Ask, seek, knock. Most of us have heard this text taught as a method for prayer. Pastor Jonathan opened Matthew 7:7-11 and said that is not what it is. In “Ask, Seek, Knock: This Is About the Father” he continues the Sermon on the Mount series with a passage that is less about how we pray and more about who we are praying to.
He said he prepared two sermons this week. Ten to fifteen hours in the text, and the rest of the week studying a person. His son.
All week, many times a day, his son came to him. Daddy, buy me some Legos. Daddy, when are we going to Target. Knocking on the bedroom door, the office door, the car window when his dad pulled up to the house. Pastor Jonathan started keeping count and lost it. Then he was deep in study in his office and his son did not knock. He walked in, climbed on his lap, and asked to go look at the Lego website together. His dad asked him why he loves Legos. I love the build, Dad. It makes me think.
What Is Jesus Actually Teaching Here?
His son had no technique. He asked because he knew his dad was able, knew his dad cared, and knew he would sit and build with him.
That is what Jesus is doing in this text. He is not handing out a method for getting what you want. He is teaching us about His Father, who is good, approachable, and able to be trusted. Pastor Jonathan put the main idea this way. Because our heavenly Father is good, we can confidently approach Him with childlike faith and dependence. The confidence of the child comes from the character of the Father.
It also follows where this series has been. Anxiety tries to predict the future. Being judgmental tries to predict the person. Both leave us needing faith, guidance, and discernment, so Jesus turns to asking, seeking, and knocking, as if to say, if you need all of that, let me tell you about my Father.
If the Father Already Knows, Why Ask?
Verse 7 says ask and it will be given to you, seek and you will find, knock and it will be opened to you.
If He already knows, why ask? Because it is about the relationship. When someone really wants something, they do not just ask. They go seeking and they go knocking, which is what his son did all week.
God wants all of it motivated by faith, and your faith does not go in how well you ask or how hard you work. It goes in the Father. Be confident in your God, not in your communication.
Notice what each one takes. Asking uses your mouth. Seeking uses your eyes and your legs. Knocking uses your hands, and knocking takes humility. You can stand at the right door and never knock, because pride will not let you say I need something.
Children know how to do this. Then we grow up and get taught to rely on ourselves, hard things happen, and our faith shrinks. Pastor Jonathan called that one of the biggest lies we believe, that the goal is to be independent. Maturity in Christ looks like dependency. Big faith is childlike faith.
What Is God Doing in the Waiting?
Look at what sits in the middle of each promise. Will be. That is time.
God is doing more in that gap than we can imagine. Teaching us. Preparing us. Maturing us. Growing our faith. Part of why it is so hard on us is that we have been trained out of waiting. You click something and it shows up at the house in two hours, and that does something to us. We start expecting God to work the same way.
The waiting is where it gets tested. Asking for healing. Seeking a spouse and seeking and seeking. Knocking for wisdom with nobody answering. It is in the will be that we lose faith and turn away.
So keep asking, and look for God rather than the thing in His hand. God connects the dots moving forward. We connect them looking backward, which is why years later you can look at what you did not get and be glad. There was a wise and loving Father protecting you from yourself.
Would You Hand Your Child a Stone?
In verses 9 and 10, Jesus asks whether any of us, if our son asked for bread, would hand him a stone, or a serpent when he asked for a fish. Of course not. So why do we assume God would? We still blame Him for it. He gave me a stone when I asked for bread.
A good father does not just weigh the request. He considers the child. Pastor Jonathan’s daughter is thirteen. If she asked for a Lamborghini and he had the money, handing it over and buckling her in would not be good parenting. In her eyes it is good. It is not good for her yet.
He has lived the other side of it. Twenty-seven years in the Navy, on pace to make master chief in fifteen or sixteen years. He gave it everything and did not get it. Five years later he understood. He was not ready, and his Father knew it.
How Much More Will Your Father Give?
Verse 11 is where the room goes quiet. If you then who are evil know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask Him.
How much more? Infinitely more.
Jesus does not soften the word evil. It points at the fall. You are not as evil as you could be, but we are born sinners. Ask any parent. Did you teach your child rebellion 101? Stealing, talking back, pride, lying? Nobody taught them that. They turn two, get mobile, start talking, and there it is. From the womb we go astray and we want to be the center of the galaxy.
Set that beside the Father and the gap is infinite. He is wiser, more loving, more merciful, more kind, and more patient. Then notice the wording shift. Parents give good gifts. The Father gives good things. His inventory is bigger than ours, and He leaves it broad on purpose. Wisdom, guidance, discernment, whatever you actually need. He promises to give it. He does not say when and He does not say how. Some things, as Pastor Jonathan put it, are none of our spiritual business.
What About When the Answer Is No?
There will be times you ask, seek, and knock and the door does not open. No answer, no explanation, and it hurts. The child knows what he wants. The Father knows what is good. We tend to measure His goodness by outcomes. I got the job, God is good. I was healed, God is good. Sometimes the answer is no, and if we tell our own children no to protect them, how much more will He.
Here is how good He is. If you have a problem with the no, talk to Him about the no. He is not the kind of father who says no and tells you not to bring it up again. Pastor Jonathan kept telling his son not right now, and his son kept coming back with why not right now. What was happening in all that back and forth was intimacy.
Matthew 11:27 says no one knows the Father except the Son, and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal Him. That matters because a lot of us read God through the father we actually had. If that relationship was not good, we carry the lens over and lay it on Him. Jesus says do not apply that to my Father. Trust Him in the moment, and either later in this life or in eternity, you will see it.
Where Do You Start?
God is after you more than you are after whatever it is you want. The answer may be yes, it may be no, it may be not right now. Underneath all of it is a Father who cares and wants a deep relationship with you.
Plan your visit or find a life group and take that next step with people who will walk with you.