Mat 7:7-12; Courage to Enter In and Meet Your Designer.

Class Outline:

Wednesday October 9, 2024

 

Main idea: Jesus demands that we participate in establishing His design for our life or we will not experience it.

 

The Lord states His promise twice: 

 

MAT 7:7-8

"Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.  8 "For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened.

 

With anything else in the world there is uncertainty, but not here. In order that you might be quite certain, He repeats it. That is His guarantee. His illustration of God the Father vs. human fathers, seals it up even tighter. 

 

Of course, He means that we should ask and seek for the right things and knock on the right doors. He promises that if we keep it up, we will receive, find, and enter in. 

 

This is obviously the Lord’s desire for you. He wants you entering into His life in your everyday experience. I think it’s obvious that He will not force you, even if that is what you ask for.

 

A lot of people ask for the wrong things, seek the wrong things, and desire to enter into the wrong places. 

 

What are we asking, seeking, and knocking? 

 

Keep asking:

 

The Lord wants us asking for everything in this amazing Sermon. 

 

The disciples asked Christ to increase their faith after He taught them to have forgiveness for their enemies.

 

Keep seeking:

 

What we ask for is going to be answered. There is a way or road towards your petition’s fulfillment. You have to seek that path.

 

Principle: You commit to do His will before you see that will more clearly, when you do see (opened eyes) then you have the final choice in the process.

 

Keep knocking:

 

Along the way there are going to be many options to do things, what I mean is the application of truth to life. 

 

The promise is that the way will be opened (same verb for opening eyes of the blind).

 

It is also used for the opened door opportunities for Paul (1CO 16:8-9; 2CO 2:12 - in both cases there is opposition, but Paul did not decide to go somewhere easier). COL 4:1-6.

 

Contrast Luke and Demas COL 4:14; 2TI 4:9-11). 

 

People love the status quo. They hate change. For a good many serious believers the real challenge comes in the doing - knocking and entering, which involves some change. 

 

Knocking: Probably the one that holds most of us back from achieving maturity as an apprentice of Christ. Entering is the doing. It is where theory or thought becomes action. 

 

Doing is design. A design engineer is one who has to make something work. Let’s explore this from the mind-set of a designer: 

 

Be curious: curiosity makes everything new. It invites exploration.” 

 

Try stuff: Trying stuff leads you to see that the problem might have been entirely different than you thought it was. Designers embrace change. 

 

Reframing: Reframing is how designers get unstuck. Step back, look at the problem anew, examine your biases, and open up new solution spaces. 

 

Know it’s a process: Life gets messy. We try to follow Him and when we knock on wrong doors, no matter how badly we wanted those doors to open, we have to walk away and then see what happens next. 

 

Ask for help: the best designers know that design requires radical collaboration. You need a team.

 

Conclusion: Ask, seek, and knock has a beginning, middle, and end. They go together. Live together. If one is missing, the magic does not happen (SOM will always be theoretical for you.)

 

Reevaluate what you have been asking for in prayer. Do your petitions include all the weak points of your response to this Sermon? 

 

What do you seek after on most days? Is your great quest a little more sleep, better behaved kids, money, a good lunch, entertainment, sex, alcohol, drugs, and rock-and-roll, and whatever other earthly thing you could seek? Are you trying to serve two masters? 

 

What doors has God clearly asked you to walk through and do the work therein? Did you go? Did you initially say yes but then not go (parable of the two sons)? 

 

An unexamined life is not worth living. Jesus offers you the opportunity to examine yourself in the very real light of His guarantee. 

 

Have you chosen the status quo - concluded you are too old to change? 

 

Are you curious about what more God has for you? 

 

Have you reframed ideas or just stuck with what you’ve done, even if it is not working? 

 

Have you been patient, knowing that God is working on you? 

 

Have you reached out and asked for help, or are you too afraid, too proud, too comfortable?