Matthew 7:7 Commentary - Dr Peter Masters

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Matthew 7:7

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Christ has taught us what to pray, now he teaches us how to pray, multiplying together encouragements to take advantage of our bountiful, generous, and approachable heavenly Father. It must have been so startlingly refreshing to hear these words spoken on that mountain top. Christ spoke with authority, as one with intimate knowledge of the workings of heaven. When someone reveals the transactions that take place in the king’s council chamber and leaves no shadow of doubt that what he says is true, then we know he has been there and is relating what he has seen. Christ speaks as one who is on the hearing side of prayer, the divine side, and has come across to help us on the asking side. Who else would dare presume to say how God responds to prayer and assert his willingness to answer, to speak for God as one who knows the mind of God, and how he welcomes calls on his benevolence? Christ speaks as no mere human being could speak because he is the Son of God, equal with the Father. He knows God’s willingness to hear and answer our prayers because he, along with the Father and the Spirit, is the recipient of our prayers. Ask, says Christ, and you will receive; he puts it as if the one must follow the other, as if God’s response is guaranteed, as if the act of asking will always bring an answer. But do not people of the world tell us that they have at times asked and received nothing, that God seems far away and the gulf between heaven and earth impossible to span, that access to him is hard if not impossible? Christ’s words are very bold: he seems to put the case so strongly that he is in danger of overstating God’s response. Surely there are in these words hidden conditions, so why does he leave them out and risk misunderstanding? Even the Christian feels the need to modify the unconditional nature of this promise and rephrase it in a way that protects it from abuse. Of course there are conditions to our asking, but Christ deliberately expresses himself in these unguarded terms. He leaves entirely out of the picture every question other than the one question of God’s willingness to answer, and resolves all into this, because this is the biggest issue of all. God’s willingness to hear sinners and his grace in answering them is the most important truth of all. This is what we in our state of dependence on him have utterly no control over and what, if not true, leaves us totally without hope. It is the one thing necessary for us to be assured of as we come to God in prayer. Unless God is willing to hear us, prayer is pointless and we should not lift up our eyes or open our mouths, but if he is ready to receive us we have the greatest possible incentive to come. All other considerations such as our sincerity in asking, our prior repentance, our faith in God’s promise, our dependence on Christ and our asking in his name, are dealt with in other parts of Scripture. They must certainly be assumed, but Christ wishes to focus on just one issue here: God’s amazing willingness to be petitioned in prayer by underserving sinners.Furthermore Christ assumes that the answer to all our needs lies with God. It is no use turning to other needy human beings for help because they cannot give us what we really lack, not being able to supply their own needs. God on the other hand has endless resources of life and forgiveness, of righteousness and peace for all who come to him; his supply cannot be exhausted. What a wonderful God is presented to us here. Faith does not have to invent God, but receives a God who is already there with all his wonderful attributes. The generosity and endless resources of God are assumed and the only question is, what is God’s attitude to sinful men and women who come to him with their petitions?

Application

Why does Christ use three different terms? Ask brings out the spirit in which we pray. The one we come to a superior. We cannot bounce into his presence: we would be destroyed by his holiness. I ask and do not demand or claim. I recognise his right to give or not give. Ask also acknowledges I do not deserve his response. We learn this at the time of salvation. ‘Lord, give me salvation freely. I am utterly unworthy of your favour.’ By asking you admit you haven’t got it. You need it; if you die without it you will perish. ‘I see that all my life has been away from the Lord.’ Seek implies persistence, diligence, refusal to give up until you find. That does not mean that it is hard to find, but it must be something we do with all our being. Seek also implies that we are looking for something that happens to exist. If I have lost something, I look for it knowing that it that it is really there. We seek for the God who is there, for the faith of the Bible which is true. If you seek in the right way, you will find. Knock, expecting door to swing open, tells us of the immediacy of prayer. Seeking might suggest this must be a prolonged search, but ‘knock’ tells me the door can open in an instant. Knock says I am outside, and I need to come in. Acknowledge you are lost, that you do not know God, and as soon as you are sincere, God will open the door. If you visit a friend and you knock at his door, it is not going to be opened four hours later. He will he let you in. Christ would never give invitation if he did not mean to respond.

What kind of God must we believe in? A God who can hear. If you hold some pantheistic notion of an impersonal God, you cannot pray. The God in whose image we are made an intelligent God with concerns and feelings, a relational God who relates to us, a powerful God. What is the point of asking if he able to answer? The things that we need to ask for are infinitely beyond human power to grant. You must believe in the benevolent God. There are many on earth you cannot ask. They don’t want to listen to you. He must be a kind God, who will listen and sympathise with us. He is an infinite and spiritual being. He is in every place at once. He is perfectly righteous and holy, yes, but that produces fear. I am far from being pleasing to him. And yet he is also a merciful God. His great mercy leads to provide a way of redemption. We can approach him. We must trust in him. He is holy, but he is also forgiving. When you pray, ask the God who is there. You cannot see him, but you can do justice to him in your mind. If you approach a great one in this world, you do not say, ‘Get me this’, without even looking at them. It is already half in your heart to pray like that. You don’t demand; you are not arrogant, but quiet. You have stolen your life. Say, ‘Forgive me.’ Ask but realise you are owed nothing.

What good new it is to hear these words when we consider the human condition and what man has done with God’s commandments. He has rejected God’s rule over him and broken his laws, taxed his patience with disobedience. How can he expect any favour to be shown him? There is a pity in the heart of God that means he is moved by what we ask.

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Matthew 7:7 Commentary and Bible Study