Ask, Seek, Knock (Luke 11:9-10)

All right, everyone. Welcome to 915 devotional. All we're at 9:16, so but it's still part of the group, so we'll get going. Hope everyone had a great weekend. Um uh today we're going to be uh we're going to be in uh well, here, let me throw the scripture up for you and I'll tell you where we're going to be. So, today you're going to see that we're going to be in Luke and we're going to be in chapter 11 and we're going to be in verses 9 and 10. And uh uh what's interesting is that most of if you if you go read the the Gospel of Luke, most of what you find is Luke talking about um and and a lot of red letters, right?

So there's a lot of what Christ had to say. And so this is no this is no difference. This is this is uh Christ talking here and and this these two verses are really in response to the parable that comes just before it. And it's a guy who's in desperate need and he goes to a friend's house at midnight and he shouts and he he's asking for help and he's pounding on the door and and uh and eventually the guy opens up. You know, he's not just going to pray for him, but he's going to provide for him. And so and so this is these two verses are in response to that.

So let me read this and it says, "So I say to you, ask and it will be given to you. Seek and you will find. Knock and the door will be opened unto you." And then he goes on to say, and if I can remember how to hit the uh next one. Uh there we go. There we go. And for everyone who asks receives, the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks the door will be opened. And so these are um uh these are uh present tense imperatives. These these that are on ask and seek and not. That means that you have these things never stop. So, uh, ask, seek, and knock.

Each each word builds on the next one. We ask somebody. We use words. We're asking Christ to help me in this matter. So, we're humble and we're truthful and we're asking for what we need. And, and then the next one is to seek. And what does that mean? It means we're going to take action. We're not going to just pray this one prayer and then we're just going to wipe our hands and walk away and not do anything. He says to seek. It's it's action. So we we ask for this thing and then we we take some action and we seek it. And then when we get to where we're going, Christ says to knock.

And this this man in this parable didn't just knock once. He was not going to stop knocking until he got where he needed and where he needed to be and and what he needed to do. Verse 10 says for everyone. So this task, this scripture, Christ isn't talking to a particular group. He's not saying, okay, this is just for the disciples or or this is just for sinners or this is just for those that recognize me as the authority as the Lord and Savior of their lives. This is for everyone. So ask, seek, and knock. Now he says everyone who asks is going to receive.

It doesn't mean you're going to get what you're asking for. It means you're going to receive. Christ says, "I hear you and I and I want to give you the best thing for you." It may not be the thing that you're asking for. He says, "Seek and you will find." How many times have we been looking for something only to find out and recognize and realize that God had something maybe different for us to go down a different path. And so, so we're going to find it, but it may be what God, not maybe, it's going to be what God wants us to find. And then he says, "When you get there, uh, knock." and that door is going to be open when you get there and you've done the first two steps.

When I've come to Christ humble and I've asked him for what the thing that I need, when I've taken the steps to not just uh not just to to throw my hands up and say, "Well, well, I don't have to do anymore because God's got that." When we exercise our faith, faith without works is dead. When we do the the seeking part, we've we've asked and we seek and we get to that door, God promises the door is going to be open. And he may it may be an opening to something that we didn't have planned. It maybe it's most likely going to be something far better than what than what we ever imagined what we were what we thought we needed or what we were looking for.

But the the part about this is that it's a never- ending thing. These these are imperative verbs. So what that means is that means that they're always we're always asking, we're always seeking and we're always knocking. Now, I want to I want to flip this and I want I want to do like this this asterisk. We have to remember that we have to employ and I and I'll give you an example of this. We have to employ wisdom. We have to employ discernment when we're doing these things, right? We have that person at work that we just love so much. They're a great person.

They're they're one of the kindest, most caring, giving human beings on the planet. But yet, no matter how hard we've been trying, we just can't get them to get to church. We just can't get them to understand that that that if they were to receive Christ in their heart, what they currently have would be so much better. And so, we continue on. We we ask and we seek and we keep knocking at that door. And we have to remember that we have to temper what we're doing with what God's will is. So, ask, seek, knock. But we have to allow the opportunity for God to be in control of this process.

You can't take your human desire and try to plow over what God's uh outcome is going to be. And so we have to make sure that we're using discernment that we're using wisdom. And how do we get that? And how do we know? We pray. We allow the Holy Spirit to intercede. We don't bull through something. We have to pray. We have to wait for an answer. We have to hear what God has for us so that we're not doing that. Because often times in that in that very particular scenario, you can do more harm than good. And so we have to be careful. That's just one example.

So we should always be asking. What does that mean? We should always be coming to God in prayer, Holy Spirit, asking for the things that we need. Does God does God need to hear that? No. He already knows exactly what we need. He knows the desires of our hearts. Scripture tells us that. He knows the things that we need without question. He wants us to ask because that starts the communication. That starts the relationship. He wants us to seek. I would tell you that if you're not seeking and you're not acting on if you're if I would say that that's not if we're if we're not putting some action there, that may not be faith.

That may be wishfulness. Faith has works. We have to get up. We got to go do the thing. And then once we've asked and we've done the thing and we're standing there, Christ says, "Don't give up. Keep knocking. Keep knocking on that door. Keep knocking on the door. Don't let go. Just do what you're doing." Just we need to do that with perseverance, with discernment. uh and with wisdom. All right. So, thoughts, comments, suggestions? Your mic's down below. Open it up. Chime in. I have something. I always have difficult questions. That's okay. Um, just because a Christian doesn't go to church, does that make them less of a Christian than somebody who does go to church?

Absolutely. I think it has nothing to do with your faith, has nothing to do with relationship with Jesus. You know, if you're reading the word and doing good, you know, good deeds and stuff, does it make that person less of a Christian because they don't go to church? So, I I here I'm going to answer that this way. Uh I'm not going to stand in judgment of anybody who doesn't go to church, but the scripture tells us to not give up meeting with with the body of Christ. So if that's what the text tells us to do, that's what we should do. We don't get to pick and choose the verses in the scriptures that we want to obey.

Christ tells us that we should be in community. Well, can you be in community without going to church? Can you have, you know, other Christians that you deal with? What if you've had a problem with church and that's not what called you, but you still want to have a relationship with Jesus? Is that make me less of a Christian? So, if you've had church hurt, uh, that's real and that can happen, but that shouldn't keep you from going to church. What that means is that you need to find the church that's right for you. You had you experienced some church hurt.

There's something in there that caused that. That's the enemy. That's not God. God wants you to be in church. Otherwise, the text and the scriptures would not have said that. I think I think what I think I think what God wants primarily from us is to be in fellowship with one another and be in Christ with one another opposed to when we're speaking about community. We could define that as a as a as a brick and mortar or we could define that as a as a small group of people who meet at their home and pray. I think that more importantly uh when we're talking about uh being with with with Christ's bride, okay, the church itself is the people.

It's not the building. So, if you're if you're with if you're with other people and you're getting into the word with other people and you're building with like-minded Christians, it doesn't make you less of a Christian if you're not attending um a structure. So, so this the text both the Old Testament and New Testament says that we should come together, that we should worship and we should pray, that we should confess our sins one to another. I absolutely agree that the church is not a building. The church is the body of believers. But what we can run into uh is falling out of community because it's very easy to do when we don't have that structure.

I if if this particular person has a group of people that they meet regularly that are holding them accountable that they get to praise, they get to worship, they get to pray with, they get to read the word with, they get to do life in community with, that's the body of Christ. Amen. But oftentimes that's really not the case. Someone stands on the on the premise of I have church hurt, so I don't need a church. I'm good on my own. And the word says you're not. The word says you need to be in community. There's another important point too and that's that um one of the I mean the primary purpose of of our Christian existence is for us to become more like Christ and God wants us to work on our sanctification right and unfortunately God cares more about our character than he does about happiness and one of the main points of church is to have people rub you up the wrong way so God can start to brush up your character.

I mean, one of the virtues that we're taught that we supposed to have as Christians is longsuffering. And one of the I mean, the only way to to learn longsuffering is to suffer longer. So, what what people don't appreciate is they think church is a happy place to go and have fun. And it is in a lot of respects, but actually that that's not the main point of community in church. The main point of community in church is to go to places where you can be rubbed up the wrong way so you can grow in your Christian character because you'll never grow being happy.

That's not how growth works. I love that. Thank you. Yeah. Amen to that. Absolutely. Could I could I jump in for a minute? Yeah, go ahead. We have 30 seconds. Oh, okay. Well, if we don't have time, it's good, too. Um, I just uh think that we need to be considerate of people that aren't able to make it to church right now. And even when we go to church, sometimes we're talking to a big screen. And um we do participate for those of us that aren't really able to get to church all the time. It doesn't mean that we don't love our church and we're not participating, but watching from home and that's the confusing thing about these times is we have brick and mortar, we have online, and everybody encourages everything.

But being in church is is a wonderful thing because you may not connect with every person in there. And like the other person said, it's not all about us, but you meet some wonderful and good people that you know that truly do love and care about you and the people around you. And that is one of the most precious things. Not because it's about you, it's because of the connection. But we do have a lot of alternatives now, which is a good thing. But like the other person said, the church is truly like what's happening right now in a weird way. We're online.

We're lifting and building each other up. So, we just have like we have electric cars. We just have so many different flavors of church right now. And um I do understand the richness of being in church. And yes, there are church hurts. Uh unfortunately u that just happens. No matter what church you go to, there's just a few. It's because churches are made up of imperfect people. Yes. Yes. All right. And and Linda, I don't want to be able to pray us out so we can So, but we can we can definitely talk more about this uh throughout the course of the week.

So, every let's bow our heads. Let's pray. Father, thank you so much for today. Thank you for your word. Thank you that you want to always continuously hear from us if that's the relationship that you want. Well, I pray that we would continue to do that. That we would never stop asking. That we would never stop seeking and that we would never stop knocking. That that we would just have this this desire for for to to to unfold these secrets, Lord, that you have Father. I just pray for that. I pray for our week. I pray that each of us would be in community and what that looks like to them.

Father, we love you. We praise you. And as always, in your son's name we pray. Amen. Amen. Amen. All right, all we'll see you tomorrow, same time. Bye. Thank you.

Transcript generated from the recording and lightly edited for readability.