The Mount No.21 The Good Father

Let's read together from the Word of God, Luke's Gospel in chapter 11. Luke's Gospel, chapter 11, and we start to read at verse 1. One day Jesus was praying in a certain place. When he finished, one of his disciples said to him, Lord, teach us to pray, just as John taught his disciples.

He said to them, when you pray, say, Father, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come. Give us each day our daily bread.

Forgive us our sins, for we also forgive everyone who sins against us. And lead us not into temptation. Then he said to them, suppose one of you has a friend, and he goes to him at midnight and says, friend, lend me three loaves of bread, because a friend of mine on a journey has come to me, and I have nothing to set before him.

Then the one inside answers, don't bother me. The door is already locked, and my children are with me in bed. I can't get up and give you anything.

I tell you, though he will not get up and give him the bread because he is his friend, yet because of the man's boldness or persistence, he will get up and give him as much as he needs. So I say to you, 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 fathers, if your son asks for a fish, will give him a snake instead? Or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him? Father, again we thank you for the Gospel, and we pray that in our modern society it may still be found to be the power of God unto salvation, and that you will set this country aright. We pray now as we look into your Word that you will speak to us by the Holy Spirit, playing upon our mental faculties, stimulating our wills, and getting the full-throated emotional response to all that you have to say to us. In the name of Jesus our Savior, Amen.

Please be seated, and let's look together at the passage that we're considering in some detail in the seventh chapter of the Gospel of Matthew, where our Lord in the seventh verse says, Matthew 7, 7, 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 ask for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? If you then, though you are evil, 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? So in everything do it. Do to others what you would have them do to you. For this sums up the law and the prophets.

Says Dr. Lloyd-Jones, preaching in London in the 1950s, on this passage, I cannot imagine a better, more cheering, or a more comforting statement with which to face all the uncertainties and hazards of our life in this world, at this time, than that contained within these verses. Very skillfully and movingly in the prayer which we have just joined in following from David White, there has been a lovely blending of the concepts that within the person of God the Father, there is also a feminine understanding. And it's not inappropriate on this particular day that we look at the concept of the Good Father as set down here in the teaching of our Lord.

I remind you that our Savior is setting up, ineffectually, the conduct of citizens in his kingdom. You remember the scene? It's so long ago since we commenced this series of addresses that maybe you've forgotten that our Lord is not speaking to a controlled audience like a congregation in a beautiful building. There's a lot of noise.

There's a lot of movement. He must have been a majestic teacher because he's not put off by this. He's in an open-air amphitheater and there in front of him is the crowd and beyond the crowd the Sea of Galilee, the places that he knew so well because here he was brought up as a boy.

And he's setting up the regulations, so to speak, the principles that govern people who come into his kingdom, how the citizens of that kingdom ought to live. And there's something frightening about his teaching. Inasmuch as, well, you might consider that what he's asking of those who will enter into his kingdom is really too much.

He says that the merciful are blessed. He says that the peacemakers will be called the sons of God. He tells them how to cope in terms of temptation towards free-range anger that might lead to murder, in terms of the immoral thought that could lead to adultery, in terms of handling finances, in terms of prayer, in terms of freedom from worry.

All these, says our Lord, are part and parcel of my kingdom, these aspects, these attitudes. But it's frightening really, isn't it? How on earth can you rise to this sort of standard? Does that mean, therefore, that the kingdom is only open to super-spiritual saints? Our Lord seems to suggest that because he says, unless, and he's speaking to the crowds and he's now speaking to us as his voice comes down the corridors of time, unless your righteousness is higher than the righteousness of the Pharisees who are known to be righteous people, you can never enter into my kingdom. Then, Lord, how can we attain to these high standards that you're setting? Well, you see the connection now between what's gone before and what comes into his teaching.

Ask, it will be given you. Seek, and you will find. Knock, and it will be open unto you.

In other words, the possibilities are there for those who will come to my Father, the Good Father, and pray that in entering into the kingdom, they will be given the power to live as citizens of the kingdom. This is what makes such a nonsense, you see, of those who talk so patronizingly about the Sermon on the Mount and its good ethics and so on and so forth, and don't realize that the basic to entry into the kingdom is an acknowledgement of sin, a confession that Jesus is Lord, and running through the whole of the sermon is that presupposition that citizens of the King will be filled with the Spirit of God so that they may be able to live kingdom life for the praise and for the honor of the Lord. So let's crack open the teaching of our Lord as we home in upon these lovely verses, the seventh through to the eleventh.

We'll not go to the twelfth this morning. And let me give you some pegs to hang my thinking on as I bring to you the far more profound teaching of our Savior and then try to make comment and application upon it. First of all, it seems to me there's an injunction to stimulate in the seventh and the eighth verses.

And then there's an illustration to clarify as the Lord Jesus brings the concept of the Good Father onto the stage and puts a spotlight on it. And then there's a qualification to balance. This teaching of our Lord does not give a blasé attitude justification to the whole idea of prayer that whatever you ask will it automatically be granted.

An injunction to stimulate? Ask and it will be given to you. Seeking you will find. Knock and the door will be opened to you.

Everyone who asks receives. He who seeks finds. To him who knocks the door will be opened.

But hasn't he said this already? Hasn't he already given us examples in the fifth chapter of how to pray? When you pray say our Father. How not to pray? When you pray don't pray like the Pharisees. Because theirs is just a public display of religiosity which is offensive before man and it stinks in the nostrils of God.

So why does our Lord having given such stern teaching about prayer in its negative and sublime teaching about prayer in its positive why does he come back to stimulate further prayer? Well let me put it to you in a question. What might make you more enthusiastic in prayer? What conviction more than any other conviction in the world? And surely the answer is this. That somebody out there is listening.

Right? That when I pray I'm not spraying the cosmos with my words. But out there there is a God not just an impersonal God but one who has emotions. One who responds to the needs of his children.

Who picks up the stuttering stammering word that falls from my lips. I says the Lord Jesus. That's the way to pray.

Ask and you will receive. Seek and you will find. Knock and it will be open unto you.

In other words if the cause is your prayer the consequence is that God will respond. That's why David says of God all thou that hearest prayer the greatest stimulus to prayer is to believe that there is one who is waiting to hang on to the words that fall from your mouth. And our Savior is convinced that this is the case.

That's why he repeats in the eighth verse in effect what he's put in the seventh only he expresses it a little more strongly. The only person who is defective in the whole matter of prayer is the person who's got nothing to ask for. So the Pharisee who goes into the temple.

You remember he goes right to the front and he says I thank you God that I'm not like this. I'm not like that. I do this.

I don't do the other and so on and so forth. And you put the so-called prayer through a sieve and there's no element of petition whatsoever. But the tax collector, the sinner, the man who doesn't naturally go into synagogues but is now in a state of utter conviction.

He beats upon his breast and he says Lord be merciful to me the sinful one. His prayer is valid because it has the petitionary element. He's asking.

He's seeking. He's knocking. It seems to me that these are the three hammer blows of prayer.

At first I ask it's audio. It's audio. And then I seek it's visual.

And then I knock it's persistent. I'm like the wise men I hear about the birth of the child. Then I come looking and then I'm knocking albeit in Jerusalem at the wrong door.

But nonetheless I'm showing the intensity of my desire to find the one who is called the King of the Jews. So here is our Lord emphasizing the reason, the need for us to pray. Here is beggars theology.

You say what do you mean? Well go to India. Go to Pakistan. Go to any third world country and you'll see the beggars there.

And if they feel that you have got an ounce of philanthropy they will not leave you alone until they've squeezed from you a rupee or a cent or whatever the currency happens to be. Why will you see you're a lifeline to them? It may be that unless they get some food from you, at least some money to purchase food, then their life will be hazarded that day. And so here is the possibility.

So they glue themselves to you until you give them what they need. And here is an injunction to stimulate prayer in terms of the beggar. You see the proud man never prays like this does he? This is the difficulty as far as secular society is concerned and the fundamental Christian teaching on prayer.

You see man today is told that he's the master of all things. He can regularize an ethical code. He can have situational ethics.

Therefore he can justify abortion for the most fanciful excuse. Man is not dependent on anyone else but himself. That's modern secularism.

But Jesus says no. Man is utterly dependent upon this great God and his theology must be the theology of the beggar that knocks, that seeks, that asks until he is given what his heart requires. An injunction to stimulate.

Are you using the hammer blows of prayer yourself? Quickly an illustration to clarify verse 9. Which of you? If his son asks for bread we'll give him a stone. If he asks for fish we'll give him a snake. Here is a good father you see.

And it's easy for people perhaps even more so in the days of our Lord to appreciate this picture than today with broken families alas littering our country. I forget the statistic in my wife's class and in classes of teachers that I know here in the tab, day school teachers, in terms of the nuclear family, mom, dad and kids. It's becoming if not a rarity, it's certainly sinking fast from the position of a majority.

Now that wasn't the case in Jesus's day and he can use the illustration of a good father and they'll understand him more. God help us and people will in the 20th century in Western civilization and in our own country of Great Britain. Why does he give us the concept of a good father? Well let me express it to you theologically.

If you'll turn to Ephesians you'll discover a piece of very rich reasoning from the Apostle Paul. When he says in that epistle in the third chapter on the 15th verse, which gave stimulus to Ishmael writing that song, I wonder how I managed to exist without the knowledge of your parenthood. He says in Ephesians 3.14, for this reason I kneel before the Father from whom his whole family in heaven and earth derives its name.

If you drop down to the margin translation the bottom of your Bible you'll discover that an optional translation is from whom all fatherhood derives its name. You see the point here is a good earthly father. Now every commendable characteristic that that man has, he in effect picks up from God who is the great, the supreme father.

And so here is our Lord you see and he's been teaching about the fatherhood of God and the ability of God to respond to the prayers of his, the requests of his children and he makes this very homely illustration. He says and remember he's in Galilee where the commoner gardener meal will be fish or bread. And bread baked in those days were what we call in Yorkshire bread cakes.

I asked for bread cakes down here 20 years ago. They wondered what I was talking about. They thought it was just some sweet confectionery.

I had to educate these Southerners. I've been doing it for the last 20 years as to what a bread cake is. Well a bread cake can look like a stone.

And Jesus says would a father give a son something that is in inedible, a stone? If he wants bread of course he won't. Even moreover will he give him something that is not just inedible but is totally harmful? There was an eel in the Sea of Galilee, I think there still is to this day, which if you catch it looks like a snake. And now would it would a good father take the literal thing, the snake and give it to his son who's asking for fish? Of course he wouldn't.

Good fathers don't do that sort of thing. Now even if good fathers who have with them, because they're sinners, a tendency to evil. If you then being evil know how to go give good things, because evil men can do good at points.

If you being evil know how to give good gifts, how much more, here is the a fortiori argument as the Latins would say, the argument from the minority to the majority. If an impoverished father, if an inadequate father is able to give his children the good things that he deserves, and it's a logical natural thing for him to do, how much more, you get the point? How much more will your father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him? What good things? Well blessed are the merciful. Lord I need mercy to maintain my position in your kingdom.

But blessed are those who can control their minds. Lord I need a clear mind to be an honorable member of your kingdom. Blessed are those who have freed themselves from worry, who recognize that the birds of the air and the lilies of the valley, they don't have an apoplectic fit day by day, because they naturally take from the ground the blessings that the father has presented.

Lord I need to behave like the inanimate flower or the simple bird. Good things, ask, seek, knock. You see presupposing the whole of this discourse on the Sermon on the Mount, and again I can deplore, only deplore people who take it ethically and don't realize that there is a climactic spiritual experience that our Lord is anticipating on the part of those who go into the kingdom and for whom this sermon makes sense.

Presupposing the Sermon on the Mount is an experience of the dynamic of God's Spirit. That's why the 11th chapter which David read to us from the Gospel of Luke, our Lord uses this little run-in in terms of ask and seek and find and this whole business of the stone and of the serpent, but he takes up the good thing and defines it in terms of how much more will Heavenly Father give Holy Spirit to those who ask him. You see the essence of all good things comes from the good father and the good father grants his spirit and it's as you respond to the Spirit of God so this father of our Lord Jesus becomes your father because the Spirit is the Spirit of adoption which enables you to say Abba Father.

An injunction to stimulate, an illustration to clarify, ask, seek, find, because he's far better than even the best earthly father and he will give you all things that you need for your good. But finally a qualification to balance. Somebody has quipped that a text outside of a context is a pretext.

I haven't time to repeat that but you could get it again on the tape. Not too sure I get the order right anyway. A casual reading of this statement might give you a sort of slot machine theology of prayer.

Ask and it'll come out. Pop in your money and out will come a bar of chocolate or the equivalent. But you see throughout the teaching of our Lord here it seems to me there are certain things that you've always got to bear in mind.

If you thought just for a moment let's just take the presupposition that this is slot machine theology then here are three reactions. First of all at the human level my response may be this is very wonderful. Ask, everything I ask for will be provided.

In effect it's Aladdin and the lamp again isn't it and God is a genie and I rub and he does just what I want. And in one sense that would be very wonderful it will be very marvelous. But not only is my reaction that this will be very wonderful it's also qualified by this it would be very frightening, very frightening.

Alec Mottier a great Anglican preacher now resident in Bournemouth says if it were the case that whatever we ask God was pledged to give I for one would never pray again because I would not have sufficient courage in my own way to ask God for anything. It would impose an intolerable burden on frail human wisdom if by his prayers, if by his prayers the promises of God were fulfilled so that we were given everything that we ask and in exactly the terms we ask. You thought that through? If that was the right understanding of that verse the simple understanding then how frightening it would be.

Says Dr. Lloyd-Jones I thank God let me put it bluntly that he is not prepared to do anything that I may chance to ask him and I say that as a result of my own past experience in my past life I like many others have asked God for things and have asked God to do things which at that time I wanted very much and which I believe were the very best things for me but now I am profoundly grateful to God that he did not grant me certain things for which I asked and that he shut certain doors in my face. This is not a universal promise as the doctor and that God is not going to grant me every desire and request is a blessing. Our three reactions may be different first of all it seems it's very wonderful then it may seem very frightening but but but thirdly let me suggest what we really need in terms of handling this part of my address as we apply it is great care we must be very careful we must distinguish you see between God's gifts in redemption and God's gifts in creation you say what do you mean well there is a sense isn't there in which prayer is utterly meaningless to the secularist I mean he gets his bread a day by day doesn't he he gets his food he gets his his clothing verse 45 of the fifth chapter that you may be sons of your father in heaven he causes his son to rise on the evil and the good and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous you see is prayer really necessary it doesn't God give these things in any case and the answer is yes at a creative level he does with common grace benefit people in terms of the ordinary things of life or that seems to be the case but there's not only God as creator that our Lord placards in front of us as a picture here but God as father God as Redeemer and there are special redemption blessings for which I need to ask God I have to ask him for salvation whoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved I have to ask him for forgiveness forgive me my trespasses as I forgive those who trespass against me the reason why you need to pray is not so much for creative blessings although God knows that because we're Christian people and we recognize that every good and perfect gift comes from him we should still be praying the Lord's Prayer give me this day my daily bread even though you know that your larder is full at least your refrigerator is you acknowledge that behind the creative blessings the creator blessings is God himself that you need to be asking you need to be searching you need to be knocking for these redemption blessings in terms of growth in grace a greater appreciation of the fullness of the Holy Spirit ever submitting your life to the will of God so that when you're asking specifically for certain things in your Christian pilgrimage you do so having submitted first of all your reasoning to the mind of the Lord so it's not just a blanket text is it it's a text it's a promise that's offered to the children of the father to the citizens of the king who understand the heart of the father and the objectives of the king these things I will ask for one old Puritan says of Abraham Abraham set out not knowing where he was going but he did know with whom he was going and that's the case as we go through life we don't always know where we're going but we know that we're going in the company of our heavenly father who mediates his presence through the Holy Spirit who by that same spirit causes us to be sons and as sons we come to the father not in a blase fashion but we do come persistently and we do come determinedly and we ask him that we might spiritually be strong to be able to cope with all the demands of the kingdom and if we fail then we come again to him and we search even more intensely not just with the audio but also with the visual and if it's still the case that we're frustrated in in the inner dispositions of our life where we've not completely mastered every desire of the body then we knock and we knock and we knock and we say Lord I want to be strong for you I want to be bold in your kingdom and that's my friends how I understand our Lord's teaching here as he sets down the three hammer blows of prayer he gives you the picture of a loving father who wants to give you all things that you need for life and for godliness here in these verses is an injunction to stimulate an illustration to clarify a qualification to balance about the whole business of prayer and the relationship of the Father God to ourselves do you know this are you praying ever more determinedly in your private life you ever clinging to that old rugged cross and to the glorious baptism of God's Spirit through which you receive all these mercies potentially are you asking God to make what's potential actual in your life so that you might be a good member of this kingdom an honorable son and daughter of this good father a moment of quiet prayer and then we'll stand and sing the Lord's Prayer Alleluia Thy kingdom come Thy rule be done In earth as it is in heaven Give us this day our daily bread And forgive us our trespasses As we forgive and not trespass against Thy kingdom come Thy will be done Father we can trust the world as it is now with the kingdom that you want and our hearts crumble because we're so far short you want families that don't break apart at the seams you want intimacy to remain where you placed it in human relationships and not to be exploited nor beggared you want an equitable distribution of food and not a capitalist greed Lord the difference between what you want and what we give is so ginormous that apart from our Lord Jesus and the gift of his spirit we would think that any reconciliation is impossible but we thank you that you have moved towards us and released into this world the power of reformation and recreation Oh God will you apply it more thoroughly to humankind cripplers of our pride bringers before you enable us to work and to pray into being the society that you want on the grounds that you are prepared to bring it about continue to bless us this day around your table and around your word and this we ask pleading the forgiveness of all our sins in the name of your son our Savior Jesus Christ the Lord Amen