Exploring My Strange Bible - Ask and You Will Receive - Gospel of Matthew Part 12

Episode Date: July 16, 2018

This episode explores Jesus’ teaching about prayer. It is the famous “ask and you shall receive” teaching. Personally, prayer has always been one of the aspects of following Jesus that I’ve found most difficult to make a big part of my life. So in this episode, I explore both what Jesus says, but also some of the objections or questions that come up in our minds when we try to take Jesus at his word and pray.

Tim Mackey, Jr. utterly amazing and worth following with everything that you have. On this podcast, I'm putting together the last 10 years worth of lectures and sermons where I've been exploring the strange and wonderful story of the Bible and how it invites us into the mission of Jesus and the journey of faith. And I hope this can be helpful for you too. I also help start this thing called The Bible Project. We make animated videos and podcasts about all kinds of topics in Bible and theology. You can find those resources at thebibleproject.com. With all that said, let's dive into the episode for this week. All right, well, in this episode, we are going to continue exploring the gospel according to Matthew, and this is going to be our to continue exploring the gospel according to Matthew.

And this is going to be our last episode exploring the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew chapters 5 through 7. These were teachings I did years ago when I was a pastor at Door of Hope Church in Portland. And this teaching explores G.S.'s own teaching about prayer. It's the famous ask and you shall receive teaching in the Sermon on the Mount. So, what we're going to focus on is, of course, Jesus' own words about prayer and the kind of prayer that he invites his own followers to experience and participate in. But specifically, just because personally, prayer has always been one of the aspects of following Jesus that I've found the most difficult to really internalize and own and make a big part of my life. And whatever,

I have my own hangups. You have yours too. But prayer has been one of those for lots of different reasons. And so what I do is explore both what Jesus says, but also some of the objections that come up in our minds or questions or obstacles that we face when we actually try and take Jesus at his word and pray in the way that he invites us to. And so that's what we're going to look at, the struggle, what Paul called the struggle, the wrestling match of prayer that Jesus wants us to participate in. So there you go. Prayer, Jesus, Sermon on the Mount. Let's open our hearts and minds and see what we learn together.

And as we go through the Sermon on the Mount, we're going to turn a corner right here. Jesus, since the beginning of chapter 6, has been exploring what this close relational connection with the Father, that He's opened up for His disciples, for through Him to come to know God as Father through Jesus the Son, come to know God as Father through Jesus the Son, and that through generosity, through prayer, through fasting, through not being religious hypocrites, we find this possibility of a new way of life in this close connection to the Father. And that close connection frees us from putting our allegiance and our hope in idols and created things, and Josh explored that. And what it does is it opens up a life of trusting, open-handedness towards the Father. And that whatever comes our way, we know that we have this connection to the Father through Jesus.

It allows us freedom from anxiety. It allows us freedom from having to control other people through condemnation or through judging or manipulating them, but rather to come alongside each other and looking towards Jesus and looking towards the Father together. And so it's a very powerful vision of this close, intimate connection to Jesus and the Father that fuels this very different kind of life. And here, he really hones in on what it takes to sustain. Like, what kinds of life habits or practices sustain that kind of life and mindset? And for Jesus, as it comes many times for him, always brings it back to prayer.

Prayer is just a basic habit in the life of a disciple. And these are well-known words probably to many of us, this familiar ask, seek, and knock. And it's really remarkable. This is a simple teaching. It's actually not that hard to understand his words, but I dare say that probably few of us have really carefully thought through the implications of these simple and beautiful words about prayer. And think about how he depicts it here. Look at how he depicts prayer. He depicts prayer as asking for stuff. Look at how he depicts prayer. He depicts prayer as asking for stuff. I mean, when he wants to define the basic way, like how do you talk about this relationship of intimacy with the Father?

Asking for things. Ask, seek, knock. And it's really optimistic, isn't it? You know, ask, and what happens? You receive, you know, and knock. And notice how he kind of ramps up the intensity too of like asking is, you know, a basic request and then you wait to receive. But then seeking, that's kind of stepping up the game a little bit, you know. It's like you go, you both ask, but then you take some initiative and move out looking for the response to that request. And

then you, there's this persistent thing of knocking and so on. And the way Jesus depicts the Father is not somebody who's holding out on us. He depicts God as someone who's eager. I mean, look at how he depicts him. He depicts God in this imagery that he always used to depict God, which is Father. Father. And his images that he uses right here, they're very personal. And they're very real.

And actually, there's a whole bunch of us in the room, at least I don't know how many, some of us, for whom these images of children asking for bread and fish and so on, I mean, these are really, Jesus is actually describing the day-to-day life of many of us right here. There are a whole bunch of us in the room who have little kids, and basically, you know, at the early phase, when they're in the little toddler phase, your relationship to tiny humans is basically one of them asking you for things all of the time. Like, that's just kind of the deal. That's how

the relationship works. And so, as I was thinking about this and have been thinking about this teaching over the last few weeks, I mean, I'm living this little story right now. And it's a story that happens to me five mornings a week. If my wife and I want to have any space, personal space in our lives, it means we just have to wake up so early to like have some kind of life before the little humans wake up, you know? And so for me, that takes the form of I need to be up really early, cup of coffee and be able to read and think about the day before my oldest emerges from the room by himself, Roman. He's three and a half now. And we've had this ritual going.

It's a great ritual. I love it. And he emerges with crazy hair, you know, this whole deal. And he's just barely, you know, he's just barely coherent. And he comes and he sits right next to me on the couch, 6.15. It's just the way his body clock works. And so he sits down next to me. And what, you know, what I think or what I imagine in the little story in my head

is that he'll be like, Dada, good morning. I missed you. I love you. You know, this kind of thing. That's never what he says. That's never what he says. What he says, and what he's literally, every morning of this ritual for a solid two weeks now, he sits down, he kind of adjusts to the world, and he just says, Dada, hot chocolate. Hot chocolate. And then I'm like, yeah, what do you want to do? And he says, I want to have special time with hot chocolate and you read me a book. And I'm just like, yes. Yes. It's my version of heaven, right? There's a hot coffee or hot chocolate and reading a book. And so there you go. That's my little daily ritual right now. I don't know how long it will last,

but I'm really enjoying it every single day. And so there you go. Like, that's the image. That's the kind of thing. Like, he doesn't even hesitate. He doesn't even think about, like, I wonder if Dad's going to say no. Because I say yes every time.

And I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing, but I say yes every time. And that's just the tendency of a parent, is because of the love and the relationship that's there, is just to say yes. Yes, of course, absolutely, let's go make the hot chocolate. And that's how Jesus is depicting the Father. He's just like, ask, and the Father loves you, and He will give to you, and you will receive. Are you guys with me here? I mean, it's very simple.

It's not complex, what he's talking about. So what makes this complex for us? And what makes it complex is our response to this. And it's the response that probably most of you are having as you think through these words. And it's like that, that's a very optimistic idea about prayer. And I wish I could think of it that way, some of us might say. Some of us might say I used to think about it that way,

but then reality happened. And I found that I asked and asked and asked and that like nothing ever happened. Or maybe I asked and then I thought it was so weird if I'm asking because he already knows what I'm going to ask. So why do I need to ask? And some of us go down that rabbit hole, which is deep. That's a deep rabbit hole. That one right there. He already knows. So why do I need to ask? Is he just going to do what he's going to do? And so I think for many of us, it's not hard to understand, but I think we have, many of us have obstacles to actually taking Jesus' teaching on prayer at face value.

And we're just getting started in the gospel of Matthew. In chapter 18, he'll say, you know, whenever two or three disciples get together in my name, I'm right there in the midst of them, and whatever it is they ask for in my name, they will receive it. And in chapter 21, Jesus is going to say, if you just have faith, as small as a mustard seed, you can move a mountain, and you can ask anything and trust, and you will receive it. And so this is a set of teachings by Jesus about prayer, which was clearly very important to him because he repeated the theme. And it's a theme that most of us struggle with. I know that I struggle with it and have struggled with it personally. And I know that's true for

many, many of us. Now, I have met a small handful of followers of Jesus throughout the years. And I call these folks the direct line people. And somehow, like, they pray and things happen. Do you guys know any? They're great people to have in your friend circle. Right? Do you guys know what I'm talking about? And it's just a handful.

And it's like coincidences are always happening. Coincidences, right? And they pray for stuff and then it comes together. And so I call those people, you know, with certain prayer requests. But that's not most of us. I think most of us, like, have, like, we pray for something for a long time, and then it kind of happens, but in this weird form that we didn't actually pray for. But we're like, I guess that's the answer, you know? Or we think, and we pray, and it doesn't seem to us that it ever gets answered. And it doesn't seem to us that it ever gets answered.

And then, so here's what I'd like to do, really, is move towards what I think are three of the greatest challenges that most of us have as we seek to really believe and trust Jesus and take his words at face value here. What is he describing here? And if I haven't experienced it, is there something wrong with me? Is it that I've misunderstood? Or is there other implications that I haven't thought through? And I think you can boil down most of our obstacles in our wrestling match with prayer, or your non-practice of prayer, whatever, to a few things. One, I think that it's difficult for us,

for many of us, to actually trust Jesus's description about the character of the Father, of this loving, generous, eager to say yes. Like for many of us, that's just a vision of God that we don't have. We don't have categories for that, and it's hard for us to believe that's true. And that's connected to, I think, the second challenge for most of us, and that's the deep, deep rabbit hole. And that's about, like, how does prayer actually work? And if it does work, how does it work? And how does that relate to God's, like, eternal purposes, you know, and His purposes for all of history, and He already knows everything and so on, and how does that, if He already knows, like, why do I need to ask and that whole deal. I think we have and we tend towards I think simplistic reductions of the complexity of that question and I think it lands us in a dead end.

So I think for some of us it's an emotional kind of attachment issue almost to God's character. For some it's intellectual challenge of the question of what is prayer and how does it work. And then finally I think for many of us it's an issue of experience. We've just had the experience of praying and asking for what seemed like really, really good things that God would want to have happen, and they don't happen. Anybody with me? And so how do you, and I think it's just like the triple knockout, and we just don't pray. We just don't pray because of it. And that's a tragedy. And that's to really miss, I think, some very simple but utterly profound things that Jesus is inviting us into when it comes to prayer. And so we're going to kind of work our way through

the three of those. They're all connected, and we're going to let Jesus' words open that up for us. How you guys doing? Okay. The first one, Jesus already anticipates about it being difficult for us to trust God's character, because that's exactly what he moves towards right here. He encourages the asking, seeking, knocking. He has this bold promise of receiving, finding, the door being opened. And then he moves right towards the issue of God's character, right? And it's this image of the loving, attentive, present father who wants to be asked and is eager to give good things upon being asked. I mean, look at the images that he gives here, right? Which of you, if a son asks for bread, will give him a stone? So Jesus, he uses this

image of a child asking for what is necessary, just daily staple, right? Bread. And he says, is anybody going to give him a stone? Now, remember, he's talking to a hillside of people here, mostly poor or working class, you know, Galilean folks, Jewish folks. And he's counting on them answering this question. It's a hillside of people. Which of you, if your son asks him for bread, is going to give him a stone, and everybody on the hillside is going to answer what? Nobody. Nobody would do that. At least I hope nobody in their right mind would do that.

Well, if he asks for a fish, who is going to give him a snake? Like no parent in their right mind is going to do that. So do you see, that's what he's doing. He's counting. He's bringing the audience in here. He's saying, listen, you all are amazing people made in God's image, but y'all are really screwed up, you know? That's not news to us, right, in the teaching of Jesus. We're really screwed up. But yet Jesus banks on this core intuition that all humans have, and certainly parents, that like if your child asks you for something that's necessary, that you're not going to give them something that's useless or something that's going to hurt them.

This is a very basic thing he invites people into. And he says, no, just think about that. Like if us dysfunctional, screwed up human beings like have that gut instinct, how much more so the father that Jesus comes to reveal? How much more so our father as Jesus' disciples? And again, that's simple, that's utterly profound. Because he's asking you to envision

that God's like not out to get you. He's asking you to envision that God's not out to get you. That God's basic, fundamental posture towards you is of eagerness to be in relational intimacy and connection and the eagerness to provide what's good. And I think for some of us, for lots of different reasons, it has to do with maybe the way that your parents modeled what it means to be moms or dads to you, and that was super distorted. And so it's hard for you to even envision a father or a parent figure that has like that much

generosity and love for you. For some of us, our parents were present, and maybe they were way too present, you know, and it was like the controlling kind of present, and so you could never actually measure up in that whole deal. And it's hard for you to envision a father who's not there to perpetually criticize you, but actually is there to support and be present with. Like, we just, we struggle deeply, deeply with that. And the father and son metaphor, for me, I think begins to unlock a few things. Because notice, look at how the teaching is set up here. It's the ask, seek, knock thing. That's the verses 7 and 8. And then it has the father, son image, generous father, and so on. That's verses 9 through 11.

And if you were just to take verses 7 and 8, let's just rip them out of context, bleeding from the page, right? And we put them here, and then we take that other one about ask whatever in my name, and it'll be answered for you. And let's take another one about whatever you ask in faith will be given to you. And we put together a little theology based off of these teachings of Jesus. And what many people have ended up with is what I call a blank check prayer theology, which is, hey, you know, look at these teachings of Jesus. Ask what you want and you get it. It's really sweet. You know, you should try it. You know, I recommend it. And then for some people, they find a way to rationalize blank check prayer theology, even though it usually just doesn't work

for them very well, but they find ways to make it work or whatever. I got the parking spot. It was incredible, you know, and I asked for it, you know, that kind of thing. And so some people can sustain it for quite a long time. For some people, that's actually what they think. It's just like that, and then their, you know, their ideas about that are shattered, and then they're like, forget Jesus. He didn't work for me. And it's like, well, maybe Jesus is saying something that's more nuanced than that. So he says the ask, seek, knock thing,

but then he invites us into this image of the parent and the child, of the father and the son. And so just think this through. If you're a parent, this will be intuitive. If you were parented, this will be intuitive for you too. And I think that's probably most of us. So, and I'll just tell it in terms of my own personal story. Again, thinking about Roman. And then I have a little one and a half year old, August, who also my relationship to him is mostly him asking me for stuff, but he can just speak in

single word sentences. So it's just like that, I want that. I want that. You know, that kind of thing. And so do I want Roma to have hot chocolate? Am I excited when he asks for hot chocolate? Totally. Like there's nothing in me that wants to say no. And I don't say no. Maybe I should. I don't know. And I don't. Right? And that's just like, I just say yes. Yes. Do you want to go to the, I want to go to the park. Dad, yeah, let's go. You know, that sounds awesome. I want to read a book. I want to play with Legos or whatever. I want to listen to music.

Yes, yes, yes, yes. So that just comes out. Jesus banks on that. But think through. Certainly Jesus wants us to think this through. There's a wise parent who wants what's good for their children. Does that parent always say yes, no matter what, to whatever is asked? Like, no.

Just think that through for a second. Of course Jesus isn't saying that. Because that parent is actually really irresponsible, right? So if I were to do that, my sons would live on hot chocolate and lollipops, and they would sit all day long in front of Curious George, the cartoon, and did, oh my gosh, one episode of That Is Enough for weeks, you know what I'm saying? And like he's constantly asking for it. So, I mean, like they don't have the capacity yet to determine what is good for them.

That's a part of my role and Jessica's role, is to use my wisdom both to show my love and show them that the world is a secure and safe place and they can ask me for whatever and I'll always be there present to respond. But it doesn't mean I will always give them whatever it is that they want. So, Roman wants lollipops for, and instead it's like something else. And so I have to break this news to him. This happens regularly. It's just like, no, buddy, you had the lollipop early this afternoon,

and you don't get another one until tomorrow or whatever. And in his world, he just turns on me. He's just like, you're the enemy now. And I'm like the world's worst person. And so I just have to take that, you know, and work with that. But I know, like I know, he can't see that this thing that he's asking for, he can't see like the cause and effect chain that's going to lead towards the cavities or whatever, all the stuff that would happen if he only had a diet of lollipops or whatever.

And so I'm actually still being as good and attentive and involved as I am when I make him hot chocolate in the morning, but yet I won't make him hot chocolate five minutes before dinner. It's the same request. And it seems to me that Jesus is inviting us precisely into to see prayer as a relational experience. And so whatever he means by ask, seek, knock, he's not offering himself as your magic genie. That's what I'm trying to say. Clearly he's not doing.

Jesus is way too nuanced and brilliant. But yet at the same time, I don't want to minimize, he's making a very bold offer here, isn't he? Isn't he? And so that raises the question, well, okay, like if the wise parent, if the father reserves the right to say no and to respond to my request that way, or to answer it in a different way, no, Roman, you don't get lollipops, you get broccoli. You know, like, so he doesn't want broccoli, but that's how it works, because that's actually what I know is good for him.

Jesus invites us to see prayer in that setting. And in my mind, that at least begins to get us thinking in new ways about the character of the Father, and about the way that the Father interacts with our requests, and how we may not get what we want, but that doesn't mean that the Father isn't listening. There may be other ways to think about that. And so that really leads us into the, so that's the first one. It's related to, and we'll pick it up again, it's related to the second obstacle, which I think is the rabbit hole for many of us. And so we say, okay, let's say I can get myself to trust God, which is major progress, I know, for some of us here, right? To trust that God doesn't hate you, but that he actually is for you,

and in and through what Jesus has done, he loves you and is committed to you. To live with that mindset is a huge step of growth, I know, for a whole bunch of us. But let's say you get there, and then you start asking the question, okay, so I'm going to ask for things, but so does God actually change what God is going to do in response to that request? Actually, look back a page. Remember what Jesus said in chapter 6 when he introduced the prayer to teach us how to pray. In chapter 6, verse 8, he said,

don't be like the non-Jewish folk who go on and on with these long prayers because they think that the gods will hear them. No, just pray short prayers. If you're a disciple of Jesus, pray short. You don't need to go on. And he says, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him. Just stop right there. And pay attention to your own internal response to Jesus right there. Your father, before you even pray, your father knows what you need before you ask him. Now what's going on inside of you?

I'll tell you what happens inside of me, and then I know, because I've talked with so many people about this, that it's happening in at least half the room right now, is we respond and we think, well, if he knows what I need, before I even ask him, why do I need to ask? Like, he knows.

So he's just going to provide it, right? Or if he was good, he would just provide it. Why do I need to ask him? Anybody? Is anybody with me? I'm alone in that. Anybody? Right, yeah, totally. So it's like,

well, if he knows, why do I need to ask? If God's going to do what God's going to do, why on earth do I need to ask him? And notice that Jesus draws the exact opposite conclusion. He says, the Father knows what you need before you even ask him, so ask him. Like, that is the motivation to ask the Father. Are you with me here? What is underneath that? And I would suggest that what's underneath that is a vision of who God is and how God interacts with the world and how God interacts with us and our choices that I think is a category breaker for us. It's actually a category for who God is that most of us don't have room for. A God who is genuinely relational and reactive and responsive and interacts with us, with our decisions as history goes on. And I think most of us, for different reasons, and so let's just go a foot down the rabbit hole, right? And just see

why that's the case and why I think for many of us that that's hard. And it's because ideas or visions about who God is just within Christian history tend to go towards extremes. And so towards one extreme, you have a vision about who God is and how God relates to humans and history and so on. And so I'll use some analogies. So one vision would be that God is like Shakespeare. And God is the creative mind and has already authored the whole play, the whole script. And so the characters within Hamlet, for example, like they don't know that the story is already totally written, you know.

They think that they have, you know, actual decisions and free will and so on, and they don't know Shakespeare, right? He's outside the play. And so they're just cruising along doing their thing, but actually they're living out a story that's already been completely written and determined. And so in this view of God, which has been very common in the history of Christianity, especially in the West, is that God is, he's not just all powerful and he's not just all knowing, but he has already set the course and predestined and determined every moment and molecule, right? Right down to everything. And that we experience the world as having some kind of free will and decision, but actually we're just

living out the script that's been written. So that would be over here, one extreme view. The other extreme view, which has always existed alongside this one, but it hasn't become more common really until the last 150 years or so, is not God as Shakespeare, but God as like the master chess player. And the chess player is very smart. Very smart. And the chess, I'm sorry, we were the chess club guys in eighth grade. And for some reason, I actually thought they were cool. I mean, they were geeks,

but they actually were kind of cool in how absorbed they were in this little world or whatever. So they would play in the lunchroom every day, any one classroom. Anyway, so the chess player, God's a master chess player. And so like super smart, can anticipate, you know, to the nth degree the implications of all moves and so on, can outmaneuver anybody. But God is subject to time and cause and effect

and doesn't know, but can work around and turn any situation around or whatever. And so God is emerging like human beings are and like history is. That would be this other extreme view. And so I think between these two extremes, most people like tend towards one of these two extremes. The problem with these extremes is the Bible. The Bible. And the reason why that causes a problem is because there are lots of people in this camp who are Christians

and they do think the Bible actually has this view in its extreme form or vice versa, in this form too. But I have found that if you poke and prod, like why do you think that and what parts of the Bible do you appeal to, you'll find they appeal to that and what parts of the Bible do you appeal to you'll find the appeal to certain stories or passages in the Bible that kind of do seem to point in that direction but they tend to ignore or not pay attention to all these other passages in the Bible that don't jive with that at all and vice versa you guys with me here and so this is one of those things where it's

like if you are comfortable with your view of God and your theology, just don't read the Bible then, right? Because it will mess up everything that you think you believe, right? Because it doesn't resolve this tension for us. It places us in a whole different framework, in a whole different way of thinking about it that I don't think is these two extremes. And that framework is the framework that Jesus is getting at. It's a relationship, an actual relationship. And Jesus has a vision of the Father as the sovereign, directing all things towards his purpose, but who has given human beings a degree and an arena of genuine freedom and decision to make this ride as bumpy

or as smooth as we decide it will be by our choices. And so, oh, I'm not, okay, we're going to come out of the rabbit hole right now. And I'll just say this. I'm not even going to try and solve this for us. What I would like to do is to set a framework for it that might be different, but I'm not going to do it by talking anymore. It won't surprise you that for me, where we should always go first is pages one and two. Just always go to pages one and two of the Bible, pay attention to the story of Israel and how it all comes together in Jesus. And instead of doing that with a chalkboard or whatever, I'm going to do something I haven't done before here at Door of Hope, which is to show a video as a part of the teaching. Some of you may not know.

I don't know how many of you know. For the last two years or so, I've been a part of a... It started as a little side project, and now it's like a massive side project. It's a nonprofit. Like, Portland needed another one, but here it is, another one. A nonprofit that a friend and I, John and I started called The Bible Project. And we're making short animated videos about the Bible and theology, and we're putting them up on a YouTube like educational channel or whatever. And it's, we've got momentum as we go into year two. But I

want to show you our most recent video, which actually has nothing to do with prayer. But then on the flip side, it has everything to do with prayer. It's about the covenants, and it's about how God relates to us and our decisions as human beings. So I'll just let you watch it, and then we'll talk about prayer after it's over. you you you you you you you you you you you you you you So, here's why I think that's helpful. See, it has nothing to do with prayer. But it has everything to do with prayer, doesn't it? Because the whole story of the Bible is about how God the King has sovereignly chosen to

work out His purposes in our world through humans. That is God's sovereign choice to do that. And so, it's a story about a relationship. If I have a real relationship with my sons, I have certain things that I want to shape in them and I want them to become men of integrity and people who love and are generous and so on. But at the same time, as I shape them, I have to give them real dignity as human beings who bear God's image. And the moment I force my agenda on them, it ceases to be a relationship. And so I, as a father, have to learn this balance of when do I guide and get involved, and when do I allow them to make their own choices and make their own

mistakes or have their own successes. And I know that's just an analogy, but it seems to me that that is actually the story that the Bible's trying to tell us of an actual relationship, which means that God's, He's not biting His fingernails, like, how's it going to turn out? Like, He's going to redeem this thing, and He's going to do it, and the outcome is as certain as Jesus rose from the dead. But at the same time, he has created a real arena for relationship and for decisions and for us to make real failures and real successes, to choose to follow and obey, or to choose to reject and rebel. And what this means, it seems to me, is Jesus is inviting us to see obedience to him as part of this partnership,

but prayer, prayer as a crucial part of this partnership. Jesus, it seems to me, like just look down at these verses, it seems to me, Jesus is saying, ask, like your father knows, so ask him, and he will give the good things that are right. They're right for you. They're not the things that are going to give you cavities in your teeth or whatever and spoil your dinner. They're going to be exactly the right things and so on, and that's the wise, gracious father. But apparently, Jesus says, if you ask, you receive. Now, just simple math. If you ask, you receive.

If you don't ask, you don't receive. Did you see how simple that was? That was simple, wasn't it? All right, ask, receive, don't ask, don't receive. It seems to me the clear implication of what he's saying is that there may be good things that God would want to have happen in and through you or in the world, but that won't happen if we don't ask. I mean, how is that not the conclusion you draw from this? God will always do beyond what we ask and imagine. But Jesus, it seems to me, is inviting us to say, like, dude, your prayers actually matter. Your requests matter, just like your obedience matters, and your prayers and your choices matter. They're real decisions. And so God, if he really is partnering with us as the covenant people of Jesus,

apparently, I think Jesus wants us to see that our prayers matter. That sounds so silly to say that, but I don't think we actually believe it. We straight up don't believe it, or else we would pray a lot more. Just ask yourself the question, do you pray a lot? Do you really believe that God wants to have his kingdom purposes happen in the world through you and your prayers? And if we really believed it, guess what we would probably be doing a lot, a lot more. And so it raises the question, like, what are we supposed to be asking for? Once again, it's really helpful that he taught us how to pray on the previous page. Isn't that convenient that he taught us how to pray? And that that prayer, called the Lord's Prayer, it's all requests. It's all requests.

It seems to me Jesus is teaching us how to pray, and then teaching us that our prayers are the cry of the kingdom. It's through the prayers of Jesus' disciples that he actually wants to forward his purposes in the world, and that it's real, and that it really makes a difference. And so it's then the stories of people who have done this. I read recently a very simple, powerful words about the former Archbishop of Canterbury, right?

How's that? But he was, you know, he's the head of the Anglican Church, a guy named Rowan Williams. And, you know, he's like 85-year-old, super devout, awesome disciple of Jesus. And he just, he put it this way. He just said, I have noticed that when I pray, coincidences happen. When I do not pray, coincidences do not happen. And you're just like, that's silly.

Or not silly, it's simple, and it's profound. And it seems to me it's exactly what Jesus is inviting us to, which leads, and I don't even have time to go at this and that's intentional on my part, to the let's say that we really believe it matters and we trust in God's character. What do we do with the experience of our prayers hitting the ceiling then? All right. So what do we do then and how do we respond? And the Bible doesn't give us any nicely wrapped with a bow answers to that one, but it does address it. The Bible does address our experience of unanswered prayer. When we cry out for the kingdom, when we cry out for justice and peace and provision for the poor and for daily bread and for people to come to know Jesus and for

forgiveness, we pray the Lord's Prayer and the cry for the kingdom, and it seems like nothing happens, and your prayers hit the ceiling. And the only place I know where to go in those experiences is to remember that the same Jesus, you guys, who said these words, ask and you'll receive, seek and you'll find. The same Jesus who says that is the same Jesus who kneels in the Garden of Gethsemane in a night of agonizing prayer, and he asks the Father. Just go read the prayer. It's in all of the Gospels, right? He asks the Father. He says, Father, anything's possible for you. I don't want to go through this.

Would you please take this cup away, he says. Which means let's find another way for this to happen, right? None other than suffering and death. What is Jesus asking for right there? If there's any other way, I would love to not have to die in the next 24 hours. That's what he's asking for. Was his request answered? He died.

Jesus died. But yet at the same time that he was wrestling with and making that request, he concludes with this statement of deep relational trust, But yet at the same time that he was wrestling and making that request, he concludes with this statement of deep relational trust, which is, however, at the end of the day, that's my will. I don't want this to happen. Whatever in your wisdom, in your grace, whatever your will is, let it be done. And Jesus doesn't see himself as opposing the Father's will or trying to cajole him. He's coming to the Father and saying, here's my request, here's my will, whatever your will.

And he puts himself in a place of genuine trust. And it seems to me that Jesus' death and his resurrection, it is for us as our substitute, as the faithful covenant partner on our behalf. But Jesus is, at the same time, Emmanuel. He is God with us. And your experiences of kneeling, of the years of praying for someone or something, and you just never see the answer to that. Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane is God become human to agonize alongside you and to go through that same experience of seemingly unanswered prayer. And while Jesus's immediate request, I don't want

to go through this, it wasn't answered in the form that he was requesting it. At the same time, was Jesus' request, and was Jesus, utterly forsaken and forgotten by the Father? He rose from the dead. He rose from the dead. And so he was able to see that request through to the other side, into resurrection and into new creation. Now you and I don't have that privilege with our requests.

Like you don't know where your five years of praying for this person, like where those are going. It doesn't seem to be being answered in the form that you want it to, but there could be loads of reasons for that. There could be loads of reasons. And you also don't know the way that that prayer request might find fruition in the new creation. You have no idea.

And so it seems to me that we are placed as disciples of Jesus in a place of trust and of hope. And so let me just kind of close, land the plane, and this is the perfect time for us to go to communion, to go meet Jesus at the table where his death is of both a substitution significance for us, but also as one who comes alongside us to suffer alongside us and to redeem our own anxious, agonizing prayer. And so I'm going to close in prayer, and I would just ask you, whatever, if it's a lack of faith, if it's a lack of trust in the Father's character, if it's an intellectual issue for you, if there's a specific person or a

story about something, a prayer that's never been answered, and just bring that to Jesus as we take the bread and the cup together. And just ask yourself, like, what forward steps do you need to make as a disciple of Jesus to really take Jesus at his words here so that prayer can begin to become a way that you see yourself as a partner with the Father in the kingdom coming and on earth as it is in heaven. Thank you for listening to Exploring My Strange Bible. We're going to keep on in the Gospel of Matthew exploring. We're going to go back into the narratives in Matthew chapter 8 and onward.

This is going to be awesome. So we'll see you next time.