Sermon on the Mount
“WWYD and the Image of God”
WWYD & Your Image of God
[Read Matt 7:7-11]
The call and response goes like this:
Leader: “God is good!”
Congregation: “All the time!”
Leader: “All the time!”
Congregation: “God is good!”
Really?
This passage of scripture falls into three parts.
First there is the encouragement to pray.
That is verse 7.
“Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you.”
Some suggest that there is a movement of intensity from asking, to seeking, to knocking.
Maybe.
But in any case, the sum total is to be persistent in prayer.
Ask and keep asking.
Seek and keep seeking.
Knock and keep knocking.
The second part is the encouragement that God will answer.
That is in verse 8.
“For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened.”
Here Jesus affirms, if not promises, that as a result of persistent prayer there will be reward.
God will answer your prayers.
The third part of the passage is interesting.
In fact, initially, it seems a bit unnecessary.
It is verses 9-11.
Is there anyone among you who, if your child asks for bread, will give a stone? Or if the child asks for a fish, will give a snake? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good things to those who ask him!
After encouraging us to pray, and encouraging us that God will answer – Jesus changes the popular question WWJD? (What Would Jesus Do?).
He asks WWYD? (What Would You Do?).
If a child asked you for bread or fish – what would you do?
Even with your imperfections and tendency towards sin?
WWYD?
You’d do the good and right thing.
So Jesus – goes on to say – based on that “How much more will your Father in Heaven give good things to those who ask Him!”
Ok.
Still seems a bit unnecessary.
Why does He need to convince us that God is good?
Why does He need to follow on from encouraging us to pray and promising that those prayers will be answered – with encouragement that God is good?
Because by the time you’ve said your prayers, and experienced the answer – you’ll probably have reason to doubt it.
The prayers you pray and the answers you do or do not receive will begin to create your image of God.
You may well begin to create an image of God that amounts to one which – in your view or experience – says “God is not good.”
You might not say it in as many words.
In fact – you might suppress it; deny it; even rebuke the thought.
But it will sit there. In your heart. You will feel it. You will fear it. Overtime – you will believe it.
By this point in the sermon on the Mount – you’d hope to have learnt something.
You would have considered the Beatitudes and how God works wonderfully in the lives of the poor in spirit; those who mourn; those who are anxious about justice; those who hanker for peace; those who are persecuted.
You would have taken in His purpose for your life and how you are considered light and salt in the world.
You would have seen how He wants relationships to be marked by love and so that common human issues like anger, lust, violence, injustice are all transformed by His grace.
We have experienced the prayer Jesus taught that calls upon our Father in Heaven to rescue us just like He did with the Israelites when they were slaves.
He has alerted us to two Masters in life – God and Mammon.
All of this has begun to create an image of God not before experienced. Not least of which is because the very One teaching us these things is Immanuel.
A new and exciting way of life and image of God is forming.
And unbelievably – but all too commonly – it can all be destroyed by prayer!!
By people praying faithfully and with hope – as Jesus taught them to – only to experience the confusion and pain of answers that weren’t asked for or answers that never come.
And if they had been “God for a day” they would have known what to do.
They would have granted the prayer!
Why then does God do what He does?!
And so Jesus asks WWYD? We give our answer and He says:
“How much more will your Father in Heaven give good gifts.”
In keeping with the three parts of the passage before us, the three movements, our pray erand belief in God can be affected the same way.
We pray – asking, searching, knocking.
We expect an answer – receiving, finding, opening.
We form an image of God – is it good?
Three parts then.
Three movements.
Prayer, answer, image.
I wonder what prayers you have prayed; what answers you have received; what image of God you have as a result?
Let’s consider some stories that follow this pattern.
Prayer.
Answer.
Image.
(Gen 18)
Sarah and Abraham are very old.
About 100.
They had asked, searched, knocked and tried pretty much everything else to have children.
But nothing.
One day God turned up. Literally. And He answered.
Within a year, their prayers would be answered. They would have a son.
Sarah had been waiting too long for an answer. Far too long. An image had formed.
She heard God’s answer.
Sarah laughed.
(Gen 32)
Years before Jacob had cheated his brother out of his inheritance. And now he was returning home and possibly to his death at the hands of Esau his brother.
On the night before he would meet his brother, Jacob was alone and a Man came and fought with him.
All night.
(In the Old Testament the distinction between heaven and earth can be blurred).
Jacob wrestled and would not let go of the Man. I suppose he was asking, searching, knocking.
The Man said “Let me go; daylight is coming.” But Jacob said he wouldn’t unless the Man blessed him.
So the Man said “You have struggled with God and with men and have won. Your name will called Israel.”
And Jacob’s image of God changed. He named the place “Peniel” which means “Face of God.”
Because Jacob had seen the face of God and lived.
(Job 42:1-6)
One of the oldest books in the Bible is Job.
That in itself is interesting.
It could be said that one of the first things God recorded for humanity was the struggle of faith and wrestling to understand Him.
Job was a righteous man. A man of integrity and faith.
One day satan came into God’s presence and essentially taunted and mocked God and Job’s relationship with Him.
As satan does – he cast doubts and dispersions on the nature of the relationship and called into question the quality of Job’s love for God.
The accusation was that Job only served God because God blessed him so much.
So satan was given permission to afflict Job. To test him.
He loses his family, possessions and health.
He asked, searched and knocked.
And the answer came. Eventually.
God didn’t directly address Job’s questions. Or rather – He didn’t answer his key question – “Why?”
God just talked about His divine power at work in creation.
That was the answer to the prayer.
And Job’s image of God changed dramatically.
He said “" Job answered God: “I’m convinced: You can do anything and everything. Nothing and no one can upset your plans. You asked, ‘Who is this muddying the water, ignorantly confusing the issue, second-guessing my purposes?’ I admit it. I was the one. I babbled on about things far beyond me, made small talk about wonders way over my head. You told me, ‘Listen, and let me do the talking. Let me ask the questions. You give the answers.’ I admit I once lived by rumors of you; now I have it all firsthand—from my own eyes and ears! I’m sorry—forgive me. I’ll never do that again, I promise! I’ll never again live on crusts of hearsay, crumbs of rumor.”" (Job 42:1-6, The Message)
(Mark 5)
A woman tormented and humiliated for 12 years by haemorrhaging hoped and hoped.
She spent all she had on medical care – but just became worst. Not better.
One day a large crowd pressing in on Jesus was going past.
She asked, searched and knocked in the only way she could.
Very quietly and very tentatively. Because she was very afraid.
“If I only touch the hem of His cloak I will be healed.”
She managed to. And she was immediately healed.
She had her answer.
But Jesus stopped and demanded to know who had touched Him.
She had prayed; she had an answer – and she was still afraid.
But she knew it was no use – so she approached Him.
And her image formed.
“Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease.”" (Mark 5:34, NRSV)
Yet at the very same time, there was a religious leader. Jairus. His 12 year old daughter was dying and Jesus had been going there to heal her.
Jairus had “prayed.” He had begged at Jesu’s feet in fact. A man of stature distraught and begging on the ground.
He had his answer. Jesus would come.
But the woman delayed Jesus and as He was still dealing with her, people came from Jairus’ house to tell him it was too late.
Prayer, answer, image.
The story doesn’t finish there – check it out in Mark 5.
(John 11)
One of Jesus’ best friends, Lazarus was sick. When Jesus heard about it He waited and Lazarus died.
When Jesus arrived and was near the home, Martha (Lazarus’ sister) went to meet Him and said, “If You had been here, he wouldn’t have died.”
They had been asking, searching and knocking.
The answer came too late.
Jesus said “I am the Resurrection and the Life.”
He also said Lazarus would rise again and whether Martha believed Jesus’ claims about Himself.
Basically – whether she believed the answer.
She said she did. She said she believed her brother would rise at the end of the age and that’s where she kind of placed Jesus too.
Such was her image.
Mary – Lazarus’ other sister – then came along. She too told Jesus that if He had been there her brother wouldn’t have died.
Jesus saw how distressed she was, along with all the others.
He asked where the tomb was.
No-one really seemed aware of the “answer” to their prayers.
Jesus wept.
I wonder if it was because of the image people who loved Him had of Him.
I had not been a Christian for a year. I had moved from Nelson, to Wellington and was now in Auckland.
I was 18.
Becoming a Christian had resulted in deep changes in my life. One of the changes was with my father in Nelson whom I had barely talked to in two years.
That changed when I became a Christian. I had written to him and begun a process of healing as much as that was possible.
My father didn’t really understand my new found faith in Christ.
On this particular day – I decided I needed to phone him. Both him and a dear friend whom I missed.
My friend was in Wellington and she had been very influential in the immediate aftermath of me making a Christian commitment.
While not a Christian herself – she was utterly supportive of my decision and encouraged me in the changes that she could see in my life.
So I decided I needed to phone her and my father.
I checked how much money I had. $11.40.
I prayed. I was very nervous about phoning my father.
I made the phone calls (“price required” meaning Telecom would phone back saying how much they had cost once completed).
The answer to the prayer…
The call with my friend was encouraging and she talked too long for my budget!
The call to my father went especially well. The triggers for tension and upset were still there – but my reactions weren’t! God truly had enabled and blessed me to connect with him.
Then Telecom called back. Did I have enough money to pay for these toll-calls to Wellington and Nelson?
One call cost $7.07.
The other $4.33.
Total $11.40.
My image of God that day went deep. His goodness is overwhelming.
The French author and Nobel Literature Prize winner Francois Mauriac (considered the greatest Catholic writer of the 20th Century and who died in 1970) would often have foreign journalists come and interview him.
He was wary of them – he writes.
But in the foreword of the book called “Night” – he writes about the day Elie Wiesel visited him. (The man who in turn would win a Nobel Peace Prize and who is considered as the one, through his, writings defined “Holocaust.”)
He spoke to Wiesel of the impact on his wife and himself of the scene of Jewish children being transported in cattle railcars to concentration camps from France in WWII.
Mauriac said he sighed “I have thought of these children so many times!”
Wiesel said to Mauriac “I was one of them.”
And Wiesel told this story.
One day in the camp – three gallows had been set up.
Two men and one boy were to be hanged. The camp population was forced to watch.
As the execution began – someone behind Wiesel kept saying “Where is merciful God, where is He?”
With total silence in the camp, the three chairs were tipped over. The two men died quickly.
But not the boy who had the face of a sad angel.
He was too light and so remained breathing and struggling for 30 minutes.
Behind Wiesel, the same man kept asking “For God’s sake, where is God?”
That was the prayer.
Wiesel said that from within him he heard a voice answer.
“Where is He? This is where – hanging here from this gallows…”
And when his fellow-inmates gathered to mark the last day of the year – and pray to the God of Creation and affirm His greatness – Wiesel discovered that in the light of the prayers prayed and the answers given he had a new image of God.
He said:
“But now, I no longer pleaded for anything. I was no longer able to lament. On the contrary, I felt very strong. I was the accuser, God the accused. My eyes had opened and I was alone, terribly alone in a world without God, without man. Without love or mercy. I was nothing but ashes now, but I felt myself to be stronger than this Almighty to whom my life had been bound for so long. In the midst of these men assembled for prayer, I felt like an observer, a stranger.” Elie Wiesel, Night (New York: Hill and Wang, 2006), 68.
Prayer, answer, image.
When Mauriac heard this story from Wiesel – of the prayer “Where is God?”;
…of the answer “Where is He? This is where – hanging from this gallows…”;
…the image he saw of God was different.
He writes of that moment (in the foreword of Wiesel’s book Night):
“And I, who believe God is love, what answer was there to give…? What did I say to him? Did I speak to him of that other Jew, this crucified brother who perhaps resembled him and whose cross conquered the world? Did I explain to him that what had been a stumbling block for his faith had become a cornerstone for mine? And that the connection between the cross and human suffering remains, in my view, the key to the unfathomable mystery in which the faith of his childhood was lost?
All is grace. If the Almighty is the Almighty, the last word for each of us belongs to Him. That is what I should have said to the Jewish child. But all I could do was embrace him and weep.” ibid. xxi
Prayer, answer, image.
(2 Cor 12:1-10)
The apostle Paul once prayed.
Actually – he prayed a prayer three times.
He asked, searched and knocked.
A messenger of satan tormented him. It was a thorn in the flesh and Paul pleaded with God to remove it.
The answer?
No.
2 Corinthians 12:9
“My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.”
Prayer, answer, image.
The image?
A God of grace!
(Matt 26:36-46)
Jesus asked, searched, knocked.
It was in a garden.
And three times He asked His Father if there was any way that He might be spared the suffering before Him.
According to Luke - He prayed until the sweat dropped like blood on the ground.
While an angel appeared to strength Him – the answer was no.
There was no other way.
And the image of God as a result?
That God was to be trusted. He would later cry out from the Cross “Father into Your hands I commend my spirit” (Luke 23:46).
Prayer, answers, image of God.
To consider the nature of your faith in God – you might find the centre of gravity of your faith; the key to discovering that – is not to be found so much in the prayers you pray, or the answers that you do and do not receive – but in the image of God you hold onto.
Whether your image of God is that He is good.
Truly.
Faith here in Matt 7 is expressed not in the prayers prayed – but the belief that God is good regardless.
Presented By: Rev. Geoff New