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Jun 02, 2019

Wish List

Wish List

Passage: Matthew 7:7-11

Speaker: Patrick Lafferty

Series: The Highest Good

There was a time when you had absolutely no trouble asking for anything. As we “mature” we are able to do what we once depended on others for. But maturing as a person doesn’t mirror maturing as a follower; asking for much would appear to be the mark of maturity. He’s already told us how to pray. Now Jesus wants to underscore just how willing God is to listen and respond.

Order of Worship

Pre-Service Text: Jeremiah 29:13
Call To Worship: Psalm 63:1-4
Old Testament Reading: 1 Kings 17:17-24
Sermon Title: Wish List
Central Text: Matthew 7:7-11
Benediction: Isaiah 55:6-7
Post-Service Text: Mark 11:24

06.02.19 Sermon Notes

Download Printable Prayer Template

Guided Prayer & Fasting

Prayer Needs

Illustration

This Is Us - New Car

Readings & Scripture

Pre-Service Text: Jeremiah 29:13
“You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart.”

Call To Worship: Psalm 63:1-4
ALL: O God, you are my God; earnestly I seek you;
my soul thirsts for you;
my flesh faints for you,
as in a dry and weary land where there is no water.

LEADER: So I have looked upon you in the sanctuary,
beholding your power and glory.

ALL: Because your steadfast love is better than life,
my lips will praise you.
So I will bless you as long as I live;
in your name I will lift up my hands.

Old Testament Reading: 1 Kings 17:17-24
17 After this the son of the woman, the mistress of the house, became ill. And his illness was so severe that there was no breath left in him. 18 And she said to Elijah, “What have you against me, O man of God? You have come to me to bring my sin to remembrance and to cause the death of my son!” 19 And he said to her, “Give me your son.” And he took him from her arms and carried him up into the upper chamber where he lodged, and laid him on his own bed. 20 And he cried to the Lord, “O Lord my God, have you brought calamity even upon the widow with whom I sojourn, by killing her son?” 21 Then he stretched himself upon the child three times and cried to the Lord, “O Lord my God, let this child's life come into him again.” 22 And the Lord listened to the voice of Elijah. And the life of the child came into him again, and he revived. 23 And Elijah took the child and brought him down from the upper chamber into the house and delivered him to his mother. And Elijah said, “See, your son lives.” 24 And the woman said to Elijah, “Now I know that you are a man of God, and that the word of the Lord in your mouth is truth.”

Central Text: Matthew 7:7-11
Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. 8 For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened. 9 Or which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? 10 Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? 11 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!

Benediction: Isaiah 55:6-7
Seek the Lord while he may be found;
call upon him while he is near;
let the wicked forsake his way,
and the unrighteous man his thoughts;
let him return to the Lord, that he may have compassion on him,
and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.

Post-Service Text: Mark 11:24
24 Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.

Related Scripture

  • Exodus 14:14
  • 1 Kings 17:17-24
  • Psalm 37:4, 84:1
  • *Psalm 65:2f
  • Proverbs 8:17
  • Isaiah 49:15; 55:6
  • Jeremiah 29:13
  • Matthew 4:3
  • Mark 11:24
  • Luke 11:9-13
  • Luke 18:1-8
  • John 16:23-24
  • Romans 8:31-32
  • James 1:5-6
  • 2 Peter 1:2-3
  • Revelation 3:20

Discussion Questions & Applications:

 

  • What most compels you to pray? What most diminishes your desire to pray? Why?
  • When you do pray, for what do you most often pray?
  • Why does feeling guilt for prayerlessness reveal a misunderstanding of what prayer is, and is for? Why is our inclination to pray not an index of our worth to God, or of His love for us, but rather an aspect of our spiritual health?
  • How would this passage respond to the claim that God thinks of requests of Him less than simple praise of Him? Does God grow weary, or find tedious, our asking for good things?
  • Why is the prayer God the Father did not grant Jesus—even though Jesus followed that prayer immediately with “but your will he done”—the best news for us?
  • What might you begin asking for with utmost abandon, on the basis of His unbridled affection for you, seen most fully in his astonishing grace to you in Jesus? Why are you no fool for asking what seems utterly impossible?

Quotes:

  • ...for most of us the problem is not that we are too eager to ask for the wrong things. The problem is that we are not eager enough to ask for the right things. - Tom Wright
  • It is strange that these delightful promises affect us so coldly, or scarcely at all, so that the generality of men prefer to wander up and down, forsaking the fountain of living waters, and hewing out to themselves broken cisterns, rather than embrace the divine liberality voluntarily offered to them. - John Calvin, Institutes, 3.20.14
  • ...our prayers depend on no merit of our own, but all their worth and hope of success are founded and depend on the promises of God. - Ibid.
  • ...a bold spirit in prayer well accords with fear, reverence, and anxiety, and that there is no inconsistency when God raises up those who had fallen prostrate. - Ibid.
  • Faith is the virtue by which, clinging-to the faithfulness of God, we lean upon him, so that we may obtain what he gives to us. - William Ames