This transcript was generated by whisper.ai.

I want to welcome you to day two of our second part of the Look Through, Matthew
chapter 7. We're talking about decisions that change the direction of your life.
And of all the decisions that change the direction of your life, one of the most
important revolves around prayer and how you pray.

Listen to what Jesus taught us in verses 7 to 11. "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, and he
who seeks finds, and to him who knocks the door will be opened. Which of you, if
his son asks him 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? " One of the most
important decisions you can make about the direction of your life is the
decision to ask God.

Not just to depend on yourself, not to think God doesn't care, but to ask God
because God wants to give. One of the senses you get behind what Jesus taught us
here is that of expectation. "Ask, it will be given.

Seek, you will find. Knock, the door will be opened. " When you ask God, do you
expect him to answer?

If you don't expect him to answer, you're not really asking. You're not really
knocking. You're just talking.

You're just standing outside the door doing nothing. To say, "I talk to God, but
I don't expect anything out of it," doesn't understand the character of God. I
can genuinely say to you that every time I ask God, I expect him to answer.

Now, I don't expect him to always answer the way that I want him to answer.
Sometimes he answers in different ways because he's greater than I am, but I
expect him to answer. In that way, it's like we're the child and God's the
father.

Those of you that are parents, your children expect an answer when they ask you.
When my kids were smaller, they expected an answer when they asked. They don't
say, "Can I have a cookie and wait 10 seconds and then walk away if I don't say
anything?

" If they want a cookie, they will ask 500 times until they hear an answer. They
want to know what's the answer. With the cookies, sometimes my answer to my
children is, "No, no, we're having dinner in five minutes.

You can't have a cookie right now. " But at least they heard an answer and they
can act on that. They go and ask their mother for a cookie.

That's what they do in that situation. When you ask, you have to expect an
answer. What if I promise them, "No, you can't have a cookie right now, but I
promise you, right after dinner, you can have a cookie.

" Would it be presumptuous for them after dinner to come to me and say, "Daddy,
can I have my cookie now? " No, I promised them. They would expect in that
moment that I'd give them the cookie.

If I didn't give them the cookie, there'd be a lot of tears. Let's elevate this
beyond fathers and sons and daughters and cookies to the realities of our life.
God makes you and I a lot of promises.

And expecting is not just waiting for him to say yes or no. Expecting when you
ask is often acting on those promises. I ask, many times God will remind me of a
promise.

I promise that. "God, will you give me peace? Will you give me freedom from
worry?

God reminds me, "Pray about everything and I'll free you from worry. " Okay, I
need to talk to God about this. In fact, let me share with you three aspects of
expecting when it comes to praying.

Expecting, what does it mean? Expecting means, number one, accepting the wisdom
of a no. Expecting God to answer means sometimes I know he's going to answer no
and I accept that wisdom.

I know that he has greater wisdom than I do. I asked because I know he has my
best interest at heart. I didn't try to get it myself because I know that I can
trust him more than I can trust me.

So, expecting means accepting the wisdom of a no. Expecting also means
confidently waiting for a promise. Sometimes I ask and God says, "Yes, it's
coming, I promised.

" But maybe it's coming next week or next year or even in eternity sometimes. I
can expect, I can wait on that promise. Expecting also means, the third thing
that it means is recognizing the source of a yes.

When I ask and God gives it, then I recognize, I praise God that he has given
it. I don't give myself all the credit or anybody else the credit in that
moment. They may have been involved in it, but God did it.

He worked through that person. He worked through that circumstance. So I give
him praise.

So for instance, when you pray about your worry, you're reminded God has
promised to guard your heart and mind in Christ Jesus and you accept that
promise. So when you pray about a physical need, you're reminded that God has
promised to meet our physical needs as we seek first his kingdom. So you seek
first his kingdom.

God will often remind you of a promise as you ask. That's how it sets the
direction of your life. I want you to notice in this who God says very clearly
he will answer when they ask.

Verse 8, "For everyone, everyone who asks receives, he who seeks finds, to him
who knocks the door will be opened. " God wants to answer everyone, not just
certain special people of faith, not people who have been Christians for a
certain number of years or brand new Christians. God wants to answer, is working
to answer everyone.

So the big question here is, why doesn't this always work like I expected it
would work? Or why doesn't it work for me? It seems to work for everybody else.

They ask. God answers. It's working for me.

If I thought I could explain to you entirely the mystery of prayer and our
relationship with God, I'd be a very prideful person. There are a lot of things
about prayer that I don't understand, that I won't understand until I get to
heaven. I do understand that Jesus told me to ask.

And I do trust Jesus. So I'm going to keep doing what he told me to do. And I'm
going to expect, I'm going to patiently expect that he will sort this out when I
get to heaven.

And I will understand some things that I don't understand on this earth. But in
this time of not fully understanding, I'm going to do what he taught me to do.
And when we talk about asking, there are three specific things that he teaches
us to do when we're feeling like it's not working for me.

You see them all in these verses. First, when you feel like it's not working,
number one, you need to be persistent. All of these verbs, all of these commands
here are present imperatives in the Greek.

That means there are things here to do not just once, but to do again and again.
The idea here is keep on asking. Keep on seeking.

Keep on knocking. It's not like you go up to the door and knock once, nothing,
and you walk away and go get it yourself. No, you stay there because you trust
God.

And you keep on knocking, waiting for his answer. So you need to be persistent
when you feel like the answer's not coming. The second thing these verses teach
us is you need to be dependent.

You need to depend on your relationship with God. First, you have to have a
relationship with God. That's where you begin.

You ask out of this relationship with God, accepting his forgiveness, accepting
his leadership as your Father, as your Lord, and then you depend on him. We all
get to these moments in life when we decide it's up to us to get the cookies.
Mom said no.

Dad said no. I'm tall enough now. I think I can climb up on that counter, open
that cookie jar, and get the cookies for myself.

We've all gone through that. We still go through that in our lives. And when you
do that, you short circuit the process because now you're depending on yourself
and not on God.

This idea that God helps those who help themselves, that's not in the Bible.
That's Ben Franklin. That's not the Bible.

God helps those who trust in him. So you trust in him because you realize
sometimes when I go to get things myself, I'm getting the wrong thing. I can't
always trust myself even when I think it's the right thing.

For me, it can be the wrong thing for somebody else. So you depend on God in it.
You depend on his strength, his power, his leadership.

And in doing that, there's a third thing that we're taught in these verses is we
walk through these feelings that it's not working. The answer is not coming when
I want it to come. The third thing is you need to understand the character of
God.

Jesus is very clear about that in these verses. You ask, you receive, because
look at the character of God. He is a God who wants to give to you.

And Jesus goes through and he says, "Look, you, you're evil many times. You're
not perfect human beings, but you want to give to your children. God is perfect.

He wants to give even more to his children. " A confidence in prayer, a boldness
in prayer is based on understanding the character of God. A lot of people lack
confidence because they don't understand what God is really like.

Now, I know a lot of people who think of God as a heavenly Santa. He'll give you
whatever you want as long as you're good. So if I'm good enough, he has to give
me what I want.

That's not what God's like. That's not his character. He wants to give to all of
us.

We're his children. So we trust in Jesus, we become his children. He wants to
give to all of us.

I know others who think, many others who think of God not as a heavenly Santa,
but as a heavenly Scrooge. He parcels out his blessings. He makes sure you just
barely have enough to squeak by to remind you that he's real.

It's like he has his thumb on you rather than he wants to give to you. When it
comes to praying, what gives you confidence in prayer is not the quality of your
prayer or the depth of your faith or the ability of you as a prayer. Confidence
is based on the one we're talking to, understanding who God really is.

How much more will your father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him?
Why do you think you and I like to give gifts? Why do we go to such extents to
buy a gift for our spouse or our boyfriend or girlfriend or a friend or our
children?

Because we're created by God and God is a giving God. We know how to give gifts
because God taught us how to give gifts. So when I trust in the character of
God, it means that I trust that God wants what is best in my life.

Trusting in the character of God means some other things like I trust that God
does not violate people's will. So I can't pray like a genie in a bottle prayer,
Lord, I pray that you will make this person love me or I pray that you will make
this person be saved. God can lead that person.

I can trust that he is leading that person. So when I pray, Jesus, will you help
that person to come to know you? And I don't see any difference in their life.

I know the character of God. I know he's talking to them. They may not say
anything about it.

They may not admit it, but I trust in the character of God. He is answering that
prayer. You trust the character of God.

He is a giving God. He wants to give to you. So if he doesn't give it, it's not
because he's withholding from you.

There's some other reason. Maybe it's the will of another person. It can be
that.

Maybe, maybe it's just that God is protecting you from something that you're not
aware of. He is a giving God. So you ask, you seek, you knock.

Let's do that right now. Would you pray with me? And just in prayer right now,
in this moment, say, Jesus, what do I need to be asking about right now?

Maybe it's for someone else, someone in your family, someone at work, for some
physical need that they have, for some spiritual need that they have. But don't
forget to ask also for what God wants to do in your life. What do you need to
ask right now?

Jesus, I ask that you would do this. Maybe it's a very, very material, physical
need, and you're almost embarrassed to ask about it. Ask about anything.

Ask him right now. Jesus, would you meet this need in my life? Maybe it's an
emotional need or a spiritual need.

There's a feeling you've been having lately of temptation. You need protection.
There's a feeling of discouragement.

You need peace in your life. Ask him for it right now. God, would you give me
your peace?

Would you give me your protection? Our Father, we ask because we trust you. We
know that you're a loving, giving God.

We trust you. In Jesus' name, amen. Tomorrow, we're going to look at one simple
decision about the way that you relate to people that will change the entire
direction of your life.