27th November 2024

27th November 2024


Pray (ACts)


Read (Matt 7:7-14 focus 9-12)


Message (Alan Burke)


This time four weeks people all over the world will be given and exchanging gifts. Whether do you love it or hate it, whether you're wearing your Christmas jumper from June, or you would prefer to hibernate through it all it is almost here. Here Jesus illustrates what he had just said for all those who ask, who seek, who knock and he does it by making a comparison between a parent and God. None of those who Jesus spoke to would have given a hungry child a stone or a snake. 


If we ask, if we seek, if we knock then he will give us the gift of eternal life, he will not keep it from us. For as we re reminded in Psalm 103, As a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on those who fear him (Ps 103:13). But God the Father is not called Father because He copies earthly fathers, He is not like earthly fathers, to transfer the failings of earthly fathers to Him is quite simply, a misstep. For Our Father, the one that we come before is a loving, caring, gracious and compassionate, all powerful sovereign, all wise Father who created and governs all things, who is working all things together for the good of those who love him and we can have confidence as we pray that he indeed desires to give us good, he need desires our best, that he indeed is our God and Father through Christ Jesus, he gives them the gift of salvation, God the Father did not spear his own son but gave him up for us all (Rom 8:32). For all those who have asked, sought and knocked they are sons of God through faith in Jesus Christ (Gal 3:26) which means we can call God our Father. 


The fact that we can call God Father should fill us with wonder for even though we are evil by our nature, that we are deserving nothing but the wrath of God through Christ, for all those who ask, who seek, who knock we are given the gift of eternal life, salvation, we become the children of God, born of God. Through Christ with the work of the Spirit within us, for those who ask, seek and knock, we are not strangers, enemies, slaves, instead were are able to come as children before our heavenly Father and pray as sons and daughters, coming as heirs though Christ Jesus that is worked in us by the Spirit that moves us to call our God, Father. Such wonder in this word, there is intimacy, there is a familial connection amongst us, we are family. 


And for those of us who are family we should plead for one another to our gracious and good God, we should also be persistent in prayer for those whom we know and love that they too will ask, seek and knock, will we be those who persistently plead? If we are the child of God, if we have asked, sought, knocked the door receiving eternal life, then we live in response to what the Lord has done. It’s summed up here in v12, So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets. The application is limitless in our interactions with the person who serves us coffee, to the oul trout who has given us a piece of their mind, this is the principle that we are to live by as believers, living with kingdom values.


Pray (acTS)


Sing


WSC
Q46. What is required in the first commandment?
A. The first commandment requireth us to know and acknowledge God to be the only true God, and our God, and to worship and glorify him accordingly.
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