Arnold Palmer once played a series of exhibition matches in Saudi Arabia. The king was so impressed that he proposed, in good Middle Eastern fashion, to honor his guest with a gift. Palmer resisted, "It really isn't necessary, Your Highness. I'm honored to have been invited."
And, in good Middle Eastern fashion, his highness persisted, "I would be deeply upset," replied the king, "if you would not allow me to give you a gift."
Palmer thought for a moment, "All right. How about a golf club? That would be a beautiful momento of my visit to your country."
The next day, delivered to Palmer's hotel, was the title to a golf club. Thousands of acres, trees, lakes, clubhouse, and so forth.”
The preacher from whom I borrowed the story added a punch line, “In the presence of a king” he commented, “don't ask for small gifts!”1
In an sermon on prayer, Phillips Brooks wrote, “You cannot think a prayer so large that God, in answering it, will not wish you had made it larger. Pray not for crutches but for wings!”2 I am called up short each time I read the poem of Alfred Lord Tennyson:
“More things are wrought by prayer
Than this world dreams of. Wherefore, let thy voice
Rise like a fountain for me night and day
For what are men better than sheep or goats
That nourish a blind life within the brain,
If knowing God, they lift not hands of prayer
Both for themselves and those who call them friends?”3
Prayer is the messy, unpredictable, living laboratory of the Christian life. It is give-and-take interaction with the God whose character is sure but who paths are rarely predictable. Prayer is not the abstraction of a lecture but the experimentation of a laboratory. Not safely watching others dance but the awkwardness of learning yourself. Prayer is involvement with God and original research in the dynamics of the kingdom of God. Over the entrance to The Jesus School of Prayer a warning is posted, “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For every one....” Prayer is an ongoing conversation with the inter-personal mystery of the Triune God, and the deeper we move into prayer the more challenging it becomes. Questions arise: Am I willing to become the answer for which I pray? Do I want to be transformed by the fire of divine love? There is a story from the fourth century desert monks of Egypt. It goes like this:
“Abba Lot came to Abba Joseph and said: ‘Father, according as I am able, I keep my little rule, and my little fast, my prayer, meditation and contemplative silence; and, according as I am able, I strive to cleanse my heart of thoughts: now what more should I do?’ The elder rose up in reply and stretched out his hands to heaven, and his fingers became like ten lamps of fire. He said: Why not be changed into fire?”4
There was a time when my prayers were smaller, when I tried to figure out what God might be willing to accomplish before I prayed. A little of this, a little of that, then a small, carefully controlled petition that might be easy for God to answer. What a pitiful view of the greatness of God! It is not what preachers preach but what we are willing to pray for that is the better test of our view of God’s character. I pray more boldly now, even foolishly at times, for healing and all sorts of miracles, and sometimes the most amazing things happen. Not just the safe O God please guide the hand of the doctor prayers, good as those may be, but for God to do what goes beyond the best science has to deliver. My teacher in his matter was the late John Wimber, who said, “My responsibility is to pray, God's responsibility is to heal. If he chooses not to do so, then he's responsible for that.”5 Puny God, piedly prayers. Little God, lilliputian prayers.
Big God, bold prayers. Awesome God, audacious prayers! God is not disappointed by us asking for too much but perhaps for too little. My advice is this: pray boldly within the bounds of Scripture. Listen as you pray for fresh ideas and illuminations. Then watch for answers like Yes and No and Later and Wait and See and It All Depends. And what you learn, teach to others. Tell your stories of prayer.
Last Sunday after worship we prayed with a guest. Five of us gathered round, anointed her on the forehead, touched her gently, then prayed for physical healing and a severe problem at work. I received an excited call Tuesday afternoon that the work situation had completely turned around to her great surprise. I was startled at how quickly forgiveness rebounded with blessing. When we forgive our tormentors, it is amazing to watch God work. As we prayed I was not aware of any great faith on our part. I was prompted to ask a few questions, but there were no sensations, no felt energy as sometimes happens, at least not on my part. We did our job with respect and love. I suspect that since the work part of the prayer has been answered, faith will increase for the more difficult aspects of physical health. I take the speed of God’s response as an invitation to further prayer. As Jesus encouraged us, “If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts (plural) to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things (plural) to those who ask him?” Five times in this passage Jesus uses the word ask, which in our day would be labeled as assertiveness. Not silence but speaking, not waiting but asking, knowing what you want and asking for it. Jesus’ brother James was blunt about the matter, “You have not,” he said, “because you ask not.”6 God delights in our asking. All six sentences of the Lord’s Prayer are petitions asking for God to do something; Jesus gave us a word track to practice the art of asking. If you don’t ask, you don’t give God a chance to answer and an opportunity to sift your requests because God only gives good things.
We have received good for this woman and now ask for more. Rather than backing off because we have a partial answer, as many do lest they be thought greedy or ungrateful, I take it as encouragement to press on. Like a surfer, let’s test a rising wave of grace and see how far we can ride it. It is an experimental attitude that I think pleases God. It is, when you think of it, an application of the Golden Rule. Since I want people to respond to my needs with bold and persistent prayers of faith, I should do the same for them, as Jesus instructed, “So whatever you wish that men and women would do for you, do so to them.” This is why poor people should pray for provision for other poor people and sick people should pray for other sick people and why addicts should pray for other addicts and those with broken marriages pray for those with unhappy homes. You give away to others what you want for yourself because that is the upside-down logic of the kingdom of God. And frankly, it is sometimes easier to have faith for others than for yourself! And when God meets them, faith increases that God can do the same for you. We ask for others what we need for ourselves. This is part of what it means to walk by faith. Alexander MacLaren wrote:
“We may have as much of God as we will. Christ puts the key of the treasure-chamber into our hand, and bids us take all that we want. If a man is admitted into the... vault of a bank, and told to help himself, and comes out with one cent, whose fault is it that he is poor? Whose fault is it that Christian people generally have such scanty portions of the free riches of God?”7
Just how much of God do you want? Are you willing to go with the changes that more of God means? And if you want more, then you must learn, said Jesus, to keep on asking and keep on seeking and keep on knocking and not to be satisfied with the status quo. To pray is to change because it invites God into every situation, especially the smallest, as George McDonald wrote, “Anything large enough for a wish to light upon is large enough to hang a prayer on.”8 There is nothing too little not to pray about; after all, everything in our lives is small to God. To save prayer for only what you consider to be the big stuff is a distorted image of God. God is not too busy with the big stuff to tend to your little stuff, your daily worries and cares. The God who made all of life wants to be invited back into every part. C.H. Spurgeon used the image of a church bell to encourage boldness in prayer:
“Prayer pulls the rope below and the great bell rings above in the ears of God. Some scarcely stir the bell, for they pray so languidly. Others give but an occasional pluck at the rope. But he who wins with heaven is the man who grasps the rope boldly and pulls continuously, with all his might.”9
Jesus dares us to test God in this matter. It’s why the Greek tenses of the verbs in verses 7 and 8 all indicate continuous action, “Keep on asking... keep on seeking... keep on knocking,” and then a universal invitation, “For every one....” Prayer is aerobic exercise that increases our capacity to run with God and not quit.
TURNING TO THE TEXT
a) vv.7-8 An Invitation To God’s Wisdom.
When I took the time to explore the origin of verses 7 through 8, I discovered they were from the world of beggars, who were common in that day.10 Jesus used the example of beggars to teach his disciples about prayer. Beggars were isolated, cut off from the supports of family which was the basic unit of survival; beggars were sick or disabled and unable to work; beggars were people displaced by wars and migrations; many considered beggars to be under the judgment of God, and unless they persisted and people responded, they died.
Beggars cannot afford to be proud. If you lack, you ask. If you are lost, you seek. If you are outside and resources inside, you knock on closed doors. Need drives you forward, and the experience of beggars is the root image Jesus employs in verses 7 and 8. He invites his disciples to see themselves as beggars. Unless you see yourself as not having what you need and God having everything you need, you will never learn to pray. Praying is a posture of humility that makes beggars of us all. Nothing to offer and needing everything. It is not a picture of American success and isolated self-sufficiency. Honest prayer kills pride.
On Tuesday 8:30pm as I walked out the door after a meeting, God sent me a beggar. As I came down the stairs he walked in front of me. It was a divine appointment; I knew it as soon as I saw him. God was testing me at the end of a long day. Would I take time? Would I care? Yes, because this passage was on my mind. I had been meditating that day on what it meant to ask, seek, and knock as a spiritual beggar. And here’s a physical beggar.
So what happened in the next hour? Craig ate a peanut butter and jelly sandwich on a micro-waved, freezer-burned hamburger bun with a side of ice cream, a diet soda, and a bag of chips. You paid for a motel room as well! When I prayed for him he fell on his knees in the office. My car stunk from the pungent smell of alcohol processed through sweat glands, but it was OK; it’s God car, and if he wants to stink it up, so be it. I treated Craig like an honored guest. We called the Sheriff in Newton Texas to try to locate the wife he was separated from after Hurricane Katrina. He didn’t have to ask; I gave. He didn’t have to seek; he had already been found. He didn’t have to knock; God sent me out to welcome him in, and all in your name! He didn’t eat out of a garbage can behind the Pizza Hut that evening but in the house of God!
I like passing God’s character tests because it means promotion in the kingdom. And here is what a promotion means: more chances to love, more chances to serve, more chances to give, more chances to pray, more chances to see the Bible get up off the page, more chances to see the Holy Spirit break through, another chance to become a wiser and better man, another chance to feel the warm heart of Jesus. My long term observation is that God knows just which text I’m preaching and sends challenges to illumine his Word in practical ways. Will I obey during the week what I preach to you on Sunday? Lori is used to me walking in the door and for my first words to be, “Honey, the most amazing thing just happened.” I don’t need any more stuff. What I am hungry for is opportunity and the anointing of the Spirit to meet the opportunity. And when I fail a test, which I will soon enough, I’m not going to quit. The joy is intoxicating; I want more! I love God’s gifts.
The vocabulary Jesus used was conventional in the sense that it was common Jewish terminology for prayer: asking , seeking, and knocking.11 And while the images are three, they are all about the same thing. And when you ask who is the You in the command to ask, seek, and knock, the answer is universal, “For every one who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened.” The passive voice is a pious Jewish way of referring to God without calling the divine name. It will be given by God, for every one who asks receives from God. Jesus invites his disciples to experiment with God. They are to do business with the one he is in constant communication with; they are invited into an ongoing divine conversation between the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
Now the question is: Is this a blank check from God? Is it, Ask, seek, and knock for whatever, and whatever will be given? No, because the language Jesus used is also wisdom language. The previous six verses spoke about when not to judge and when to judge, and to know the difference requires wisdom which God gives to those who ask and seek and knock. Jesus’ brother James preserved the same teaching in his letter. Hear the echoes:
“If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives to all men generously and without reproaching, and it will be given him. But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for he who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind. For that person must not suppose that a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways, will receive anything from the Lord.”12
Wisdom, you see, is a step beyond knowledge. Knowledge is know that; wisdom is know how and know when and know why because God has worked it into your character over time. What is sought and given, what is lost and found, what is knocked for and then opened from within is God’s wisdom, which can also be defined as the way the Holy Spirit applies Scriptural truth to ever-changing situations. What we are after is practical divine revelation that comes in conversation with God. Knowing Scripture is a first step, but it alone is not enough. I know fools who quote the Bible. What they don’t have is wisdom which directs us as to how to apply the truth in love. We interact with God in the Book and in prayer, and as we stick with the means of grace, wisdom comes. We know what to do. We learn to hear from God in written revelation and in answers to prayer. If you ask of a Scriptural text, How does this apply to my life? God will answer. We build a track record with God, and because we do it together in community, we are generally safe from going off on some private tangent. Divine wisdom comes at the intersection of the Bible and prayer in a community that is seeking the kingdom of God in Jesus.
Beyond the stuff God provides, there is the wisdom God offers. Nothing is more valuable than the wisdom of God. Jesus encouraged us to pursue it with all our might. “Go for it!” he said, “then watch what happens.”
b) vv.9-11 The Generous Character Of The Father.
In a book titled Connecting, Dr. Larry Crabb writes:
“A friend of mine was raised in an angry family. Mealtimes were either silent or sarcastically noisy. Down the street was an old-fashioned house with a big porch where a happy family lived. My friend told me that when he was about ten, he began excusing himself from his dinner table as soon as he could without being yelled at, and walking to the old-fashioned house down the street. If he arrived during dinnertime, he would crawl under the porch and just sit there, listening to the sounds of laughter.
When he told me this story, I asked him to imagine what it would have been like if the father in the house somehow knew he was huddled beneath the porch and sent his son to invite him in. I asked him to envision what it would have meant to him to accept the invitation, to sit at the table, to accidentally spill his glass of water, and hear the father roar with delight, ‘Get him more water! And a dry shirt! I want him to enjoy the meal!’”
Crabb goes on to say, "We need to hear the Father laugh.” And then this great line, “Change depends on experiencing the character of God."13 When we meet God’s love, we are changed. What Crabb was doing in that counseling conversation was based on what Jesus does in verses 9 through 11, which is to clarify the character of God against the distortions of earthly parents. God is not like a cruel Father; God is like a good father and more!
There is no more important issue than the character of God. Is the God of whom we speak approachable? Is God generous and kind and just and wise and forgiving? Will God listen as I fumble and mumble my way through an awkward prayer? The most basic and radical Christian affirmation is that God the Father is like Jesus the Son, or in simpler terms, that Jesus is the spittin’ image of his Father. Jesus comes to represent the interests of his Father on the earth, and that he does by the power of the Holy Spirit. It’s an inescapably Trinitarian thing. Want to know how God feels about things? Then look at Jesus.
The form of Jesus’ argumentation in verses 9 through 11 is worth following. He reasons from below to above and from the lesser to the greater using analogies from family life. What this means at a minimum is that Jesus believed glimpses of God were hidden in human experience, and that if he highlighted them it would be a bridge to accurate thinking about God, in this case the care of a father for the needs of his child.
“Or what man of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone?” A round loaf and a rounded stone look alike; the one will fill your belly and the other break your teeth. Tricking a hungry child is cruelty, and this is not what God does. God is not a cosmic sadist. The one who created us needing food delights to meet the need. No parent should mock the trust of a child, and God does not mock the needs of those who ask.
The second image of the fish and the serpent works on the same principle of two different things that look alike. There is an eel in the Sea of Galilee that resembles a species of fish, but the fish is ritually pure for Jews to eat, while the eel is not. What Jewish father would cause his child to violate one of the kosher food laws? Only a cruel one who treated his child as a pagan, and that is not who the heavenly Father is. God the Father answers prayers in ways that keep his people loyal. Only a monster would do otherwise, and God is not such. In the kindness and wisdom of a strong earthly father, we catch glimpses of God’s character. Same in the tenderness and fierce protection of an earthly mother. Both are windows into God. We may be adults before others, but before God we are always children.
Not all children have such parents. In Ramsey County, Minnesota, ninth and tenth graders were asked a question: "What comes to mind when you think of the word dad? Answers came quickly. One end of the spectrum said, "I think of the word jerk.” Others thought of the words angry, mad, and absent. On the other hand, some said, "I think of wholeness, kindness, security, safety."14 Whatever end of the spectrum, Dad is an immensely powerful word. The goal of Christian fathers and mothers is to make it as easy as possible for children to trust their heavenly Father and see the continuities of character. Parents either build or burn the bridges over which their children walk towards God. At times I say to some broken person, “If I was your Father, this is what I would say to you.”
It was then in verse 11 that Jesus made an extraordinary statement about human nature. This is what he thinks of us, “If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children...” To his closest followers, many if not most of whom were parents, Jesus voiced the unpleasant truth about who they were. Compared to him, they were evil. Compared to him, they were morally dirty. It was spoken with the same clinical accuracy as an oncologist who looks at the scans and says to a patient, “You have cancer.” As a group he referred to them as you who are evil. He said it because the loved them and because they needed to hear the truth; he wanted there to be no naivete about their dark capacities. He was in a different category than they were. We never see in Jesus or hear from his lips any consciousness of personal sin. He speaks of the sin and evil of others, but never of himself, and the church’s reasoning for that remarkable phenomena is that he alone was without sin. Evil had no attachment place in him. He was one of us and yet pure of heart. Else how could his death deal with our sin? He shares our mortal and frail humanity but not our systemic disease of rebellion against God and partnership with the Evil One. We can be infested and colonized by evil desires, even by demons, but not Jesus. He was not infected with our disease; he spoke of you who are evil, not we who are evil.
Jesus never violated the will of God. To be near him was to be in the presence of one who was perfect in love and in harmony with the Father. We, however, are conflicted. We choose good one moment, evil the next. We are proud of ourselves, then ashamed by our actions. We are fickle and unreliable. We are at war deep within, and were our secret dreams and private thoughts to be revealed, we would all be embarrassed. Pastor Phil is capable of great moral and spiritual evil. Evil crosses my imagination and makes its appeal every day. The seven deadly sins of lust and greed and sloth and envy and pride and gluttony and envy are weeds that grow in my garden, and if I ever quit pulling them up through the grace of repentance, they would take over. Left unattended, human life goes to seed.
But, on the other hand, none of us are wholly given to evil, which is why we remain capable of genuine but partial good. Evil has its limits; it can deface but not obliterate the image of God pressed into us all. What Jesus said was not a contradiction. We who are fatally compromised, and even in some sense colonized by evil, are still able, through the goodness of creation and the restraint of God’s grace, to give good gifts to our children and carry out deeds of kindness and self-sacrifice. The issue is that we are all fatally compromised, and none of us can fix ourselves. Parents naturally love their children; there is something wrong with those who treat their own with cruelty. It’s why child abuse and incest strike such a cord of revulsion within us all. We recognize it as a form of evil.
Jesus’ point in positing both evil and good in close succession is to make clear that we are each a mixed bag, but that God is not like us in this regard. God is not a mixed bag. “God is light,” claimed John, “and in God is no darkness at all.”15 All that is good in your life is from God. Our children may find us receptive one day and peevish the next, but not the great God in heaven who only gives good things to those who ask him. The reason some of your prayers meet with a No or a Later or an It All Depends is because it is against the nature of God the Father to grant what is not good. It is in continuing to ask and seek and knock and pursue God’s wisdom that our desires are changed into requests God can honor. To pray in Jesus name is not to stick a postage stamp on our prayers but to, as best we can, pray for what is on the heart of Jesus and come into tune with his desires.
It’s OK to be excited about the gifts of God, particularly the gifts of the Holy Spirit. They give life and are meant to be shared. I love the story of the little girl named Melissa who received a watch and perfume for her birthday. She was so excited she pestered everyone all day to look at her watch and smell her cologne. At dinner her mother said, "Honey, I know you're proud of your gifts, but please don't mention them while we eat."
All through dinner Melissa sat silently although she sniffed audibly at times and often raised her wrist to listen to her watch. As the meal came to an end, she blurted out, "I'm not supposed to mention it, but if anyone hears anything or smells anything, it's me."16
It is a sign of health in a church when the gifts God gives bring joy instead of envy. Though I may not yet be healed, I am joyful that someone else is. Though my marriage may not be healthy, I am happy for others who enjoy what I hope for. My guess is that it is easier for God to bless those who are pursuing him than those who are enchanted with other matters. Empty hands and raised hands are easy to fill. We are beggars in that we are needy; we are also children with a generous heavenly Father. And in verse 12 we find that we are commissioned ambassadors of the kingdom of God.
a’) v.12 The Golden Rule.
It has only been known as The Golden Rule since the eighteenth century, and it is perhaps the best known of all Jesus’ sayings, “So whatever you wish that men would do to you, do so to them; for this is the law and the prophets.”17 There is another form of this saying found in Jewish and pagan sources, only in the negative form of “what you do not wish others to do to you, do not to them.”18
That is a wise defense against evil, but Jesus was after more than that. Not that we would just not do harm but that we would actively do good at all times with the resources God supplies. We are to be the holy and happy agents of the kingdom of God our Father, the kingdom demonstrated in Jesus and available now through the Holy Spirit. What we get from God, wisdom and provision through prayer, we gladly share. And we can afford to be generous because there is always more in the supply cabinet. In this sense only the generous can be said to believe in God. The asking and the seeking and the knocking and the wisdom that comes and the Father who gives such good gifts are not just for our benefit; it’s so we can give it away and become channels for God’s love to enter every corner of this broken creation. To give you must first receive, but to keep receiving you must start giving. Verses 7 through 11 are all about inflow; verse 12 is about outflow. From God to me, then through me to others, then back to God for more. Wisdom and all manner of good gifts. All inflow you blow up; all outflow you dry up; and when there is inflow and outflow you grow up.
Have you seen the South Carolina based movie Radio? It’s a true story based on a developmentally challenged young man named James Robert Kennedy (played by Cuba Gooding Jr.). He was nicknamed Radio by a high school football coach (played by Ed Harris) who befriended him. Coach Jones made Radio part of the practices and a regular fixture on the sidelines during games. Some were uncomfortable having Radio around, despite the fact that he showed kindness to everyone. When treated cruelly, he refused to identify the guilty ones. After receiving a generous outpouring of Christmas gifts, Radio shared with his neighbors. Some members of the community called a meeting to decide what to do with Radio. Coach Jones addressed the gathering. Here’s what he said:
“We got ourselves a young man we're not thinkin' about. The same young man who could hardly talk when we first met him; now he's making announcements in the mornings on the loudspeaker. The same young man who got himself a football letter last fall, but never wears it cause he can't afford a jacket. Now, we're askin' him to leave. I know some of you don't know or don't care all that Radio's learned over the past few months. But truth is, we're not the one's teachin' Radio; Radio's the one been teachin' us. Cause the way he treats us all the time is the way we wish we treated each other even part of the time.”19
Love and mercy and kindness and service are always in style. They come from God. Know anyone like that here at Duncan? I know several. I may preach, but they are our teachers, because in them verse 12 is lived out, “So whatever you wish men would do to you, do so to them (first); for that is the heart of the law and the prophets.”
It’s what God’s after, and it’s who we become when we spend long enough asking for the right stuff and seeking the right person and knock, knock, knockin’ on heaven’s door. We are changed into the kind of people who live out the Golden Rule and want the good things of God for everyone we meet. What is a saint? Just an ordinary person who has learned to see through the eyes of love. Because they live on the generosity and mercy of God, they are quick to meet the needs of others.
CONCLUSION
I have no idea who wrote the catalog I am about to read to you. Whoever it was, this much is clear: they mediated long and hard on what helps and what does not. A man once fell into a pit and couldn't get himself out.
“A SUBJECTIVE person came along and said: "I FEEL for you, down there."
An OBJECTIVE person came along and said: "It's logical that someone would fall, down there."
A CHRISTIAN SCIENTIST came along: "You only THINK that you are in a pit."
A PHARISEE said: "Only BAD people fall into pits."
A MATHEMATICIAN calculated HOW he fell into the pit.
A NEWS REPORTER wanted the exclusive story on his pit.
A FUNDAMENTALIST said: "You DESERVE your pit."
CONFUCIUS said; "If you would have listened to me, you would not be in that pit." BUDDHA said: "Your pit is only a state of mind."
A REALIST said: "That's a PIT, all right."
A SCIENTIST calculated the pressure necessary (lbs./sq.in.) to get him out of the pit.
A GEOLOGIST told him to appreciate the rock strata in the pit.
AN EVOLUTIONIST said: "You are a rejected mutant destined to be removed from the evolutionary cycle." In other words, he is going to DIE in the pit, so that he cannot produce any pit-falling offspring.
The COUNTY INSPECTOR asked if he had a permit to dig a pit.
The COUNTY TAX ASSESSOR came along and figured the taxes owed on the pit.
A PROFESSOR gave him a lecture on: "The Elementary Principles of the Pit."
An EVASIVE person came along and avoided the subject of his pit altogether.
A SELF-PITYING person said: "You haven't seen anything until you've seen MY PIT!!"
A HEALTH AND WEALTH PREACHER said: "Just CONFESS that you're not in a pit."
An OPTIMIST said: "Things COULD be worse."
A PESSIMIST said: "Things WILL get worse!!"
JESUS, seeing the man, took him by the hand and LIFTED HIM OUT of the pit.”
That’s our job. To become the kind of people who, with God’s resources, fulfill the Golden Rule and give daily demonstrations of what he kingdom of God looks like when it touches earth. Whatever your job, this is your purpose in life. Everything else is a distraction.
1. Edited from Brennan Manning, Lion and Lamb: The Relentless Tenderness of Jesus (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1986), 165.
2. Leadership, Vol. 12, no. 3.
3. James Hewett, Illustrations Unlimited (Wheaton, ILL: Tyndale, 1988), 433.
4. Thomas Merton, The Wisdom of the Desert: Sayings from the Desert Fathers of the Fourth Century (Norfolk, CT: New Directions Books, 1960), 50.
5. PreachingToday.com search under Mt. 7:7-12.
6. James 4:2b.
7. Idem.
8. Idem.
9. Idem.
10. M. Eugene Boring, The Gospel of Matthew, Vol. VIII: The New Interpreter’s Bible (Nashville, TN: Abington), 212-213.
11. Charles Talbert, Reading the Sermon on the Mount (Columbia, SC: USC Press, 2004), 134-135.
12. James 1:5-7.
13. Waco, TX: Word, 1997.
14. Roger Thompson, "Becoming a Man," Preaching Today, Tape No. 140.
15. 1 John 1:5.
16. PreachingToday.com search under Mt. 7:6-12.
17. For an application to business ethics, see John C. Maxwell, There’s No Such Thing as ‘Business Ethics,’ (Warner Business Books, 2003).
18. Talbert, Reading the Sermon on the Mount, 134-135.
19. Idem.