, and to him that knocketh, it shall be opened.
[00:06:08] Or what man is there of you, whom if his son ask bread, will give him a stone?
[00:06:15] Or if he ask a fish, will he give him a serpent? If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father, which is in heaven, give good things to them that ask him? Let's pray, Father. God, thank youk just for the blessing of youf Word. And tonight, God, I just pray, Lord, that yout will teach us something from youm Word, God. I pray that that teaching will begin with me and my heart, God, as I think about the many people who we are praying for and that we have promised to pray for God, I pray that you make this church a people of prayer. And God, I pray, Lord, that our commitment to others and to you, Lord, is just to continue to ask and continue to seek and continue to knock, oh God, that we be found faithful to talk to you, Lord. And I pray, Lord, that as we look to you, Lord, that you will open up those windows of heaven and pour out a blessing. Oh God. Oh God. Thank you for hearing our prayer tonight, for joining us in this place, and for leading our time together. We pray in Jesus name. Amen.
[00:07:19] So tonight, as we think about God's Word and as Jesus gives us these very familiar words, how many of you have heard many sermons about this before?
[00:07:27] Right? We've all nodded your head. Some of you in the room have preached sermons here before, so you probably can preach it better than me and. And I'm grateful for that, but I'm gonna.
[00:07:36] This is the second time I've ever preached on this scripture, but this is the first time I've ever preached straight through the Sermon on the Mount. First time ever. But I've touched this verse in the Methodist Church before, and I Don't know. I'm grateful for those years in that Methodist church and that was a praying church. But I'm grateful tonight to share a very total different message than 20 years ago.
[00:08:00] So the first thing tonight, when we think about our commitment to pray, you'll get three points, and that is that the first one is this. Pray confidently.
[00:08:10] Pray confidently.
[00:08:13] We're confident in a lot of areas of our life.
[00:08:16] Some of us are confident in our jobs and what we do. We show up to work every day. It's not a sense of arrogance.
[00:08:23] It's something to know that you can do your job and you can do it well.
[00:08:27] Employers depend on people with that. And so you should show up to your job confident, knowing that you can do whatever's asked of you and that you can take care of it. Some of us show up in our families confident, and some of us show up in sports confident. We're good at what we do and we do it. But how about our prayer life, when we kneel before our God, before the holy God, are we confident when we pray?
[00:08:53] Well, I want to ask you tonight, and I'm going to show you through scripture, really, tonight's sermon, three points. Ask, seek, and knock. But I've broken that word ask down into just this. We must pray confidently. What does it mean to ask Jesus?
[00:09:09] James would tell us this, that we don't have.
[00:09:14] We have not because we ask not. You know that, right? And so James is very.
[00:09:21] He's 100% right.
[00:09:23] There are many times that we desire stuff, but we're not asking. And I want to say today, maybe the most elementary principle there is, is the commitment to prayer, is this. You must pray.
[00:09:35] You must simply ask.
[00:09:38] And when we think about what that really means.
[00:09:42] I've got a dear friend, his name is Steve Gaines. He pastor of Bellevue Baptist Church. He followed Adrian Rogers and he's on hospice care right now. But he wrote a book. And I read in that book a couple years ago, but I went back to it this week in the opening of that book. He writes this in his book that is titled Pray Like It Matters.
[00:10:07] Things turn out differently when we pray than when we do not.
[00:10:12] God will do some things whether we pray or not, but. But there are some things God will only do if we pray.
[00:10:22] And that is true.
[00:10:24] We need to pray like it matters.
[00:10:26] Jesus says here, everyone that asks receives. Now do you see that?
[00:10:33] Jesus said it. If you ask, you will receive. Verse 8 teaches us that when you pray, God will answer. So here's my question to you. The Confidence in which you pray with knowing that God will give you an answer. We should be beckoning the throne of heaven many times a day.
[00:10:54] Knowing this, God hears you. And God does answer.
[00:10:59] Now, when we think along those lines, then we ask the question, how does God answer?
[00:11:07] Because some of you in this room have been praying for situations just like Mueller did for years and years and years, and you haven't gotten that answer yet. Or maybe you haven't seen that answer yet. But I believe that God answers, kind of like you and I do. Now, I'm not God. I'm not trying to be God. I'm not trying to tell you what God does. This is just my little human mind.
[00:11:30] I think God answers his children, kind of like you and I and the church, whether you have children. We answer our children.
[00:11:42] So when your children begin to ask you for things, there's a couple of answers that you could give them.
[00:11:48] So when my son comes and says, dad, can I have one of your Kit Kats?
[00:11:54] I could say, yes, right? I could say, sure, son. I've got a whole box of them up there. I don't need to eat them all.
[00:12:04] Sure, take one. The answer is yes. Okay? And sometimes when we pray. Now, I don't want to belittle praying, okay? But I just want to show you this example. Sometimes God says yes, what do you ask for? You get.
[00:12:19] But then sometimes God says no.
[00:12:22] And sometimes when those little boys. I call them little boys, they're teenagers. Now, when they say, dad, I want a Kit Kat, I say, no, no, it's my last one and you're not getting it.
[00:12:33] Or I may say, no, supper's on the way. You need to eat your supper, then you can have one, right? Or I may say, no, no, no, no. You've had way too much sugar today.
[00:12:43] They're staying in the cabinet. And I have a cabinet. I just want you to know I have a cabinet, and those kids know where the cabinet is.
[00:12:51] But for the Kit Kats, they have to ask first. They have to ask. So I could say yes, and then I could say, no.
[00:12:58] I could say, no, it's not good for you. No, it's not the right time. I could just say no.
[00:13:05] No. I don't have to explain myself. I'm dad.
[00:13:12] Or maybe I could say no, because I have something better.
[00:13:21] I could say, no, you're not getting a Kit Kat right now, but in a little while we'll go to Dairy Queen and we get a Kit Kat Blizzard.
[00:13:31] It's something better. It's not what they ask for, but it's something better.
[00:13:36] And so I want to use that and I want to use Scripture. Look at your Bibles in Matthew, chapter seven. And here's what the Lord says as he talks. He says this, for everyone that asks, receives, and he that seeks, finds. And to him that knocketh, it shall be opened. What man is there of you who, whom, if his son ask bread, will give him a stone, or if he asks a fish, will give him a serpent?
[00:14:01] If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father, which is in heaven, give good things to them that ask him?
[00:14:12] The majority of these verses is simply about this one point asking.
[00:14:17] And here's what Jesus says. If you ask, or if your son asks something of you, a piece of bread, you're not gonna give him a stone. And if your son asks for a fish, you're not gonna give him a snake. He says this, and he uses the word evil here in verse number 11. If you then being evil, know how to give good gifts, as wicked as you and I are, deep down in our hearts, we can still give our children good gifts. Amen.
[00:14:46] As evil as we are, as wicked as we are, we can still give good gifts. Jesus says, how much greater then will your heavenly Father give to them that ask?
[00:14:58] So here tonight, when we think about, we confidently, we can confidently pray and we can confidently ask God for things, knowing that you will get an answer, and that answer may be yes, and that answer may be no, or that answer, maybe I have something better than you could ever imagine, but you will get an answer.
[00:15:24] And so when we think about that tonight, we think about the confidence that we have that when we come before our Heavenly Father, we can ask, knowing God has our best in his mind and his plan is for us, and he will give us exactly what we need.
[00:15:42] Not what we want, but what we need, that confidence that when we ask, the Lord will answer and we gotta be okay. Here's where we have to be okay, We've gotta be okay that the Lord's answer is better than whatever we're asking for.
[00:16:02] You have to have peace with the answer that the Lord gives you.
[00:16:07] And I know there's a lot of people that struggle with that.
[00:16:10] So as we approach the throne, we can approach it boldly, confidently, asking our Heavenly Father, who has our best need, needs in mind.
[00:16:21] So our commitment to prayer is this. Number one, you gotta pray confidently, you've gotta ask, knowing you will get an answer. There's a second point.
[00:16:31] Verses seven and eight, I'm gonna reread them again. It says this. Ask and it shall be given.
[00:16:35] Seek and ye shall find. Knock, and it shall be open unto you. For everyone that asketh, receiveth, and he that seeketh, findeth, and to him that knocketh, it shall be opened. Point number two tonight is this is we have to pray continually.
[00:16:49] Pray continually.
[00:16:52] So when we understand what that really means. Jesus. Words are reminding the listeners that are sitting on that mountain this if you seek something, you will find it. Anyone want to share the last time you went seeking for something?
[00:17:08] You know, we're getting ready to prepare 6,000 Easter eggs, and I'm just going to be honest with you. We put them in an open field, and they don't have to seek very. You don't have to look for them very hard.
[00:17:19] What's the last thing you had to look hard for? You see, two weeks ago, I have a wallet.
[00:17:26] It's in the car, of course, but it's one of those wallets that has the elastic thing on the front that holds your cards. And out of the blue, I just said, oh, gosh, Terry, I can't find my driver's license.
[00:17:38] Man, I went through that wallet. All the cards were there that needed to be there, but I could not find my driver's license.
[00:17:46] And so part of that's my fault. Cause I was dragging my feet about getting a new wallet, and I just drug my feet. I should have got a new wallet. But I looked for that driver's license everywhere. I racked my brain. I went to Ethan, because I remember asking Ethan to go get my wallet one day, and he dropped it. And I know those cards were. I said, ethan, did you pick up every one of those cards?
[00:18:08] Yeah, Dad, I did. I did. So I'm racking my brain. Where's my driver's license? Did I give it at the bank? Did I get. Where did I use my driver' license at? No, I never got pulled over, so I didn't have to show my driver's license.
[00:18:21] Where is my driver's license? And here's what I did.
[00:18:25] I looked where I normally keep my wallet in my car. I went and searched my coat pockets. I checked my britches and made sure. Check my dresser. Not there. Well, guess what? Let me get online and just see what I need to do to get a new license. So I'm sitting here online, trying to figure out what's the steps it takes to get a new driver's license.
[00:18:45] And Terry grabs the keys to my car, and she said, I'm going to your car.
[00:18:49] And I said, yes, ma', am, you just go right ahead.
[00:18:52] And she did. She went out there and she began to look and she looked and I don't have a messy car. I don't keep. My car's not messy at all.
[00:19:00] But she looked one place that I didn't look, under my driver's seat.
[00:19:07] Now, how that driver's license got under the driver's seat, I have no idea.
[00:19:13] But she comes back in and she says, I found it as I knew I needed that driver's license.
[00:19:18] I was supposed to have it to drive. I needed it in order to go about my duties, my job. I drive every day.
[00:19:25] My heart was content with this. Just order another one.
[00:19:29] Just order another. Quit looking. Just order another one. And I wonder tonight if my prayer life's the same way as my life looking for my driver's license is. Sometimes I just quit because I get tired of looking.
[00:19:42] I get tired of seeking.
[00:19:45] And so I don't want to look anymore. And the easiest thing to do is just go online and order another and pay a little fee and get another one sent to me. Don't have to worry about it. And so when we think about seeking, is it possible in our prayer life that we have taken the easy way out and to let someone else pray for that? Or our mindset is our commitment that our prayer needs to be one of seeking and not stopping until we find it, until we find the answer. If I told you tonight there was a big sum of money sitting under one of these pews, we would turn the church upside down. But if I told you tonight that we need to hit our knees before God and continue to seek his will for our church's life, we gotta go. I'm guilty. I'm guilty of this, taking the easy way out. And if the easy way out is closing my eyes or quitting my prayer or falling asleep or even not doing it, I'm guilty of stopping seeking. And then I don't find.
[00:20:46] So what do I mean by pray continually?
[00:20:50] The picture in the Gospels is one of Jesus that is constantly praying, I.e. seeking His Father's will. He would withdraw from the crowds to pray. He prayed for others. He prayed for you and I. In John, chapter 17, he taught on prayer. And then he prayed in Gethsemane. He prayed on the cross. He prayed. Jesus was continually in prayer. And he sought one thing. He wanted to do His Father's will tonight. Let that be a model for us as believers in the busyness and the solitude and the desire to do our Father's will. May our aim be to keep on praying continually with a pursuit that seeks a. Until we find behind this point is effort. What effort will we give in our prayer life seeking that we may find.
[00:21:51] There's one more point. Verses 7 and 8, ask and it shall be given. You seek and ye shall find. Knock and it shall be open unto you. For everyone that asketh, receiveth. We've talked about asking. And he that seeketh findeth. We talked about seeking. And to him that knocketh, it shall be opened.
[00:22:07] Now we're going to talk about knocking.
[00:22:10] Now, that word knocking. Let me give you the third point. Third point is this. Pray without ceasing.
[00:22:16] Pray without ceasing.
[00:22:19] This third point comes exactly from 1 Thessalonians 5:17, where Paul says, pray without ceasing.
[00:22:26] But Jesus says this, knock and the door will be open.
[00:22:31] Now, the difference between praying continually and praying without ceasing is simply this. Both of them. It is easy to quit, but seeking carries with it a desire to find.
[00:22:44] And you pray until you find it. And knocking carries with it longevity. Knocking until the door is open.
[00:22:53] Because the Bible says this.
[00:22:55] If you knock, it will be opened.
[00:22:59] Jesus cannot lie.
[00:23:01] If you knock, it will be opened. And so when we think about knocking, how do you go about knocking?
[00:23:09] Well, here's what I want to tell you today. When you think about knocking for me, if you got a good surface, a wooden door, man, you get all four of those knuckles involved and you go to town, right?
[00:23:24] Maybe. Let me tell you my hospital visit. If I go to the hospital, and I don't want to quite. I use a little one finger, side knuckle knock, you know, I just. I just come up there and just. And then I open the door and go on in. But there are times where you have to roll up that sleeve and you have to get those four knuckles and you go to town. What's the difference?
[00:23:43] What's the difference in the way that you knock? In my little brain, if I think that somebody's home or if I'm unsure if somebody's home, I'll knock once or twice, back away from the door.
[00:23:59] And if they don't come, I'll leave a note that I've been there and I'm on the road again.
[00:24:05] But if I'm unsure, if I'm unsure that you're home, maybe the car's gone, maybe I don't see all the cars there or something.
[00:24:12] I'm unsure, I'll knock, back away, knock. And I'm Gone.
[00:24:17] But if I know somebody's there, the knocking doesn't stop.
[00:24:23] A quick story.
[00:24:25] This will make it to a book if I ever write one. I'm not promising a book.
[00:24:29] If I make it through school, I'll be good. Okay, that's all the writing I want to do.
[00:24:33] Shortly after taking this position.
[00:24:35] There's a local family. There was a local family in our neighborhood.
[00:24:39] Two older people. The lady was in the nursing home. The man was at home by himself.
[00:24:43] And as we, as a church, dispatched to this family, trying to make sure food was there and they were taken care of, many people were checking on this family. One day, nobody could get anybody to come to the door. And in one day, 12 people stopped by this one house to check on this man. It was Pastor Mike, it was myself, it was some people in the church. It was the police, it was everybody.
[00:25:08] We were concerned because what happened? We knocked and nobody came.
[00:25:12] But here's what happened. We knew that something, someone was in that house. Pastor Mike and I came back together and I said this. This was during the wintertime. We said, at 6 o', clock, when it's dark, we're gonna meet back here at this house, Pastor Mike and myself.
[00:25:27] And then when it's dark, we can see through the shades. The lights will be on the house. We can see what's going on.
[00:25:34] You didn't realize a pastor had to be an investigator too, did you?
[00:25:38] We didn't know what to do. 12 people had been by. 12 different times people had been by. So that was our strategy. Pastor Mike and I did. And we began to knock. Pastor Mike. Knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock. Jeffrey, go to the back door. I went to the back door. He was knocking on the front door. I was knocking on. Knock, knock, knock, knock, knock. Nobody would answer. We went around to every window. Knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock. Every window. We started hitting on the side of the house, beating on. We knew he was there.
[00:26:05] I climbed up on the little bench on the front porch and I looked down through the blinds because there was a light on. And I see the male strode all over the floor. Mike, keep knocking.
[00:26:17] He's here. Something's going on. Meantime, we're calling family and police and everything else.
[00:26:23] Long story short that we had to kick the door in and found the gentleman in the floor. He had fallen.
[00:26:29] Another 12 hours, he probably would not have lasted.
[00:26:32] Wedged behind the bedroom door.
[00:26:35] He had fallen weak, hadn't eaten for days.
[00:26:39] Very sad situation.
[00:26:41] Here's the difference.
[00:26:42] If I'm coming to visit you, and I don't know if you're home. I'm a knock once or twice, and I'm going to leave my card.
[00:26:48] But that instance, I knocked and knocked and knocked. 30 minutes, we finally heard this man's voice, help.
[00:26:56] And that gave us permission to kick the door in tonight. How do we knock? How do we knock when we approach the throne of God? When I think about that, there are times that I don't knock and I don't come to God and continue to pray like I should.
[00:27:16] I'm afraid that many of our prayer lives are summed up simply this way.
[00:27:21] We tell someone that we'll pray and we'll pray if we remember to pray.
[00:27:26] There's one little tactic that I've started to do, and I don't care where I am now. The older I get, I don't really. My filter's like going, the older I get, so y' all better watch out. But anyway, I don't really care. But if somebody says, pastor Jeffrey, will you pray for me? If we are in the middle of the store, I will pray for you. Cause I'm not forgetting.
[00:27:43] So a lot of our prayer life is we'll pray if we remember, we'll pray and we'll tell somebody. We'll pray and then we'll pray here and there when it comes to our mind.
[00:27:55] But tonight, when we think about prayer, is it defined that we ask and we will receive and we'll seek until we'll find and we'll knock until the door happens to be open to us?
[00:28:10] 50 years of praying by Mueller.
[00:28:14] A constant knock.
[00:28:16] A Constant Knock for 50 years. Oh, God, please save the soul of my dear friend.
[00:28:24] So tonight, our commitment to prayer involves pray.
[00:28:29] Simply this we've got to ask.
[00:28:31] Our commitment to prayer involves a confidence to continue to pray.
[00:28:37] And then our commitment to prayer involves continuing to knock, continuing to knock, to pray without ceasing. So tonight, as we end this lesson, what's hindering you from asking, seeking, knocking?
[00:28:55] What's hindering you and your commitment to prayer as we think about those things, what's hindering you tonight from praying confidently and praying continually and praying without ceasing?
[00:29:09] Many times I just have to look in the mirror because that's where it begins and that's where it ends. So tonight, church pray, knowing that you'll get an answer. Knowing and God's no or God's I've got something better is better than anything you desire. Pray continually, keep seeking until you find it.
[00:29:31] Don't give up, don't quit.
[00:29:34] And then that knocking, just keep knocking until one day that door opens. Let's pray, Father. God, tonight, thank you just for your word, God. Your word is truth, Lord, tonight. And we just thank you for it, Lord, as we look at our own lives, God, tonight. And we come to you in a moment of prayer. God, I just think of, Lord, that verse that we just sang in the song.
[00:30:01] All because we do not carry everything to God in prayer. Lord, I believe your people are missing out on your will.
[00:30:10] They're missing out on the blessing and they're missing out on a wonderful relationship.
[00:30:17] Because our prayer life is lacking tonight, Lord, I pray a simple challenge will spark our prayer life in such a way, Lord, that we are dependent on you, that we are seeking your will, that we are praying for others, God, that you will continue to lead our lives.
[00:30:37] God, thank you for the hope that we have in you. And Lord, there's a lot of needs across this room.
[00:30:43] God, I pray, Lord, that you'll just teach us through this lesson tonight. That we must depend on you constantly. Come to you. Thank you, Lord, for what you have taught me. Lead us now, I pray in Jesus name. Amen. You've been listening to Truth for the Journey from Clifford Baptist Church. You're always welcome to visit Clifford Baptist Church for Sunday School at 9:45 worship at 11:00am and Wednesday evening worship at 7:00pm Join us again for Truth for the Journey.
