SM #42: Knockin' On Heaven's Door
- BOO
- 3 days ago
- 31 min read
Updated: 2 days ago
Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, it will be opened. Which of you, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? Therefore, if you who are evil know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in the heavens give good things to those who ask him! ~ JESUS (Matthew 7:7-11)
CORE
(The heart of the message)
God wants to bless us. He wants to give us what is good.
We don't have to find the right "abracadabra" or "open sesame" formula to get God to respond to our prayers. He's not tricky. He's not distant. And he's certainly not mean. He loves us, pays attention to us, and can hardly wait to give us everything that's good for us.
So let's talk to him.
"Jesus says God hears our prayers with the ears of a loving Father who gives good things to his children." ~ Skye Jethani (What if Jesus was Serious?)
CONUNDRUM
(Raising questions skeptics might be asking)
Hey Jesus, you're supposed to be the guy who preaches forgiveness, acceptance, and universal love. So, did I just hear you call everybody "evil"?
What gives Jesus?
CONTEXT
(What’s going on before and after this passage)
Although Jesus stresses the importance of asking, seeking, and knocking, he never says what or who we are supposed to be asking for, searching for, or what door we should be knocking on. How are we supposed to fill in the blanks? To understand this, context is king (as in, kingdom).
A few places in the New Testament provide answers. Here are three:
Immediate context.
James' teaching on praying for wisdom.
Luke's parallel version of this same teaching of Jesus.
Let's look at each.
Immediate context
Some scholars (like Scot McKnight) believe the Sermon on the Mount reflects mostly Matthew's editorial choices to stitch together random sayings of Jesus. This would mean each sub-teaching needs to stand on its own and we should not look for thematic flow from one topic to the next.
Others believe, whether the sermon reflects primarily Matthew's or Jesus' flow of thought, there is still a flow we should pay attention to. The teaching is all Jesus; and whether the flow of thought is Jesus' or Matthew's, it is still the Holy Spirit speaking. The doctrine of inspiration applies, not only to the thoughts of Scripture, but to the flow, the sequence, the order of those same thoughts as well. So immediate context should be able to tell us something.
The verb for "ask" is connected to prayer earlier, in Matthew 6:8. So our current teaching will likely include prayer as part of how we are to ask, seek, and knock. In fact, all three words are associated with prayer in Jewish tradition.
The same word for "seek" is used at the end of chapter 6, where Jesus concludes his discussion about worry and anxiety caused by the pursuit of possessions, power, and prestige:
But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. ~ JESUS (Matthew 6:33)
Since Jesus says nothing different about what to seek, we can safely assume that our asking, seeking, knocking should focus on the kingdom of God and his righteousness.
The word for "knock" is not used elsewhere in the sermon, but Jesus does go on to talk about entering through the narrow gate. There is no word for "door" in our current passage, though some English translations insert it, so Jesus could be thinking about knocking on the narrow gate. In Jesus' day, guests would knock on this outer door or gate of the property (e.g., Acts 12:13). So each of these verbs connect with Kingdom pursuits. Through prayer and other spiritual pursuits, especially though loving one another, we are always "Knock, knock, knockin' on Heaven's door."
There is an urgency and timeliness here, since later in the Parable of the Ten Bridesmaids (Matthew 25:1-13), Jesus will teach that even open doors will eventually be closed no matter how hard we knock. (Now there's a parable worth puzzling over - but that's another study.)
Finally, as far as immediate context goes, Jesus teaches the Golden Rule immediately following this passage, and he introduces it with "Therefore" or "So then". It seems that, in Jesus' mind, the Golden Rule of treating others the way we want to be treated is tied to the idea of God's generosity toward us. This hints at something Jesus will later develop: While the Golden Rule is a good start for New Testament morality, it is not our ultimate ethical guide. At the end of his three years with his disciples, Jesus gives them (and us) a "new command" in which we discover that the "Platinum Rule" of loving the way we have already been loved is the unique brand and ultimate guiding principle of the Way of Jesus (John 13:34-35).
James' teaching on praying for wisdom
Scholars have long noted that the book of James is connected to and draws from the Sermon on the Mount in many places. James uses "asking" language in his first chapter:
If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you. ~ James the brother of Jesus (James 1:5; also see 1:16-17; 4:3)
Just before Jesus tells us to ask, seek, and knock, he has given nuanced teaching that requires wisdom to apply. He has taught us not to worry about stuff (while still living a productive and generous life), not to judge others (while still discerning enough to be helpful), being always self-reflective (before focusing on helping others self-reflect), and about not force feeding the precious truth of the Gospel to those who aren't interested (while still always making the most of every opportunity to share the Good News of the Kingdom will everyone who is interested). This takes wisdom! And thankfully, whatever we need to follow Jesus, God is happy to give us.
Jesus doesn't give step-by-step instructions or ethical formulas or detailed laws for making most decisions. That is how the Old Covenant works. The New Covenant is different, not only in the content of God's will for us (e.g., God's changed approach on things like sacrificing animals, Sabbath observance, clothing and farming legislation, death penalty for religious offenses, complete destruction of enemies, etc), but also in its method of discerning God's will. The New Covenant approach to life's choices involves learning from the Holy Spirit who guides us from within, while also learning from Jesus' teaching that partners with the Spirit's leading. The Old Covenant shapes our behaviour. The New Covenant shapes our character and purifies our intuitions. The Old Covenant says our hearts are corrupt and beyond repair (Jeremiah 17:9). So the New Covenant says, "Here's a new heart!" (Ezekiel 11:19; 36:26)
The Old Covenant primarily requires obedience.
The New Covenant primarily requires wisdom.
In the Old Covenant, there were always exceptions, like King David, who knew God's heart enough to go beyond rule-keeping to live by love not law (Matthew 12:3-4). But that kind of wisdom was often reserved for prophets and rulers. King Solomon prayed for discernment to rule well, and God gave him a "wise and discerning heart" (see 1 Kings 3:5-15).
Now all God's people are given a new heart, new spirit, and God's Spirit to guide them (Ezekiel 36:25-27). We are led by the wisdom of love not law. Jesus People should always be asking for, searching for, and knocking on the door of... wisdom.
Luke's parallel passage
In Luke's version of this same saying of Jesus, he offers an important clarifying addition. The asking, seeking, knocking we are doing is ultimately not for particular prayer requests, blessings, or experiences, but for more of God, via the Holy Spirit.
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; the one who seeks finds; and to the one 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! ~ JESUS (Luke 11:9-13)
We want God's blessing. We want God's wisdom. We want God's kingdom and his righteousness. But more than anything, we want God.
Luke places this passage right after Jesus' teaching on the Lord's Prayer and a parable about persistence in asking, seeking, and knocking. So from Luke we learn that Jesus wants us to keep on praying, keep on pursuing, and to keep on asking God for more and more of his Holy Spirit.
Jesus repeats a version of this teaching in John's Gospel, referring to the Holy Spirit as "living water":
Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them. ~JESUS (John 7:37-38)
"God delights in our presence and delights in sharing his presence with us. We are summoned to enter." ~ Scot McKnight (Sermon on the Mount)
CONSIDER
(Observations about the passage)
Ask / Seek / Knock. Some Christians have read different forms of spiritual practice into each invitation: asking is prayer, seeking is Scripture study, and knocking is meditation on what we have learned. That is a handy reminder to pray, study, and meditate, but Jesus is probably using synonymous parallelism: three different ways of saying the same thing. (And as a coincidental bonus, in English, the first word is an acronym for the entire teaching - A.S.K.) This is not a sequential order (as in, first we ask, second we seek, and lastly we knock), although the parallel images do increase in intensity. If a child has a question for her mother, she asks. If she cannot find her mother in the house, she looks for her or calls out to her. If she suspects her mother is behind a closed door, she knocks (or should knock - oh how we wish our children would knock first!). The verb tense for each act of reaching out is present and ongoing, so this could be translated "Keep asking", "Keep searching", "Keep knocking" (as in the HCSB and NLT). So Jesus is, at least on some level, teaching what is sometimes called "beggars wisdom" - persistence in asking will get you better results (on perseverance in prayer see Luke 11:5-8; 18:1-8). It would be wrong to apply this idea of persistence in prayer to the practice of pestering God to give us the things we want and calling that "faith". We do not try to bend God's will by bending God's ear. Jesus has already told us what the focus of our seeking should be: God's kingdom and his righteousness above all else (Matthew 6:33). And when Jesus taught that, he specifically said we should not seek for other things but trust God to provide. That is faith. In his earlier teaching on prayer, Jesus said we should not be like the Gentiles who play their requests on repeat. We simply ask for our daily bread and move on. Ultimately, this passage is less about our persistence in prayer and more about the motivation for our persistence: God's goodness. Using repetition, Jesus promises God's loving response to our asking, seeking, and knocking a total of seven times. We often miss this because we are focused on our role of asking, seeking, and knocking. But the true emphasis of Jesus here is on God's generosity and lavish love for us. Look at the passage again...
Ask and (1) it will be given to you; seek and (2) you will find; knock and (3) it will be opened to you. For (4) everyone who asks receives; (5) the one who seeks finds; and (6) to the one who knocks, it will be opened. Which of you, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? Therefore, if you who are evil know how to give good gifts to your children, (7) how much more will your Father in the heavens give good gifts to those who ask him! ~ JESUS (Matthew 7:7-11)
So we ask, seek, and knock persistently, but we also ask expectantly. When we ask, God gives. When we seek, God reveals. When we knock, God opens doors. Before Jesus gives us the Golden Rule (coming up in our next study), he gives us the Golden Promise. Just as in the Beatitudes, before God commands or instructs, he blesses. God wants to, he is eager to, bless us with good gifts! Knowing this motivates us to continue moving forward during difficult times (which is most of life isn't it?). God's response to our asking is never distant disinterest, but also rarely instant gratification. In this life, God will always be opening doors into new experiences of intimacy with his Spirit, and yet we will still never have arrived. We will always be finding, and yet still seeking. In this life, the journey is the destination. Sometimes we Christians refer to curious non-Christians as "spiritual seekers". That's a good phrase, as long as we don't exclude ourselves from the description. Jesus anticipates his disciples will always be spiritual seekers - people who want more of God in their lives. This side of Heaven, Christians and non-Christians should all be able to sing along with U2:
"I still haven't found what I'm looking for." ~ U2
You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you, and will bring you back from captivity. ~ Yahweh (Jeremiah 29:13)
Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need. (Hebrews 4:16)
"Jesus' invitation to simply ask our heavenly Father for what we need is a radical departure from what most religions - both ancient and modern - prescribe. Most often, we are taught that God's favor must be won with gifts, rituals, sacrifices, or obedience before considering something as bold as a direct request of the divine. Religion usually puts us in the role of slaves in God's world, but Jesus exalts us to the status of children in God's home." ~ Skye Jethani (What if Jesus was Serious?)
"Prayer is not a spiritual crowbar or a jackhammer that pries open God's willingness to act but a means by which Christians open themselves up to God - to grasp God's will and to be grasped by it." ~ David E. Garland (Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament)
What a friend we have in Jesus,
all our sins and griefs to bear!
What a privilege to carry
everything to God in prayer!
O what peace we often forfeit,
O what needless pain we bear,
all because we do not carry
everything to God in prayer! ~ Joseph M. Scriven (1855)
Everyone. When Jesus repeats the promise, he widens the circle to include all people, not just his disciples. Perhaps at this point he began to look around to the large listening crowd, making eye contact with a smile. "Everyone" is now included in his focus. By the end of the sermon Jesus seems to have them in mind as he talks about the wise and foolish builders and the importance of turning education into action. In fact, most scholars note that by 7:13 Jesus is likely speaking with the crowds in mind. And that shift in focus outward from pure discipleship to including an evangelistic challenge begins here. All people should all be spiritual seekers; on this point we are all the same. When a nonbelieving friend is at least spiritually inquisitive, we should stress what we have in common rather than our differences. We are on the same journey together.
Bread / Stone / Fish / Snake. Jesus draws his conclusion with a form of argument that was popular with rabbis of his day, called qal v'homer (pronounced kal vahomer) in Jewish tradition, and a fortiori in Latin. It means from lesser to greater. If A is true, then "how much more" so B? If God takes care of the birds, how much more will he take care of us. If a man would rescue his sheep who fell into a ditch on the Sabbath, how much more should we help others and do good to all on the Sabbath? And if imperfect human parents know how to give good things to their kids, how much more will our perfectly loving Father give us good things. Now, our parental instincts prevent all but the most disturbed among us from bait-and-switching our children. Who would say to their child, "Are you hungry? Try this round, smooth, brown thing - it looks like a loaf of bread" or "You want fish? How about something else with scales?" (Luke adds an egg being swapped out for a scorpion!) The original readers of Matthew's Gospel may have at this point thought back to the Devil tempting Jesus with turning stones into bread. A cruel parent cannot turn stones into bread, but they can substitute stones for bread. This kind of parent would be, in a word, devilish. It is possible to conceive of some abusive parents who might be so cruel. Perhaps this is why Jesus limits his parental pool to his listeners, saying "Which of you...". The image of bread is strong in the teaching of Jesus. He has already used "bread" as a symbol for all our physical and spiritual needs in the Lord's Prayer; in John's gospel he will call himself the "bread of life"; and ultimately Jesus will use it as a symbol of his own self, his own body at the last supper. Jesus references bread so much the whole New Testament starts to smell like a bakery. And the same goes for fish (we could do without the smell imagery mind you). It is bread and fish that Jesus uses to miraculously feed the multitudes. And at the end of John's Gospel, the resurrected Jesus again serves his disciples bread and fish by a coal fire. (See our study here for more on this resurrection appearance.)
[So now, said with the best retro announcer's voice]: And now, ladies and gentlemen, it's time once again to play everybody's favourite gameshow [now everybody shouts]...
[Cue the cheesy gameshow music...]
Okay! Here we go!
THANKS FOR PLAYING ROCK OR BREAD?! (And yes, they are all rocks.)
You who are evil. Evil? Really Jesus? First of all, notice that Jesus doesn't say "we" who are evil. Whatever he's talking about here, Jesus puts himself in a different category. (On the sinlessness of Jesus see 2 Corinthians 5:21; Hebrews 4:15; 7:26-28; 1 Peter 1:19; 1 John 3:3). Now, as we have discussed in previous studies, humans are a paradox. We are glorious image bearers of God, and as such we are capable of amazing good, beauty, and creativity. Jesus has already blessed his disciples as "pure in heart" who are the "salt of the earth" and "light of the world", a "city on a hill" whose "good deeds" will lead others to glorify God, even though sometimes they will be "persecuted for their righteousness". And yet all of us wrestle with a universal tendency to screw everything up - each others' lives, our own lives, and even all of creation. Humans are amazing, and amazingly destructive. There seems to be a flaw in our code. Whatever word we give this human flaw - moral fallibility, self-sabotaging tendencies, being broken, misguided, or in Bible terms, being sinful, rebellious, or just plain "evil" as Jesus says here - an honest look at ourselves will lead us to admit that "something is rotten in the state of Denmark".
EXCURSUS: ARE WE REALLY EVIL?
Yes. Next question.
... Okay, we'll dig a little deeper. If we ask, What does Jesus, the Bible, the best theologians, the great philosophers, human history, and our own experience tell us?, we find that on this issue, every data point agrees: humans are amazing and amazingly destructive. When people behave terribly, we often call it "inhumanity". But the fact is, bad behaviour is very human. Or we say that someone is behaving like an animal, which, frankly, is an insult to most animals. So, why do some people persist in viewing themselves and others as sinless and basically good only? Perhaps they have experienced the punishing ways religious people and others use our failures to beat us down with guilt and shame. And yet, that hurtful and harmful experience also proves the point: using the idea of "sin" to cause more harm is precisely what we might expect sinful humans to do! On the topic of sin, the Bible is not telling us something we don't already know about ourselves. It is explaining why what we know about ourselves is true. We all know something is wrong. The Bible just has the best explanatory power to make the "why" make sense. God made us perfect, with no sin and no shame, and yet we listened to an external voice that tempted us away from our Godlike goodness. When we stopped trusting God as our source of life and walked away from his goodness and guidance, the temptation no longer needed to come from an external source. It began to grow from within each human being, passed down to all generations (Genesis 1-4). Now, every human reflects both the image and likeness of God as well as the inner inclination toward sin, resulting in universal human beauty and universal human depravity (Psalm 14:1-3; 51:5; 53:1-3; Romans 3:10-18; 5:12; etc.). The word "sin" comes from the Greek word, hamartia, meaning to be pulled apart. Sin is that force at work in this world, and in every one of us, that is pulling us apart from God, from each other, and from our true selves. It's not just ignorance, it's an active energy, a powerful poison, that separates, dis-integrates, and ultimately destroys if we don't find the antidote. Jesus' blood is the antidote. Spiritually, when Jesus offers us forgiveness and reconciliation, he pushes back against the power of sin with an even stronger power: love. His forgiveness and kindness and cleansing is a kind of blood transfusion from the cross to our hearts. So when Jesus calls us "evil" he doesn't mean we are as bad as we could be - after all he says this in the middle of talking about our love for our children and our good parenting in response to their needs. No, Jesus calls us "evil" because every aspect of human life - psychologically and socially - has been tainted with the evil sin virus. In the words of the tv series, The Walking Dead: We are all infected. So are humans fundamentally good or fundamentally bad? The only thing we fundamentally are is loved. All the rest is commentary.
"According to Jesus, there are no good people, only humble people and proud people. ... God isn't looking for moral impressiveness. He's looking for humility." ~ Brant Hansen (The Truth About Us)
Your Father in the heavens. God is not a reluctant stranger who must be badgered into giving us anything, nor is he an indulgent grandfather who will spoil us with anything we want, and God is certainly not a malicious monster who wants to trick us into accepting something that is not good for us. God is a loving Father who will always answer our prayers with what is best for us (i.e., "good things"). And yet, we often keep our distance because our concept of God is askew. Imagine if you found out that someone you knew could read your mind and knew every sin you had ever done or thought. Chances are you would not want to be around that person. The embarrassment, even shame, would be too much. Many of us subconsciously react this way to God. Jesus is helping rehabilitate our image of God as the one who knows everything and still loves us like the perfect Dad. Jesus wants us to see ourselves through the lens of our Father, not our failure. Our heavenly Father doesn't want to punish or condemn or shame or humiliate us; he just wants to give us "good gifts". Again the word for "heaven" is in the plural, emphasizing God's presence all around us and with us and within us. As the apostle Paul says, "God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit" (Romans 5:5). Think about how much we parents love our kids - they are our treasure. We want them to thrive, would endure anything for their good, and we would die for them to protect them from harm. And God's love for us is an even greater and more perfect version of this instinctual parental love.
Good things. Ever met someone named Agatha? That is the Greek word here - a form of the Greek root agathos, meaning that which is inherently good. What are the good things God will give us when we pray? And will we always get a positive response to our prayers? Jesus knew that his disciples didn't always get what they asked for (Matthew 17:16), in fact, neither did Jesus (Matthew 26:39). Jesus doesn't say God always gives us what we want, but God does give us all the "good things" we need. Thank God we can pray freely knowing that he listens with the ears and responds with the heart of a loving father. What are these good things? Jesus has already told us at least some of them in the sermon: the fellowship of the kingdom, comfort, mercy, forgiveness, provision, guidance, deliverance, and more. Matthew puts the emphasis on the good gifts God gives, whereas Luke stresses that ultimately we are seeking and asking for more of God himself. The Holy Spirit with us and within us is God's greatest gift to us all. If greater intimacy with the Almighty is what Jesus is talking about (as Luke confirms), then we don't have to weaken Jesus' promise that we will always get what we ask for in prayer. If we are praying for more of God in our lives, indeed, we will always get what we ask for. If it appears that God says "no" to some request, we can always know that it is really a "yes" to more of God in some way. What a way to tackle all of life, looking for and seeing God at work in the good and the bad. When we are filled with the Spirit, we will be filled with the manifestation of his presence and power, that is, the fruit of his character and whatever gift(s) he wants to give us so we can better serve one another. All believers are given the Holy Spirit as our internal guide and friend to remind us of Jesus' teaching (John 14:26). And yet, there is always more of the Spirit for us to experience (Ephesians 5:18).
"Our heavenly Father will correct our prayer, and give us, not what we ignorantly seek, but what we really need. The promise to give what we ask is here explained, and set in its true light. ... Our prayer goes to heaven in a Revised Version. It would be a terrible thing if God always gave us all we asked for."
~ Charles H. Spurgeon (Exposition)
Indeed, God knows how to give the good things we need better than we know how to ask for them.
So, what have we learned so far?
This teaching is about persistence in prayer; prayer for wisdom to help us live out the Sermon on the Mount and prayer for more of the Holy Spirit in our lives.
This teaching is also about more than prayer. It is a promise to all people, that God wants to be found and wants to bless us all with a sense of belonging in his kingdom, with the gift of his righteousness, and with more of his presence.
COMMENTARY
(Thoughts about meaning and application)
Some scholars see this teaching as an invitation to continual prayer, inspiring the apostle Paul's:
Pray without ceasing. ~ The apostle Paul (1 Thessalonians 5:17)
This may be one application, but the teaching applies more broadly than just to prayer. Our entire lives are, or should be, a search for a more meaningful encounter with and experience of God, his kingdom, his righteousness, and his Spirit. As we discussed in this previous study, all of life is a quest for meaning, purpose, and intimacy to overcome our aloneness.
And yet, some theological traditions teach that we are incapable of searching for God and it is only God who seeks after us. So which is it? Does God find us or do we find God? Does God seek for us or do we search for God? In other words, does God choose us or do we choose God?
The answer is: yes.
God chose us first in a couple ways. First, God chose us by creating us. Every parent does this - choosing their child first. When we are born or adopted into a loving family, we are chosen.
Most parents don't know what they're getting into when they have a baby. But they love that baby anyway. They don't know what the future will hold, whether that child will grow up to love them back or end up breaking their heart. But even the possibility of love is worth the risk of life.
Our heavenly Father knew you ahead of time; he knew who you would become, how you would grow, what you would accomplish, and how you would fail. And pre-knowing all of future you, God said, yes please; and he loved you into existence.
Secondly, God also chose us by redeeming us, that is, liberating or saving us. He knew that we would mess up, and that we would heap shame upon ourselves and on one another. He knew that our shame would drive us further away from him and each other, afraid of being on the receiving end of judgement rather than acceptance.
So God went about demonstrating his love for us in a profound and undeniable way.
For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever trusts in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. ~ JESUS (John 3:16-17)
But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. ~ The apostle Paul (Romans 5:8; see all of 5:6-10)
This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. ~ The apostle John (1 John 3:16)
This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. ~ The apostle John (1 John 4:9-10)
God chose us into life. And when we ran away, he chose to come get us and bring us home. According to Jesus in Luke 15, God is like a woman who has lost something precious and won't give up until she finds it. God is like a good shepherd to is searching for every black sheep that walks away. God is like a father scanning the horizon for his wandering, wayward, prodigal son.
God is the original seeker.
This song, Black Sheep by Ben Fuller, captures God's relentless search for us:
You broke through a thousand fences
Been rescued from a thousand ditches
You still swear you don't fit in
So you kick and scream and you're gone again
Wandering off into the devil's wind
But how's it going out there?
Acting like you ain't scared
How's that heart of stone?
Ain't so hard when you're alone
Crying tears you hope nobody sees
Guess the good news is He'll never leave you be
Jesus loves you black sheep (ooh, ooh, ooh)
You hate everything about you
You think we're better off without you
You wear your pain out on your sleeve
And you paint it on in rebel ink
But the alcohol and pills ain't fixed a thing
So, how's it going out there?
Acting like you ain't scared
And how's that heart of stone?
It ain't so hard when you're alone
Crying tears you hope nobody sees
Guess the good news is He'll never leave you be
Jesus loves you black sheep (ooh, ooh, ooh)
Jesus loves you black sheep (ooh, ooh, ooh)
Can't tell you when, I ain't no prophet
But there'll come a point in time when you can't stop it
The Good Shepherd's love smells like smoke
There ain't no hell so low
Where He won't let the hounds of Heaven go
Seek 'em, let the hounds of Heaven go
So how's it going out there?
Acting like you ain't scared
How's that heart of stone?
Ain't so hard when you're alone
Crying tears you hope nobody sees
Guess the good news is He'll never leave you be
And amazing grace is a pesky, pesky thing
But the good news is He'll never leave you be
Jesus loves you black sheep (ooh, ooh, ooh)
Jesus loves you black sheep (ooh, ooh, ooh)
Okay one more song lyric, for those of us who learn better through poetry and song. This is a church worship song by Cory Asbury, called Reckless Love:
Before I spoke a word, You were singing over me
You have been so, so good to me
Before I took a breath, You breathed Your life in me
You have been so, so kind to me
Oh, the overwhelming, never-ending, reckless love of God
Oh, it chases me down, fights 'til I'm found, leaves the 99
And I couldn't earn it, and I don't deserve it, still, You give Yourself away
Oh, the overwhelming, never-ending, reckless love of God
When I was Your foe, still Your love fought for me
You have been so, so good to me
When I felt no worth, You paid it all for me
You have been so, so kind to me
Oh, the overwhelming, never-ending, reckless love of God
Oh, it chases me down, fights 'til I'm found, leaves the 99
And I couldn't earn it, and I don't deserve it, still, You give Yourself away
Oh, the overwhelming, never-ending, reckless love of God
There's no shadow You won't light up
Mountain You won't climb up
Coming after me
There's no wall You won't kick down
Lie You won't tear down
Coming after me
Sometimes God will "search" for us by convicting us of our wrongdoing with the hope that igniting our numb conscience will move us toward him in repentance. Speaking about the Holy Spirit, Jesus says:
When he comes, he will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment. ~ JESUS (John 16:8)
And when we won't listen to God's Spirit speaking through our own conscience, one of the ways God reaches us is by bringing consequence into our lives. Some of us aren't ready to face ourselves, let alone God, until we hit rock bottom.
The Lord disciplines the one he loves and chastises every child whom he accepts... for God disciplines us for our good, in order that we may share in his holiness. (Hebrews 12:6, 10)
No one can accuse God of being a passive or distant Father. He made the first move by creating us, then planted a flag in the middle of human history that declares his love for us, and still pursues us through conscience, circumstance, intuition, and experience..
So, take a moment to imagine yourself coming over the crest of a hill and seeing your heavenly Father seeing you, and his face lighting up with the biggest smile. Now see him running toward you. What happens next?
But hold on - we've only covered half the story.
Yes, God is choosing us every day. Pursuing us, convicting us, inviting us. But he wants us to seek him right back. Yes God has chosen us, but it isn't a marriage, it isn't a friendship, until we choose this relationship too.
Some theologians point to passages that describe humans as "dead" apart from God's initiative:
As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins. ~ The apostle Paul (Ephesians 2:1)
They claim that dead people can't ask, seek, knock. Dead people can't have faith. God must make us alive first. The choice is all his, not ours.
This seems like a forced interpretation of a poetic image. Sure, dead people don't ask, seek, and knock, but dead people don't sin either, and there seems to be a lot of that going on in this passage.
Jesus calls people "sick" not dead (Matthew 9:12-13), if we want to balance out our biblical imagery. But rather than engage in dueling metaphors, it is good to notice that the entire Bible functions as the story of God coming to us, and inviting us to come to God.
Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light. ~ JESUS (Matthew 11:28-30)
Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them. ~JESUS (John 7:37-38)
The Bible even ends on this note of invitation to come to God:
The Spirit and the bride say, “Come!” And let the one who hears say, “Come!” Let the one who is thirsty come; and let the one who wishes take the free gift of the water of life. ~ The apostle John (Revelation 22:13)
The apostle Paul was speaking to a group of philosophers in Athens when he told them:
From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands. God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us. ‘For in him we live and move and have our being.’ As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.’ ~ The apostle Paul (Acts 17:26-28)
God has been involved in human history from the beginning. God gets involved in politics, in religion, in culture, in all aspects of history for one reason: to maximize the opportunity for human success in searching for and finding God. God has stacked the deck in our favour, but stopped short of overwhelming us to the point of intimidation or coercion. God seeks for us, and he wants us to seek him back.
If we are going to live a fully human life - that is, be the image bearers of God who demonstrate his likeness - then we must not be coerced. Instead, like God, we must become seekers.
This quest isn't physical - we don't move from point A to point B within physical space to find God. We are already living "in" God. Rather, the quest is spiritual - a waking up to meaning, and purpose, and love in a way that only Jesus provides. If you're (still) reading this, then we're walking together on the journey home.
Some of us have crossed the line of faith in Jesus; some of us have yet to commit to Christ; and some of us committed, then slipped back, and are finally taking a second look. We're all in this together.
So how do we actually seek God?
Prayer, yes. Scripture reading, absolutely. Meditation, meaningful. Church attendance, helpful. But here's the interesting thing about the spirituality of Jesus. The way we reach up to God is primarily by reaching out to other people in love.
In some of the above passages, the pattern becomes clear. We would expect that a passage about God loving us would then tell us to love God back. Except that's not what the author says. Instead, we are told that our response to God loving us is supposed to be us loving... other people. That's the form our worship takes.
This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters. ~ The apostle John (1 John 3:16)
Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us. ~ The apostle John (1 John 4:11-12)
This pattern is found throughout the New Testament (e.g., Romans 13:8; 15:7; Galatians 5:14; James 2:8; 1 Peter 4:8). As Jesus teaches in his Parable of the Sheep and the Goats (Matthew 25), if you want to ask, seek, and knock on the door of heaven for more of God in your life, go serve the needs of the hurting people around you. You'll find Jesus there. (More on this idea of horizontal worship in this study here.)
We are all spiritual seekers. And we were meant to search together.
Some of us may be distracted by the pursuit of money, possessions, or power, but God is really what we're looking for. Others of us are too busy trying to take God's place by judging everyone around us. We love God, but we missed the memo that we should express our love for God by loving those around us, including sinners, screwups, and even our enemies.
Jesus invites his disciples and the crowds who are listening to see themselves on the same journey of asking for more of God, seeking first his kingdom and righteousness, and knocking on the door of heaven here and now.
That's a terrific though misattributed quote. The original is...
The young man who rings the bell at the brothel is unconsciously looking for God.
~ Bruce Marshall (The World, the Flesh and Father Smith, 1945)
This teaching of Jesus is an invitation to wake up, become conscious in our search, and and trust God to satisfy our needs with what is good for us.
CONFESSION
(Personal reflection)
[NOTE: After I wrote this confession, I realized that I had written something quite similar in a previous study. I guess this is where my mind is at these days. So rather than rewrite it, I'm leaving it as is.]
I confess that sometimes my emotions are numb. And sometimes they are dark. Really dark. So maybe numb is better.
See, I live in my head, not my heart or my gut. I think I've always been this way to some extent. Maybe I subconsciously know that my inner emotional world would be too dark or too tumultuous to even go there, so I keep away. I don't know.
As I mentioned in the Confession section of a previous study, my childhood hero was Mr. Spock of the original Star Trek. All thought, no emotion. Or at least he was able to suppress what emotions might be deep within (after all, he was half human). That felt like a personal triumph to me. I related to him. Or maybe I wanted to relate to him. Strangely, being Vulcan felt like a better way of being human. I wanted to have the same success at being emotionless as Spock.
Now that I'm an adult, I live in my thoughts, and my thoughts are rarely quiet. It's busy in my brain. Mostly, my mind is in turmoil - a storm cloud of thoughts and inner dialogue that take the form of debates with myself, constant puzzle solving, all mixed with a large dose of self condemnation. I wouldn't describe this inner turmoil as a whirlwind of emotions (although they are there in the background), but a whirlwind of thoughts. This isn't new. This is life.
And. It. Won't. Shut. Up.
The best I can do is focus my musings on something so captivating and engaging and amazing that my crazy racing thoughts find some stillness through focus. And that focus better be on something good, something loving, something life-giving.
Jesus, you see, isn't just the Saviour of my soul, he's the Saviour of my mind.
When my mind becomes a stormy sea of tumult (which is most of the time), it seems only Jesus has the power to say "Peace, be still."
This is why I'm writing this series, or why I write anything. I need it. I'm writing for my life. I guess it isn't the writing per se that I need as much as the process of study and calm focus that the writing forces me into.
For me, life = thinking. But I know that thinking isn't the same thing as loving. I know I need to get out more, that is, out of my head.
Sometimes God uses a single Bible verse, or a song, or a movie, or a meaningful musical (like Godspell or Hades Town) to reach my heart or grab my gut. Other times, thinking about my family, specifically my daughters, will release some sort of fountain of emotion that I can't even identify. It just comes. So, I know the emotions are there; they just stay tucked away most of the time.
Why am I telling you all this? Good question! I'm starting to wonder myself. I guess because I want to confess (this is the confession section right?) that I'm struggling - and I am not convinced that struggling is a bad thing. Giving up would be the bad thing. For me, struggling means choosing life.
And I'm writing all this because I want to declare that I'm going to be continuing to ask, seek, and knock for more of the Holy Spirit in my life. And I'm inviting you to join me.
I share my struggles so you can know that whatever you're going through or whatever you feel is holding you back, we're all wrestling with something. And the best thing for us is more of God, while we link arms with each other.
I am almost a senior citizen and I feel like a toddler, with so much to learn and explore. And because of Jesus, I know that whatever I have yet to discover, it's going to be full of love and life and light.
Thank you for joining me. Let's explore together. This is going to be - no, it already is - a grand adventure.
CONCLUSION
(One last thought)
The Sermon on the Mount is hard work. There are a lot of high ethical demands. But Jesus starts with grace (Blessed are the poor in spirit) and returns to grace throughout, like here, reminding us that God has nothing but "good gifts" to give all of us.
These "good gifts", which we know is ultimately more of God himself, point to even more grace infused into our hearts.
Salvation by grace does not make us passive recipients, rather it encourages and equips us to be active partners, "co-workers" with God in all of life (1 Corinthians 3:9; 2 Corinthians 6:1). By encouraging us to ask, seek, and knock, Jesus is helping fan into flame our active participation with God as his partners. What a way to live. What a gift.
“I revealed myself to those who did not ask for me; I was found by those who did not seek me. To a nation that did not call on my name, I said, ‘Here am I, here am I.’ ~ Yahweh (Isaiah 65:1)
God has made the first move. Are you ready to respond?
CONTEMPLATE
(Scripture passages that relate to and deepen our understanding of this topic)
Psalm 37:4; Proverbs 8:17; Luke 11:5-13; Romans 5:6-10
CONVERSATION
(Talk together, learn together, grow together)
What is God revealing to you about himself through this passage?
What is God showing you about yourself through this passage?
Do you struggle to pray consistently, joyfully, and expectantly? If so, what seems to be holding you back?
What is one thing you can think, believe, or do differently in light of what you are learning?
What questions are you still processing about this topic?
CALL TO ACTION
(Ideas for turning talk into walk)
Pray. Don't delay. Pray right now. Ask God for more of his presence, his power, and his blessing in your life. Pray that he will fill you with his Holy Spirit. Then pause and open your heart to sense God answering, revealing, and opening the door.
Meditate with Music. Listen to one or all of the songs linked in this article and listen to what God might be saying to you through the music.
Enlist a Prayer Partner. At least for one week (longer if you like), invite one other person to daily pray with you or at least check in with each other to ask about your daily prayer time. Pay attention to what God is giving you during these times.
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