Sermon Transcript
(Matthew 7:7–12)
April 14, 2026
We must trust that the Father delights to give His children their deepest desires.
All right, guys, we are back in the book of Matthew. Go ahead and turn on over to Matthew 7. I encourage everyone to continue to bring their Bibles to Church and a pen, because in our Church during service, we like to follow our handy-dandy sermon leaflets, and you’ll find blank spaces. They are everyone’s accountability to not fall asleep.
Let’s pray. Father, I come to You in the name of Jesus. Lord, we need You today. Father, Your Word tells us that we can trust that You love us. And so I ask that You would please help me to reveal that to Your people this morning—to convince them by Your Word, by the power of Your Holy Spirit, that they can trust that You absolutely adore all of us, no matter what we’ve done. I pray that, Father, You would help me to speak with clarity, that You would help me to speak without any kind of advanced vocabulary, but to speak at an accessible level. And I ask that You would open eyes and hearts today, that You would break through callous walls in hearts so that people would turn and believe, would lay down their lives for You and give themselves in devotion to You. And Lord, just like every week, I ask that You would please have me take a backseat and for You to take ownership of this sermon and for it to be Yours and for Your people to see You and You alone today. Please, Lord. In Jesus’ name, I pray. Amen.
There are a lot of things that every single person in this world will look on on their deathbed and will likely regret. There are many things and thoughts that we have thought throughout our lifetime that we will go, “Yeah, I don’t think God was pleased with that.” And sometimes when you think about the things that we’ve done wrong, it might inhibit you from having trust in the love that the Father has for you. And I want you to think about all the things that you sweat and you toil for. You toil to get your bills paid. You toil maybe to find the funds that it’s going to take to repair an appliance in your home. You sweat and you toil not just to pay the bills, but you sweat and toil to find people’s approval.
You know, growing up as a kid, I wanted so bad to have a vast swath of friends surround me. And the amount of energy that I poured into making friends was exhausting. And then I know many people who sweat and toil to find the peace and the presence of their earthly biological fathers, but their fathers were never around. And the ironic part about all of this is that the one person’s approval that we really ought to care about is easier than all of these put together. And that person is the Father. So rise with me as we read Matthew 7:7–12. (I know I said verse 14; I meant 12).
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 the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened. Who among 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, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good things to those who ask him. Therefore, whatever you want others to do for you, do also the same for them, for this is the Law and the Prophets. (Matthew 7:7–12)
This is the Word of the Lord. You may be seated.
Jesus tells us to boldly approach the Father with our request for eternal life and righteousness (v 7–8).
I do not care what you have done in the past. I want you to be confident that you can draw near to the Lord and know that the Father loves you dearly. and He rejoices every time that you draw near to Him. And sometimes, I want you to know, you are not alone if you struggle going to the Father. Sometimes life can just be so painful. Sometimes it can just hurt. Sometimes sinuses and allergies, like we’re going through right now, can make it hard to just sit up straight and just speak to others. But I want you to believe wholeheartedly that if all you get out of your mouth is, “Lord, I love You. Please draw near to me today,” He will honor that prayer every time. You are His greatest delight, next to His Son.
Therefore, the main point of today’s sermon is that we must trust that the Father delights to give His children their deepest desires. You see, our trust of Him does not even have to run that deep. And I can prove that to you by looking at these commands that He gives us. He says, “Ask, and it will be given to you. Seek, and you will find. Knock, and it will be opened to you” (v 7). These are the three commands. They are not difficult. Therefore, since they’re not difficult, your trust that He loves you does not have to even be that deep.
In our last few sermons, Jesus showed us how to interact with humans. In those last few verses, we saw that Jesus warned us that we should not be so quick to judge others (Matt 7:1–2), because the same standard that we judge others is the standard by which we will be judged ourselves. And then immediately following that, Jesus says be careful also who you try to correct because they might turn on you like a dog (v 6). And don’t try to give them holy things because they might trample over them like a pig. In sum, He has showed us how we relate with other people, but today He shows us how to relate with a Heavenly Father.
So how do we interact with Him? Well, it’s simple. You ask, you seek, and you knock. James 4:8 says, “Draw near to God and He will draw near to you.” If you feel like God is distant and far away, it simply means that you have not put in any effort. Because it does not take much for God to draw near to you. You simply pursue Him. You call out to Him. Hebrews 4:16 says, “Let us approach the throne of grace with boldness so that we can receive mercy and find grace to help us in time of need.” It’s very simple. It does not require a lot.
When I was growing up in the Catholic Church, it was constant rules. I had to go to confession every week. I had to go to Church every week. I had to partake in communion every week. And if I failed at any one of these, my jar of God’s grace got little. You had to earn your grace through fulfilling all of these sacraments. And if you didn’t fulfill the sacraments, God’s grace for you waned and it grew small. And heaven forbid you die outside of a confession booth because now you’re going to have to spend time in purgatory. And over the years, I am so grateful through God’s Word, I’ve come to realize that I don’t have to worry about any of that stuff. Because ask, seek, and knock—that’s all it takes. It’s very simple.
And all of this is possible—we can have boldness to draw near to the Father—simply because Jesus made it possible. You see, we had squandered our access to God the Father in the garden (Gen 3). We gave it up. We had His presence. We had His peace. We could draw near to Him and talk with Him. And it was very simple and accessible. And that was not enough. Our ancestors, they decided that they’d rather be like God and know everything like God. And that’s why she partook of the forbidden fruit. The enemy was able to deceive her. He said, “God just doesn’t want you to have this because He knows that you’ll be like Him” (Gen 3:5). And that is what Eve desired. She desired to be like God in a way she was not. She wanted to know everything. So she partook of it. But when she did that, she traded an eternal life with peace and the presence of God to be like Him in knowing everything. She’d rather be God than be with God.
And Jesus had to come and fight for us to receive a fixed relationship. And He did that on the cross. By dying on the cross, He paid for our sins, but He paid specifically for the wrath of God that we deserve. And we deserve the wrath of God simply for judging someone incorrectly (Matt 7:1). We deserve the wrath of God for muttering curses against our people that just grate our nerves. We deserve to be cursed for disobeying our parents (Exod 20:12). We deserve to be cursed simply for not loving people the way Jesus loves us (John 13:34). We deserve damnation for any speck of unholiness within ourselves. And Jesus paid for all. And because He did that, He opened the door and gave us the access that we lost in the garden. Hebrews 10:19–22 says:
Therefore, brothers and sisters, since we have boldness to enter the sanctuary through the blood of Jesus—he has inaugurated for us a new and living way through the curtain (that is, through his flesh)—and since we have a great high priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed in pure water. (Hebrews 10:19–22)
You have every reason to draw near to God with a clear conscience and boldness and courage. He wants to hear from you. Let that sink in. He wants to hear from you—all of you. No longer doubt; He rejoices to hear your voice. This is the great news for all of us who have experienced any kind of neglect by earthly parents as well. It is no secret that the divorce rate in this country is over 50%. And Christians aren’t doing much of a better job than the rest of the world either. Divorce is high. And every time there’s a divorce or parental separation of any kind, it always leaves brokenness among the children. Over half of the children in this country are left pining for a genuine love and affection from their parents that they would normally have if the parents were married as God intended.
Now, I’m not trying to make anybody feel bad. If you split from your child’s father or mother, I’m not trying to give you that. But what I am trying to say is it is an epidemic in this country that we feel the brokenness, and we may have lost the ability to feel that nearness with an earthly father that we somehow let that influence how we think about our relationship with the Heavenly Father—that you somehow have to work or pine for His affection. The truth is you don’t. He is what every earthly father should be, but we all fall short. So father, sometimes the best thing you can do for your children is to just tell them straight up, “I’m going to let you down. I am going to fail you, but I want to give you the one Father who will never let you down because He always loves you and I’m going to mess up, but He won’t.” And fathers, be very transparent with your children. Tell them, “I invite you to lovingly remind Dad when I don’t reflect the true Father in heaven.” But brace yourself when you tell them that because they’re going to come. And my favorite child to do this is Emma. “Now, Emma, I’m tired of telling you, you’ve got to pick this up.” “Daddy, I will do that, but are you aware of how you just said that to me?” And of course, it just shatters my heart. But I’m like, “Yeah, you’re right.” I’m grateful for a child’s heart.
So, I don’t care if you come from brokenness. I don’t care if you caused brokenness. We all need to remember that our Heavenly Father rejoices when we speak to Him. Jesus is saying to ask, seek, and knock. Is He saying that for anything we want? He says, “Ask, seek, and knock” (Matt 7:7). Does that mean you go to Him and you ask for a Maserati? Does it mean a new truck, new motorcycle, or my personal favorite, first-class, transatlantic flights overseas? No, that’s not what the Father is telling you to ask, seek, and knock for. He has specific things in mind. And we can actually know what those specific things in mind are. And I’m going to tell you right up front that the specific things that you are to ask, seek, and knock for are eternal life and righteousness in yourselves.
With these desires, we can boldly run into His arms and ask for them. If your deepest desires are to live eternally with Him and to be righteous within yourself, He’s going to give you your deepest desires. If your deepest desires are not to have a close relationship with Him and you really could care less about your own holiness, you’re going to have a very depressing life. Because God is only interested in giving you the things that are actually good for you. So if you do not desire what is best for you, then a loving God is not going to give you those things.
Now, how do I know that what we are to ask, seek, and knock for is eternal life and righteousness? Well, for one, Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount begins in Matthew 5. And in Matthew 5, He says the Beatitudes, right? “Blessed are those…” and He goes through several of them (v 3–11). But my favorite in the Beatitudes is Matthew 5:6, “Blessed are those… who hunger and thirst for righteousness.” You see, He’s disciple-making in the Sermon on the Mount. And He begins His disciple-making by describing what a disciple is. In Matthew 5:3, He says, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” The last Beatitude is, “Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (v 10). Whenever you have a biblical author begin with a phrase and end with a phrase, we call those bookends. And what do you find in between two bookends? Books. So when you have in the Bible a phrase repeated, that means everything in between that repeated phrase is also about the thing that is being repeated.
So what’s our repeated phrase in the Beatitudes? “For theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” He is describing in the Beatitudes the person that belongs to the kingdom of heaven. So what is a person that is a disciple of Jesus? They are poor in spirit. They mourn. They are meek or they’re humble. They hunger and thirst for righteousness. They’re merciful. They’re pure in heart. They are peacemakers. And they’re persecuted for doing the right thing (Matt 5:3–10). That means being a disciple of Jesus does not mean you’re perfect. It means that you mourn when you see brokenness though. It doesn’t mean you’re batting a thousand. But it does mean that you are praying and you are pining, “Lord Jesus, please make me more like You.” It doesn’t mean that you never lust. But it does mean that you’re broken-hearted when you do. It does mean that though you might get angry, you will be moved to pray for your enemies (Matt 5:44). And it does mean that when people start gossiping about others, you say, “Now hold up. This is none of my business and it isn’t yours either. You need to be praying for them instead.” This is what it’s like to belong to the kingdom of heaven. This is the description of a true believer.
So with that in mind, you have to understand this is how Jesus begins the Sermon on the Mount. He’s beginning His sermon and His whole sermon is describing: What does it mean to be in the kingdom of heaven? How do you get there? How do you relate with others in the kingdom? How do you relate to the Father who is King over the kingdom of heaven? So with that, we understand that disciples hunger and thirst for righteousness within themselves. And Jesus says in the Sermon on the Mount, in Matthew 6:33, He has just spent time saying don’t be anxious about what you’re to eat, what you’re to drink, what you’re to wear, “But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness.” So this is the second time that He’s using the word “seek” in the Sermon on the Mount. So “Ask, seek, knock.” We know the “seek” is specifically seeking the kingdom of God and God’s righteousness within yourselves.
And this makes sense because the sermon begins with addressing those who desire to be righteous. But what about this knock business? In Matthew 7:14, He says, “How narrow is the gate and difficult the road that leads to life, and few find it.” We will be there on that verse next week, so we’re not going to spend too much time. But what you ought to know is that the world would knock not just on doors, but in the ancient world, they would have knocked on gates as well. I guess that was a lot easier when you didn’t have buildings with sealed windows and insulation and all this padding of noise. You could knock on a rickety gate and they would hear you from inside the house. But they would knock. So what is it that they’re knocking on? I believe the evidence is that they are knocking on this narrow gate that leads to life in Matthew 7:14.
So we are talking about people who are seeking righteousness and seeking the kingdom of God. And we are talking about people who are knocking at the narrow gate that leads to eternal life. This is why Jesus can say, “Behold, I stand at the door and I knock. And he who answers the door and lets me in, I will come in and dine with them” (Rev 3:20). You have a God who is pining after you. Do you believe that? Do you believe that He is after you? I want you to be fully confident that He loves you and desires to have you so much that He died for you and the tomb is empty. That’s the proof that He wants you. The tomb is empty. He desires you. And He wants you to know that if you want in—you want eternal life, you want to be righteous, you want to be like Christ, you want to dwell in that perfect, beautiful, warm light of His presence and His peace for all eternity—all you have to do is, “Lord, let me in. I want it. I’m tired of this life of pain. I’m tired of this life of just wrestling with my own darkness. I’m tired of this heart where I feel like I’m always judging people. I’m hypercritical. I’m tired of this feeling of self-righteousness. I’m tired of just feeling greedy. I’m tired of always wanting something that perishes. I’m tired. I just want rest for my soul.” Jesus says, “Come to me, all you who are burdened and weary, and I will give you rest for your souls” (Matt 11:28).
Therefore, Jesus tells us to boldly approach the Father with our request for eternal life and righteousness. But what I want you to also know is that the specific tense that He’s using for “ask, seek, and knock” is a present tense imperative, which means you will be asking, seeking, and knocking until the day you die. It’s a continuous effort. Never stop pursuing to enter the gate of eternal life. It is a life of perseverance to walk with Christ. It is easy to enter, but it is difficult to wait. Because while you are seeking to enter eternal life in this world, you’re going to receive much persecution. The world is going to hate you (John 15:18). You’re going to receive temptation after temptation. You’re going to receive hardship and pain. But you must continue to ask, seek, and knock. “Lord, help me to stay on this narrow path. Help me to enter through that narrow gate that is eternal life.” And that means that you maintain that Jesus is your Lord and you hold on to Him dearly and you do not waver from that. And when you feel your knees weak and your joints brittle and you can feel your spirit just being sucked dry, all you have to do is ask for help. “Help me, Lord. Give me strength.”
So then you might be asking, if it’s so easy to get into heaven, why in the world are so many people going to be condemned to hell? It’s this easy—ask, seek, and knock? It is that easy. That tells you that’s how few people are actually seeking eternal life. Romans 3:10–12 says:
As it is written:
There is no one righteous, not even one.
There is no one who understands;
there is no one who seeks God.
All have turned away;
all alike have become worthless.
There is no one who does what is good,
not even one. (Romans 3:10–12)
That’s a pretty bleak picture of humanity, right? No one’s righteous. No one seeks God. Jesus says, “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him to me” (John 6:44). The only reason you sought after God is because God sought after you first. We love because He first loved us (1 John 4:19). If God didn’t initiate this relationship, none of you would be here today. No one seeks after God, but that is how easy it is. So next time somebody says, “I can’t understand how a loving God can send all these people to hell,” respond with, “I can’t imagine that all these millions and millions and millions of people won’t do something as simple as knock, seek, and just ask.” Why put the blame on God? He’s given us every opportunity. He’s not the problem; we are. So the point in Matthew 7:8 is that no one who seeks the kingdom will be denied entrance. Everyone who seeks Him will be granted. These are the good things that He desires to give us: eternal life and righteousness. As long as those are our deepest desires, the Father will give them to us.
We can be bold because He desires to give us what is good for us (v 9–11).
And we can be bold because He desires to give us what is good for us.
Who among 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, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good things to those who ask him. (Matthew 7:9–11)
Bread and fish were staples of a Galilean diet. If you truly know Jesus, you didn’t get hung up on the idea that He just called you evil. If you don’t have a relationship with the Father, you might be hung up on that idea—”Wait, what do You mean evil?” He just lumped in all of humanity in the category of evil. This challenges the modern concept of what evil is. We only think of evil in the concept of Adolf Hitler or Jeffrey Dahmer or name that latest Netflix documentary. But the truth is, evil is the absence of God. It is the absence of holiness. And ever since the garden, we’ve been batting a thousand for evil.
Every single one of you this morning woke up and had an evil thought at some point. Right? Amen. At least one of us is willing to admit it. It is so true. Without the grace of Christ, we would all be Adolf Hitler. Do I need to say it again? Without the grace of Christ, you would all be Jeffrey Dahmer. Praise be to God that He has stayed His hand and He has taken out the heart of stone and given us hearts of flesh where His law is written on it (Ezek 36:26). And now we at least hunger and thirst to be righteous like Christ. If you don’t even desire to be righteous, it’s because you don’t know the Lord at all. If you still sin, my heart is that you at least desire to be like Christ. And if you at least desire to be more like Him, you’re on the right path. So, by nature, yes, we are all evil simply because we are not holy, but as Christians we hunger and thirst for righteousness.
Our “good” is everything that makes you flourish physically, morally, and spiritually.
Now, like I said, we ought to be bold to approach the Father because we know that He desires to give us what is good. So, that asks the question: What is for our good? Well, the answer is we actually saw that in the Lord’s Prayer, which He gave us in the Sermon on the Mount (Matt 6:9–13). Our good is everything that makes you flourish physically, morally, and spiritually. So, watch this. The Lord’s Prayer calls you to pray for your daily bread (Matt 6:11). That is your physical flourishing. “Father, give us our daily flourishing physically.” This means give me my bread, give me my water, give me what is necessary to not die in the heat of the summer or freeze in the heart of winter. Flourishing physically.
But not only that, we ask that the Father would forgive us of our debts (Matt 6:12). We are praying that we would flourish morally—that when we stand before God, we would be declared innocent and righteous, and that we can walk with a clear conscience. We are flourishing morally. And then we say, “Protect us from the evil one” (Matt 6:13). We are flourishing spiritually. We are walking with a holy protection from the Father, by the power of His Spirit, by the might of His mighty angels. We are flourishing as a whole person.
Guys, as Christians, the more you think about this, the more it radically should ignite you to recognize that therapists cannot even come close to giving you what the Christian life can. You don’t even know what it’s like to be a true human until you have walked with Jesus. Because only by walking with Jesus can you flourish in all three domains. You will never find true happiness and satisfaction in this life until you are flourishing physically, morally, and spiritually. You don’t even know peace until you are experiencing those three things. You will walk in this life always feeling fear and dread without those three things. So Jesus has opened the door for you to flourish, and that is what is for our good. Flourishing physically, morally, and spiritually. That is what Jesus means when He says, “The Father in heaven gives good things to those who ask him” (Matt 7:11).
And just a free note—this is for free, for my Bible scholars in here—when Jesus says this version in Luke 11:13, He says:
If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him? (Luke 11:13)
The Holy Spirit is the entry door to whole human flourishing. Without the Spirit of God dwelling in you, you will never flourish and feel true peace.
So what does it mean, then, when we draw near to God and we’re asking, seeking, and knocking? That means that we are pursuing everything in Jesus’ name. When we pray in Jesus’ name, we are praying according to the will of Jesus. So if I say, “I come to you in the name of God,” that means on the order of God, in His authority, I’m showing up. When we pray in Jesus’ name, we are saying, “Everything I’m praying, I am confident this is what Jesus wants from me.” In Jesus’ name, amen. And when we pray according to Jesus’ name, we can be confident that we will have the answer. John 14:13–14 says, “Whatever you ask in my name, I will do it so that the Father will be glorified in the Son. If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it.”
His love for us inspires us to love others, including our enemies (v 12).
In Matthew 7:11, He calls us evil, right? But then He tells us who are evil by nature: ask, seek, and knock. What does that tell you? That tells you, pure and simply, that He is telling people that are evil—therefore, by nature, His enemies—and He’s loving them. God is loving His enemies. And guess what the Sermon on the Mount says in Matthew 5:48? “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” So therefore, what we see where God is telling those who are evil to ask, seek, and knock, we are also called to do. His invitation to ask, seek, and knock gives birth to the Golden Rule.
That is to say, His love for us inspires us to love others, including our enemies. That’s why He says in Matthew 7:12, “Therefore, whatever you want others to do for you, do also the same for them, for this is the Law and the Prophets.” Remember how we talked about bookends? Well, here’s another bookend. Because Matthew 5:17 says at the beginning of the sermon, “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.” He says, “Law and the Prophets.” Here in Matthew 7:12, He says, “Law and the Prophets.” That means everything from Matthew 5:17 to Matthew 7:12 is all about fulfilling the Law and the Prophets.
What does it mean to follow Jesus in His teaching? Well, it boils down to this: Do to others what you would have them do to you. It’s very simple. Where did this word “Golden Rule” come from, by the way? It’s not golden because it’s the best. It’s golden, actually, because there was an emperor, Alexander Severus, who had this verse inscribed on a golden wall in his throne room. And many people in ancient Jewish culture had a very similar saying to Jesus’ Golden Rule, but it only barred bad behavior. So, for example, in Tobit 4:15, it says, “Whatever you do not want others to do to you, do not do to them.” So you see how it goes after bad behavior? Not positive. So, in other words, you don’t want somebody to smack you in the face, then don’t smack others. But you know what? It’s actually easy to not harm people. The hard part is blessing others.
And you see, that’s what Jesus is after. He’s after that exceeding righteousness. He says in Matthew 5:20, “Your righteousness has to exceed the scribes and Pharisees.” These were the religious people who liked to stand in the corner and pray real loud and get all the attention. He says you’ve got to be better than those guys. And that means that you give up everything for Jesus. You bless your enemies. Those who hurt you and persecute you, you say a prayer for them. You pray for their physical, moral, and spiritual flourishing. And you do it because that’s what God did for you. He pursued your total flourishing as well.
So I will end with this. Many can say they never stole the food and the clothing of the poor, but few can say they gave their own to the poor. The positive righteousness is what God is after. Matthew 25:36 says, “I was naked and you clothed me; I was sick and you took care of me; I was in prison and you visited me.” That’s what God is going to look for. And we can do it by the help of the Father. All you have to do is ask, seek, and knock.
Let’s pray. Father, I thank You so much to be reminded that You desire for us to be near. So I pray that You would be near to us in this moment and that You would tug on the hearts of those who may not know You yet or those who need to repent and rededicate themselves to You, Lord. I pray that You would be with us and help us to pursue You more deeply and to trust that You love us and that You are so near and all You want is for us to reach out. In Jesus’ name I pray, amen.