Ask, Seek, Knock
We came out of a difficult passage last week. Jesus cut straight to our heart. That’s what the Word of God does, by the way. Hebrews 4:12 says, “For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.” Sometimes it’s meant to hurt us, but in the good kind of way. To make us more holy—not to condemn—but to lead us to repentance. And so transitioning from last week’s text to this week’s text seems abrupt, at first, when considering that this is a continual sermon for Jesus, because Jesus now goes straight from talking about judging to talking about prayer and the goodness of God. But that’s the whole point we’ll continue to see—that we must continue to see. We aren’t good. Or we aren’t near as good as we think. Or this—God is infinitely more good than we can think or imagine. That’s what I pray you see today.
Persistent prayer is the mark of faith in a good Father. (7)
Jesus says in verse 7, “Ask, and it will be given to you. Seek, and you will find. Knock, and it will be opened to you.” The sentence is simple, yet the grammar carries a lot of weight. Each verb is present imperative active,[1] which means Jesus is commanding an ongoing, continual posture, not a one-time prayer. Keep asking. Keep seeking. Keep knocking. Persistence in prayer should accompany someone who truly trusts that God is good.
There’s also a deliberate progression here in the text. The movement from ask to seek to knock has an “ascending intensity” (Hughes, 234). Think about it: asking is what a child does in the presence of a loving parent. My youngest daughter has a habit right now—a super annoying habit. If she want something from you, she will say your name over and over a million times until you finally acknowledge her and give her what she wants. “Momma. Momma. Momma. Momma. Momma.” We have started saying her name back to her in the same way, and she gets so mad! But that’s what Jesus is saying we should pray like! We should pray with persistence. And guess what? It doesn’t annoy God! Because He is a good Father—much MUCH better than I am to my precious little daughter.
Now think about seeking. Seeking is more than just asking. It involves action. It is what someone does when they desire something precious but don’t yet have it. They’re searching for it diligently until they attain it. And knocking includes asking plus action plus persevering. “Let me in! Let me in! Let me in!” And then you enter. Jesus is describing a deepening movement from request to pursuit to entrance. Prayer starts with the lips. It moves to the feet. It ends at fellowship.
Then notice the divine passives that follow these imperatives. “It will be given.” “You will find.” “It will be opened.” Think about this. This is absolutely beautiful and astonishing. Jesus is teaching that there is action on heaven’s side. When you pray, there is always action on heaven’s side.
Prayer is an expression of trust in God’s character, not manipulation of His will. (8)
Jesus continues in verse 8, “For everyone who asks receives. And the one who seeks finds. And to the one who knocks it will be opened.” The little word “for” explains why we should persist. There is a reality under the command. God truly answers prayer. Three statements follow that match the three imperatives. Ask and receive. Seek and find. Knock and enter.
Look carefully at the scope of the promise. “Everyone who asks receives.” Who is everyone? Is everyone everyone? No, it’s not everyone. Jesus has been speaking specifically to disciples who call God Father. The promise belongs to those who are seeking first His kingdom and His righteousness and are asking according to His will. This keeps this text—and prayer—from being twisted into a blank check for selfish desire. The child here is a son or daughter who comes wanting what the Father wants.
I want you to notice something else here too. Jesus doesn’t say that everyone who asks receives the exact thing they ask for. He simply promises that asking is met by receiving. What Jesus says leaves room for the Father’s wisdom in what He gives. Bread and fish are coming in the next verse as illustrations of this. The point is that the Father gives what is good, not necessarily what is asked for. Verse 8 promises that the outcome of real prayer is real provision, yet the form of that provision belongs to the Father who knows all things and who is all-good.
We can live this out. You are a parent praying for your child? Keep asking, and trust that the Father gives what is good even when the timeline makes no sense. You are a student unsure of your path? Keep seeking, and trust that the Father gives wisdom as you obey what you already know. You are carrying grief that doesn’t lift? Keep knocking, and trust that the Father opens the door to comfort and His presence even when circumstances don’t change. The promise isn’t that you will always receive the thing you specifically prayed for. The promise is that you will never be turned away by the Father who loves you.
There is another thing to notice here in the text. In verse 8 the three results are statements of fact. They aren’t wishes. They aren’t chances or probabilities. Jesus is forming certainty in His disciples. The certainty rests in who the Father is. The Father is near. The Father knows. The Father gives what is good. So we ask and keep asking. We seek and keep seeking. We knock and keep knocking. Because we know who God is.
God’s answers reveal His wisdom, not our wishes. (9–10)
Jesus says in verses 9–10, “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?”
This question is almost humorous in its exaggeration. Jesus invites His listeners to imagine a father handing his hungry child a rock instead of bread or a snake instead of fish. Everyone in the crowd would have laughed at the absurdity. The exaggeration is the point. Jesus uses humor to draw a contrast so obvious they can’t miss it. Bread and fish were the staples of the Galilean diet (Keener 63). Stones along the Sea of Galilee were round and smooth, resembling loaves of bread. Certain eels and catfish common in the lake looked similar to snakes (France 281). Jesus is using imagery from their everyday lives that they would understand.
The phrase “which one of you” shows that Jesus expects self-examination. He turns the listener into the subject of the story. Would you ever treat your own child that way? Then why suspect God would treat His children worse? Jesus is confronting the heart of unbelief. When you doubt the Father’s goodness, you are suggesting that your compassion exceeds His. When you doubt the way God answers certain prayers or you say He didn’t answer your prayers, you are suggesting you are more wise than the omniscient God.
This is a key moment in the exegesis of the passage. The verbs of verse 7 promised that asking, seeking, and knocking would be met with a response. Verses 9 and 10 explain the nature of that response. God’s giving is always governed by His wisdom. God is not a vending machine, remember? He is a Father who loves wisely. His timing is perfect. His ways are perfect. His nature is perfect. His wisdom is perfect.
We have been living this out with our present adoption, and it has been difficult. But we have been seeking the Lord. It has been a year and a half, but we have been persisting in prayer and fasting. Our kids pray every day for a baby brother. And just recently we have seen God answer very specific prayers in very miraculous ways, ways that cannot be contributed to coincidence but only divine providence. But persisting in prayer requires much waiting and trust, and it is difficult.
In practice, living this out requires patience. When you have prayed for something and the answer seems slow or different from what you hoped, we need to remember this verse. God may not give the thing you requested, but He will give something that accords with His wisdom and love. Every child of God will one day see that nothing good was withheld, and nothing withheld was truly good for them. Faith, then, does not mean forcing your way into God’s plan. It means trusting that His hand is always open, though sometimes the gift looks different from what you imagined.
God’s fatherly goodness exceeds all human goodness. (11)
Jesus says in verse 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.”
This verse is the climax of Jesus’ teaching on prayer. Everything in verses 7 through 10 builds to this point. The entire passage rests on the contrast between earthly parents and the heavenly Father. The phrase “how much more” is a key pattern in Jesus’ teaching. It’s called an a fortiori argument, which means "from the stronger reason" (Carson 111; Hughes 237). It concludes that if a claim is true for a lesser reason, it is more certainly true for the greater reason.
Jesus begins with a statement that may sound harsh at first. “If you then, who are evil.” He isn’t singling out certain people as unusually wicked. He’s describing the true state of all humanity. The word “evil” here captures the reality of human fallenness. Even the very best among us carries a sinful nature. Romans 3:23 tells us, “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” We are capable of affection, but our motives are mixed. We love our children, yet even our love is stained by selfishness and sin.
The people listening to Jesus would have felt the tension. They knew what it meant to love their families. They also knew their failures. They could picture moments when impatience or pride or distraction had distorted their love. Jesus acknowledges both truths at once. Human parents, though fallen, still know how to do good to their children. I received a text from my daughter’s teacher this week that said, “You are both such wonderful parents!!” It’s because I brought sunglasses to school that she forgot for a dress up day. I was happy to do that. What her teacher didn’t see was my aggravation that morning (and almost every morning…) in getting the kids out of the house and the frustration I had with them when they kept forgetting things and almost making us late. I am sinfully impatient and far too quick to anger. Yet I will gladly bring my daughter her sunglasses for dress up day when she forgets them in my car. I won’t give her a rock to eat. I won’t give her a snake. I hate snakes.
Sinful parents feed their kids, clothe them, and protect them. They delight to give good things. If that is true of flawed parents, it must be infinitely true of the perfect Father. This is the argument from the lesser to the greater. If the lesser case is true, the greater must be even far truer.
When Jesus says the Father will give “good things” to those who ask, He doesn’t mean material indulgence—whatever you ask. He isn’t promising a comfortable life. The word “good” is defined by God—His character—not by our cravings. Good things are whatever draws us closer to God and furthers His kingdom and glory.
Luke’s Gospel helps us see this a little more clearly here. Luke records Jesus saying, “How much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him” (Luke 11:13). That tells us what the ultimate good gift is. It isn’t bread or fish or wealth or success. The ultimate good gift God gives us is God Himself. The Father’s greatest gift is His Spirit dwelling within His children. Every other good thing flows from that gift.
How do we obtain that goodness? Romans 8:32 shows us beautifully the same truth of God’s goodness and generosity toward us: “He who did not spare His own Son but gave Him up for us all, how will He not also with Him graciously give us all things.” Every time you doubt whether God will answer, look at the cross. The cross is the proof that God is good.
The gospel is the ultimate proof of the Father’s goodness. The same God who invites us to ask, seek, and knock has already given the greatest gift imaginable—His own Son. To you. For you.
In Christ, every command in this passage finds its fulfillment. We ask, and we receive the grace of salvation. We seek, and we find the truth that sets us free. We knock, and the door of eternal life opens wide. The Father does not give stones or serpents. He gives the Bread of Life and the Lamb who takes away the sin of the world.
So if you are here and you have never trusted in Christ, this is where your asking must begin. Ask Him to forgive your sin. Seek Him while He may be found. Knock, and He will open the door to life that never ends. He has already given the greatest gift. All that remains is for you to receive it.
And for those who belong to Him already, this passage is an invitation to return to prayer with childlike faith. Pray boldly because your Father delights to hear you. Pray expectantly because He always gives what is good. Pray dependently because you cannot live a single day without His grace.
