But whenever I think about prayer and the
sovereignty of God as Marcus so wonderfully
shared with us tonight, all things in this
world are ordained by God. Nothing happens
outside of
the sovereignty of God. And it's wonderful to
express gratitude and thanksgiving to God when
things go well. And my heart was filled with
such appreciation that we were all around the
dinner
table for Christmas that year and the previous
years and for all that God continues to do in
and
through our lives. But there is this sense in
which we wrestle with, I think, with the
sovereignty
of God in prayer. If God is sovereign and he
is sovereign, why pray? And that's a question
that
arises. And tonight I want to give you the
essence of a theology that I think is so
important that
has been impactful in my life. And I want to
begin here in Matthew chapter seven, but I
want to look
at the Sermon on the Mount a couple of
different texts with you. And I was joking a
minute ago
that I usually go to sleep about this time in
the sense that my alarms fiction to ring. And
I go
to bed between 8.30 and 9. And so, you know,
that is a reality. But by the Lord's grace, I
do want
to preach to you the essence of the message
because there are some truths here that I hope
that will
be impactful for you and that will really stir
your soul to pray. And to see the reality, the
only
reason we should pray is because God is
sovereign. Whenever you think about prayer, if
God's not
sovereign, there's no need to pray to him. We
pray to him because not only is he far greater
than we
are, he is indeed the only one that is great
and that he rules and reigns over every aspect
of our
lives. For after all, the very hairs upon our
head are numbered. Psalm 139 tells us that our
days are
written in his book and thus we come here to
Holy Scripture tonight for God to instruct us
and to
compel us about the importance of prayer and
how indeed we should be a praying people,
especially
those that believe in the sovereignty of God.
So, look with me in Matthew chapter 7, verse 7
,
and let's read this text together. "Ask and it
will be given to you. Seek and you will find.
Knock and it will be opened to you. For
everyone who ask receives, and he who ask
finds. And to him
who knocks, it will be opened. Or what man is
there among you, who, when his son asks for a
loaf,
will he give him a stone? Or if he asks for a
fish, he will not give him a snake will he? If
you,
then, being evil, know how to give good gifts
to your children, how much more will your
father who
is in heaven give what is good to those who
ask of him? And everything, therefore, treat
people
the same way that you want them to treat you,
for this is the law and the prophets. Enter
through
the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the
way is broad that leads to destruction. And
there are
many who enter through it. For the gate is
small and the way is narrow that leads to life
. And there
are few who find it. So as Jesus is instruct
ing his disciples about prayer, and he's
already
instructed them about what we call the Lord's
Prayer in chapter six, that prayer is an
essential
part of the ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ.
And if we're going to emulate him, then we
must
indeed be people of prayer. For as he imbounds
said, what we are upon our knees before God,
that's all that we are in nothing else. It is
to say that our prayer lives define us. It
reveals to
us the true nature of our lives. How much time
we spend in solitude and silence with God
really
does say a great deal about what we believe
about God. And not only those times of silence
and solitude
individually, but how much time we spend
praying with our spouse, how much time we
spend praying
with our families, how much time we spend
praying with the church. And so tonight as we
look at these
things, I want to encourage you to understand
what it is that God would have us to pray for
and how
this is interwoven with the sovereignty of God
. And as you look at the Sermon on the Mount,
one of
the things you're confronted with is indeed
the Kingdom of God. Look at a couple of texts
with
me and put this in your heart and mind, for
this is extraordinarily important. Look with
me in Matthew
chapter five and look at the Beatitudes. I
want to show you a couple of things here about
the Beatitudes.
I think this is a description of what happens
to a human being whenever they become born
from above.
For whenever Jesus said to Nicodemus that you
must be born from above, that first you become
born
again and then you see the Kingdom of God.
What happens to a human being whenever that
transpires
to them? And I think the Beatitudes is indeed
a perfect reality of what has indeed transp
ired
to each believer. But notice the emphasis here
upon the Kingdom of God. Here in verse three,
the Bible says, "Blessed are the poor in
spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of heaven."
Don't you
find that intriguing as Jesus begins the
greatest sermon ever preached, that he begins
by talking
about the depravity of human beings, that we
are spiritually bankrupt before a holy and
righteous
God, and that whenever we come to the
awareness of our great need for a Savior,
because there is
nothing good within us, because depravity is a
reality for every single one of us, that for
these,
theirs is the Kingdom of heaven. But go on to
verse four there, "The next Beatitude is,
'Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall
be comforted.' Thus your mourning over your
sinfulness,
because the Spirit has bought conviction about
sin, judgment, and righteousness; thus you are
indeed
mourning, and thus you will be comforted." And
so this brings great gentleness of humility.
There's
this brokenness of sin. There's contrition and
there's an awareness that there's true
humility
in the life of the brother or sister that has
indeed been saved. So it's this kind of thing
that we deal with with the Christian Gospel.
We are confronted with the great need of a
Savior,
but we understand that our Savior has
transferred us from the Kingdom of darkness
into the Kingdom
of God's beloved Son. But then he says
something else there in verse six, "Blessed
are those who
hunger and thirst for righteousness." Now this
is Old Testament background because really the
imagery
here is that of famine. That the true disciple
of Jesus Christ is going to hunger and thirst,
not for food or for water, but for
righteousness. For you see, dear brethren,
whenever Christ comes
and saves you, and he gives you this new heart
, that heart that Jeremiah and Ezekiel spoke of
,
then he gives you a heart that longs for
righteousness. You are now a new creation,
and those old things of worldliness and desire
of the flesh has indeed been transformed
because
now you're going to choose towards love of God
. You're going to choose towards righteousness
and
holiness, and this is going to satisfy you.
Dear friend, are you satisfied in your heart
of hearts
tonight? Is Jesus really all that you need in
this journey of life? And do you hunger and
thirst
as a man that is in the desert, not looking
for food or for water, but for righteousness?
And because God has been so merciful to you,
you're going to be merciful to those around
you.
Why? How is this possible? It's because you
have this new heart. Notice there,
"Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall
see God." As Louis says, it's only those that
are
pure in heart that want to see God. Isn't that
true of you, Christian? Aren't you longing to
see
the Lord Jesus Christ? Yes, the kingdom has
come to your soul. The kingdom is indeed a
present
reality because Jesus said, "The kingdom is in
your midst, but yet we are all longing for
what?
For the second coming of Jesus Christ, for the
departing of those eastern skies,
and we will behold Him face to face." Now, I
'll leave the details to Brian and Rusty and
everybody
else about how all that unfolds, but I am
longing for the second coming of God. It is
this kind of
truth. And then he says that we're going to be
peacemakers. We're at peace with God,
and thus we're going to be at peace with
brothers. And we're going to long to be at one
with one
another, but notice that many people will not
want to be at peace with us, for there's going
to be
persecution for the sake of righteousness. And
then notice there in verse 10, he mentions
again,
"The kingdom of heaven." Now, it seems to me
that a good exegete would understand that the
kingdom
of God plays a major role here in the Sermon
on the Mount, for whenever Jesus teaches his
disciples
to pray, he says, "Pray that the kingdom of
God would come on earth as it is in heaven."
So,
as you come to understand what God has done in
our individual lives, that Jesus is saying
unto us
that because God has done this incredible work
, that your works are going to be put upon a
hill,
and people are going to see your works like a
light shining in the darkness, and you're
going
to be the salt of the earth, because for you
or his workmanship created in Christ Jesus for
good
works, and that God has indeed not only
transformed you into this new creation, but he
is displaying
to entire creation that what God has done for
you, he will do for anyone that is willing to
repent
and believe, for the general call of salvation
goes to all of humanity, and thus we rejoice,
because God has done this incredible work in
our lives. So, noticing this passage of
scripture here
in chapter 7, verses 7 through 14, that Jesus
comes back and he reiterates prayer again. Now
,
some have thought that this passage of
scripture is just a general call for prayer,
that Jesus has
already taught us how to pray, and then he
comes back again, and he reiterates this again
at the
end of the sermon, but I think that there's a
special purpose here. I draw up on John Brodas
and Chuck Coral's here, and then we're going
to look a little bit of Jonathan Edwards. Now,
for
those of you at Riverside, I found this
wonderful program, AI, that can take Jonathan
Edwards
complexities and make him understandable. Aren
't you glad that we have AI today?
But what is it that Jesus is saying here? Well
, notice as he speaks of these three words,
ask, seek, and knock. It has a rhythm to it,
and Jesus presents these things in such a way
that
these three gory words are implying an ongoing
action. This is not a one-time event, and
whenever
the apostle Paul says that we pray without ce
asing, it's kind of that imagery here that we
should be
asking and seeking and knocking, that we are
to continue this action, whatever this action
is,
for this was given to us by our Lord, and thus
if we're going to emulate him, if we're going
to
walk in his footsteps, then we're going to
have to pray as he prays, and he is teaching
us to be
able to carry these things forth. So what is
this issue here about prayers? This is just a
blanket
promise concerning prayer in general, and that
you could ask God anything that you want to
ask
him, or you can seek from God anything that
you want to seek, or you could knock and you
will
receive anything that you so request of God. I
don't think that's it. I think the whole
sermon
is emphasizing the kingdom, and the
righteousness required to enter into the
kingdom. We see as
Jesus begins ending the sermon, as it goes to
the conclusion, he is going to make some very
profound statements for everyone there, and
that he's saying to us that you need to be
asking,
you need to be seeking, you need to be
knocking about the kingdom of God, for it was
there in
Matthew chapter 6 verse 33, where he says, "Se
ek ye first the kingdom of God and his
righteousness,
and all these other things will be added unto
you. Seek means to seek the kingdom of God and
the
righteousness required to enter into it. Dear
church, that whenever one becomes born from
above,
and you have this new heart that desires
holiness and righteousness, then you're going
to be longing
for the coming of the kingdom of God, because
the kingdom has already come to your soul,
and you're going to desire righteousness, you
're going to desire to be living the life that
is
honoring unto God. You do not want to discour
age your witness, and if you're running down a
driveway
and you're facing despair, then the
righteousness within you will call out, God,
let me not dishonor
you." For you see, we're all going to be
facing within the providence of God enormous
challenges
in life. For it's one thing to be up on the
mountaintop and talk about God's sovereignty
and
quote R.C. Sproul as I have, that there's no
maverick molecules acting contrary to the
sovereignty of
God. That's all fine and good, but whenever
life has turned inside out, and everything
that you
stood for and all that you hope for is
standing there and it's in ashes, how do you
respond then?
Do you still believe in the sovereignty of God
? For you see, it is God that grants us
righteousness,
and remember the five soul is. Indeed, we are
saved by grace alone through faith alone and
Christ alone, right? There's nothing of works
that we can do for anything for salvation.
We are nothing more than filthy rags. We're
depraved sinners. There's nothing that we can
do to alter
salvation because our best of works are
nothing more than things that are nothing more
than filthy
rags before a holy and righteous God. But it's
Christ that comes to us in our sinful
condition
and in our brave condition, and He comes and
He closed us in His righteousness. And
whenever He
comes and closed us in His righteousness, then
He puts this desire in our soul to seek He
first,
the Kingdom of God and His righteousness
because all of these things are commanded. And
thus what
Mark reminded us a few moments ago is that we
have this free will, but that free will as
Luther
reminds us is indeed in bondage. But whenever
Christ saves us, that we've been redeemed by
the blood
of the Lamb. Thus, we have this desire now to
be able to carry forth this thing called
prayer
because we're going to emulate our Savior and
you ask yourself the question, well,
if I'm going to be a person that is praying,
but why do I pray if I believe in the
sovereignty of
God because you're following in the footsteps
of Jesus? Jesus was the sovereign God and is
the
sovereign God of the entire universe and He
prayed. If He prayed, and I think that Jesus
understood
sovereignty a lot better than any of us, that
He is one that prays. That's intriguing. As
you ask,
as you seek, but also as you knock, the
command knock is also important in the Sermon
on the Mount.
Matthew here in chapter seven, verse 13 to 14,
refers to a narrow gate through which one
enters
through an eschatological life. The contrast
is with a wide gate and one who enters into
eternal destruction. In first century
Palestine, a person normally approached the
gate and he
would knock upon it to announce the arrival
and request entrance. And yet the gate would
be
unlocked and opened from within. Very
important. Whenever you knew where the gate
was as a citizen
of the kingdom, you went and you knocked on
that gate, but you could not open it from the
outside,
it had to be opened from the inside. And when
you knock on the door, it's quite a great
imagery.
For in Acts chapter 12, verse 13, the
scripture says when he knocked at the door of
the gate,
the servant girl named Rhonda came to answer.
So you remember whenever Peter was in prison,
they were praying and I might say not with so
much faith because they were shocked that he
was left
free. Thus the word knock on the narrow gate
is one that leads to lying. I think what Jesus
is
saying here that in our prayer lines that we
need to continue to be aware, constantly
praying and
saying true, living God, take and apply Christ
to me because you have changed me and
transformed me
from this creature that was living in open
rebellion before you, this depraved wicked
creature. Now
that I have been saved by the blood of the
Lamb and I have been redeemed and I have been
sent free
from the bondage of sin, I have this
compelling desire in my soul to ask, seek and
knock for what?
A new house, a new car, do I want some kind of
material possession or am I concerned about
some other frivolous matter of this world? No,
I'm prayed that the Kingdom of God would be
fully realized and manifested in my life
because I want to be like Jesus. It is here
that Jesus
contrast our understanding of who God is with
an earthly father and he says, and I love it,
you being evil, you know, that if you're
willing to take care of your children in
essence, even
though that you're not righteous people, you
're not holy people, how much more does your
father
in heaven want you to cry out unto him and say
, Lord, I want to be changed and transformed,
I want the gospel of Jesus Christ to govern me
, Lord, I want to grow in grace and knowledge,
I want to grow in Christian maturity, I want
to become what you've called me to be.
If you see the calling of God, isn't this fr
ivolous idea that it's out there somewhere,
but whenever God has called me, whenever he
has transformed me, then I have this
compelling
desire in my soul to get before God and say,
Lord, cleanse me and purify me, search me and
see if
there's any harmful way in me because private
prayer is at time that I find myself on my
face
before God crying out and saying, Lord God,
would you please come and examine me because I
want to
confess my sin and I want to repent for you
see, friend, repentance is not a one-time
event at
conversion, but repentance is the ongoing
activity in the life of the Christian because
I'm asking,
I'm seeking and I'm knocking and say, Lord,
check me and examine me because I don't want
to do anything
that's going to dishonor your sacred name.
Dear church, can I say to you today that one
of the
greatest fears in my life is for me to do
something where I'll be disqualified from the
ministry of
the Lord Jesus Christ. I want to honor my
Savior. I want to honor Him in prayers, the
very mortar
that holds me close unto my Savior. So let us
come and behold this great and glorious truth,
how it is that we serve this God that wants to
hear our prayers more than we want to pray
them.
So this is relational. When we think of the
sovereignty of God, it is not some impersonal
dictator who makes all the plans of the world
and that somehow some way that we have prayer,
some human mechanism to change the things we
don't like in life. Friend, prayer is not some
mechanism
that you and I can come before God and say,
God, I want you to change my circumstances.
Don't you remember what Jesus taught us in
Matthew chapter six verse eight?
"So do not be like them, for your father knows
what you need before you ask him."
We are participating with God in eternal
fellowship because God's eternal decrees
have been incorporated into our lives and that
as we common ponder what God has ordained,
both by the ends and the means like prayer,
then we are carrying forth the very thing that
God has
called us to do and we're praying as Christ
instructed us to because a prayerless life
is a life that indicts the person that is the
confessor. It was Spurgeon that said to people
,
"Friend, you have enough dust on your Bibles
to write damnation."
Could I say to you today that if your prayer
closet has so much dust up on it that you can
write damnation, friend, you got a serious
problem? It is Jesus that comes to tell us
these things are so quite critical. Now, when
you understand there in verse 12,
when he speaks of the golden rule, as we call
it, and everything therefore treat people the
same way, that you want them to treat you for
this is the law and the prophets, it's
intriguing to me
that as you come and contemplate the general
gracious love of God to us and that every good
gift comes from God, that this should impact
our lives. Why is this connected to the prayer
of asking, seeking, and knocking? Because as
we come before God and we thank him with
gratitude
and appreciation for all that he has done for
us, then that's going to affect our
relationship with
other human beings. Because if we truly have
this heart that is filled with gratitude and
appreciation and that we're overwhelmed by the
grace of God that's in Jesus Christ, then we
are
going to love people unconditionally. For as
Jonathan Edwards says, "The foundation of our
relationship with God is not self-love or self
-interest, and I don't look at other human
beings as a means
to be able to get out of them what I want, but
I am to love them as Jesus loved them,
whether it's reciprocated back to me or not."
So you come to see what he describes here.
This narrow gate, notice what the scripture
says, "Enter through the narrow gate, for the
gate is
wide in the way as broad that leads to
destruction, and there are many who enter
throughout. For the
gate is small in the way as narrow that leads
to life, and there are few who find it." Now
intriguing,
that whenever you consider these two paths of
life, one leads to destruction, it is a broad
path in
many Aronia, but there are few that are on the
narrow path, and that narrow path is the ones
that are the true confessors of Christ. Now be
reminded, dear friend, that whenever Jesus is
preaching the Sermon on the Mount, he's
addressing this to his professed disciples.
And he is saying
to these professed disciples, "Many of you are
going to go down the wide path. You're going
to go
down the broad path. You're going to go down
the path that leads to destruction, but there
is a small
way, a narrow way that leads to life, and
there are few who find it. It is penetrating
words for us
to examine ourselves." Now I'm so grateful for
Revelation, for the Bible says in the end, at
the
great day of judgment, that we're going to see
the multitudes of people that are born again
believers,
and they're going to be from every kind of
people group, and from every nation, and all
these various
individuals will be there. And so there will
be many of us, and yet Jesus gives us some
sobering
words to do some self-examination. Indeed,
dear friend, prayer, asking, seeking, knocking
is the
very essence of choosing and staying on the
narrow path. So it is here that we come and
behold
these glorious things. I had all this stuff
written down for the freedom of the wheel and
all
this sort of thing, but Mark did such a great
job. I'm going to move forward right here. Let
me give
you a couple of other things to ponder and
think of this evening. Since God is sovereign,
why pray
we ask this evening? Well, by illustrating
prayer is not an addendum to our lives, but it
's the
essential practice of obedience that builds a
life that is resilient against the storms of
life.
Go to the end of the Sermon on the Mount,
because I just want to make a few observations
for you
here tonight, and some things for you to be
able to ponder and to think upon this evening.
So when you come here to the end of the Sermon
on the Mount, Jesus says there's two kinds of
hears. He says, "Therefore, everyone who hears
these words of mine and acts on them may be
compared
to a wise man who has built his house on the
rock. And the rain fell and the floods came
and the
winds blew and slammed against the house, and
yet it did not fall, for it had been founded
on the
rock. Everyone who hears these words of mine
and does not act on them will be like a
foolish man
who built his house on the sand. The rain fell
and the floods came and the winds blew and
slammed
against the house, and it fell, and great was
its fall." And so both are hears of the Word
of God,
but there's one that hears the Word of God,
and this is the one that has built his life
upon the
rock. What is the rock? The rock is the living
Word of God. It is Christ. It is the written
Word of
God. It is being infused in your life. It's
the imagery of Ezekiel eating the scroll. It's
the
imagery of those that have the Word of God as
their foundation that whenever the storms come
,
then you're going to endure whatever may come.
As I shared with you a moment ago,
whenever the wreck happened almost two years
ago, as I was running down that driveway and
not knowing
what I was going to open up, so thankful that
my wife and my daughter are here today.
But I've often wondered to myself, "What if I
opened that door, and if neither one of them
would have
been alive?" I think about that every day, and
I imagine left unto myself I would have fallen
,
and I think I would have just died right there
.
I don't think I could have gone forward unless
God, in his gracious sovereignty,
granted grace for me to stand because the rock
would have been beneath my feet.
It is a powerful imagery because, friend, I
want to say to all of us that we're all going
to
suffer in this life. There's not one of us
that is immune to true heartache and broken
ness.
All of us have some suffering ahead of us, and
we're going to live in the refiner's fire,
and we're going to endure some really
difficult things. But it's here where holiness
takes over.
It's here where we come to understand that our
faith is not merely intellectual accent,
but it is a holy practice that evidences true
faith. Why pray if God is a sovereign ruler
because we pray because we're putting into
practice Christ's words? That's what he's
describing here.
As Edwards reflects upon divine providence in
his works, he describes that God orders all
events
for the good of his people. But this is good
because we realize that only through obedience
,
least we build on sin and continual ruin. I
say to you tonight, for every born-again
believer
in this building, and anyone that will ever
hear these words, I'm talking about for anyone
that
has ever been born again, God has his
sovereign hand around you. You will not keep
yourself
because you can't sanctify your life no more
than you can justify it,
and God is going to uphold you in the midst of
life's greatest storms. And whenever you
believe
that you cannot go on one further step, you're
right. You cannot, but God can, and Christ
will
sustain you and keep you because he is the one
that is able to provide everything. This
sermon
tonight is a statement against self-reliance
in the Christian life. Self-reliance will make
you
crumble under the pressure of providence's
weight, for we come to live in a world where
God continues
to live and abide within us. And this isn't
some kind of sphere of mental ascent, but this
is a
present reality that the Kingdom of God has
come and that we are going to be sustained and
we are
going to be contempt continuously in our lives
because God has kept us. Tonight, we ask the
question why pray if God is sovereign? We pray
, dear friend, because he is sovereign. Would
you pray
with me tonight? Father, there's a lot that we
didn't get to, but I think that we have shared
what you would have us to look at this evening
. Lord, we acknowledge before you that you
alone
are God. There's no one like you in heaven or
upon the earth, and I love what the psalmist
says.
Lord, that you're in heaven and you do
whatever you so please. God, you are not
beholding to any of
us, and none of us has any idea what tomorrow
will bring. There are many of us in this
congregation
tonight that one day will be diagnosed with
cancer, have already been diagnosed with
cancer.
Lord, we will all face moments where we will
either bury loved ones or they will bury us.
Father, as churches, we're never going to live
in ease and comfort. We're always going to be
facing tremendous difficulties because that's
church life. This is living in a fallen world.
We are light and we're seeking to be able to
proclaim the gospel, and thus the world is
going
to hate us, and because the world hates us, we
are going to face persecution. That's the
reality
of where we find ourselves today. May these
things not embitter us, but Lord, may we
indeed
flee unto you and to seek you even more
seriously all the time. For it is in the
sacred name of Jesus
do we ask these things. Amen. I want to leave
you this one thought tonight. Roger Dell, just
let me
mention this to you. I've pondered whether I
should say this or not. I don't know if all of
you know,
but here at Riverside Baptist Church, we have
had some real challenges in 20 years.
The first, after the first three and a half,
four years I was here, we had 80 people
depart from the church. They said it was over
Calvinism and election. I was preaching
through
John's gospel. I was just preaching the Bible,
you know, but it was very painful. It was very
hard
because not only did I go through that, my
family went through that, all the families,
and some of
them are here tonight. It was miserable. Last
year we had something similar happen where we
had
people we knew for some of us 20 years. It was
heartbreaking, but I have to know all of that
's
within God's sovereignty. Amen. And we pray
for all those folks. I see a lot of them
around
town all the time, you know, but how do we
move forward? All I know to do is keep
preaching,
keep praying, keep being faithful, and keep
growing, keep repenting, keep looking to
Christ.
Thank you for hearing me tonight. I greatly
appreciate it, brother.