Best Dad Ever Matthew 7:7-11 (Part 2) Baxter T. Exum (#1788) Four Lakes Church of Christ Madison, Wisconsin June 15, 2025 Good morning and welcome to the Four Lakes congregation! It is good to be together for worship this morning! And if you are visiting with us today (either here in person or online or on the phone), you are our honored guest, and we’d like to ask that you fill out a visitor card – either online or on a card from the pew in front of you. And we also invite you to pass along any questions or prayer concerns in this way as well. We are here this morning to share the good news that “...God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us†(according to Romans 5:8). Not only did Jesus die, but he was also buried, and he was raised up on the third day. We obey this good news by turning to God in faith, by turning away from sin, by publicly confessing our faith that Jesus is the Christ, and by obeying the Lord’s command to be buried with him in baptism. At this point, we are born into God’s family, and the Christian life begins. As usual and as our encouragement to you, we are sharing several examples of what this looks like. We have a few more than usual, because we have some interesting stories this week. And I hope we’ll listen carefully to how these people first found out about the Lord and his church, because what works elsewhere will work here if we decide to look at people as eternal souls. But we are starting today with an update from the Westside congregation down in Elgin, Illinois. This church is practically down the street from where I grew up, we would often go to special meetings down there, I have officiated a wedding in their building, a good friend now preaches there, and this update is from him, from Paul Delgado (I baptized his mother-in-law more than 30 years ago). Paul posted a few days ago and says, “Praise God! In September, we had the joy of baptizing a dear sister in Christ, Juanita. Since then, she’s been faithfully sharing the gospel with her family—and today, we witnessed the fruit of that faithfulness. Her nephew, George, had been learning about Jesus and, with a heart full of conviction, after studying, asked to be baptized immediately this afternoon. Hearts are being changed, and the Kingdom is growing. Let’s celebrate with George and continue to pray for his new life in Christ!†Paul then quotes Matthew 28:19, where Jesus says, “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.†We continue with another update from the Lord’s church down in Buford, Georgia. They start by quoting 2 Corinthians 5:21, where Paul says, “For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.†They continue by saying that, “The righteousness of God can now be seen in our newest brother in Christ, RJ! Sunday he obeyed the Gospel of Jesus Christ when he came up from those waters of baptism. The Lord Almighty has washed all of his sins away! Join us in celebrating God’s plan for salvation and thanking Him for His willingness to add us into the Kingdom of Christ! Blessed be the name of the Lord!†Amen to that! This next one comes to us from Colleyville, Texas. They say, Today, the Colleyville congregation rejoices with our new sister in Christ— Kaitlyn Briganti— as she committed herself to Christ in baptism for the forgiveness of her sins and to be added to the Lord’s body, His church. Her decision has been long in the making—with many members playing a role in bringing her to Christ. Originally, she attended our worship with Stan and Deb Sears, because she knew they lived a different kind of life. After a few weeks of getting to know her as a congregation, she had many questions about the Lord’s church— and Christianity in general. So, John and Rachel Garza set up a time for her to come over, enjoy a meal, and study the Bible. Since the first study, we knew that it would be a process, because she had no background in Word of God—nor religion. As we studied the Back to the Bible booklets, she asked many questions—honest and sincere—that were relative to the study. So, it took a couple of months to cover the booklets. After booklet three, she clearly expressed that she knew what to do to become a Christian, but if she did it, she would not be doing it for the right reason, because she was uncertain about God, His Word, and Jesus Christ. So, we spent time studying about the existence of God. Then, we watched the video series on World Video Bible School of The Canon of Scripture, which blew her mind! Then, she asked, why do other religions claim to have inspired Scriptures— for example the Muslims and the Quran. So, we watched the series on the Quran from WVBS again, and she loved it. That culminated in a discussion on The Evidence for Jesus. During the months of study, the congregation poured love into her life, as she attended almost every Sunday with us. Many evenings were spent with her, hanging out, playing games, and enjoying meals—so much more! This all led up to her making the decision to attend Camp Ida. She said right before her decision, “I have never felt so welcome in a place and by people this way before. I am appreciative and happy to be here and to continue studying. I had been strongly considering being baptized. Overall, my life has changed A LOT since I started attending the church with people I now call my friends and studying with you and your wife… in the past six months, I have NEVER been so happy.†With all of those experiences, it culminated in her making the decision to obey the gospel of Jesus Christ. To God be the glory! That is so awesome! This next one comes to us from Louise (Weezie) Burger, whose husband, Wayne, has taught at the Bear Valley Bible Institute in Denver, and I believe they may now live in New Hampshire, but travel back and forth. This is what she says, We have HAPPY NEWS AGAIN! DEANNA recently moved to Littleton (Colorado) and has been coming to worship for a couple of months. You may remember that she found our welcome box outside her door and came to worship that following Sunday. She had asked a preacher in her former town and was told they don't do baptism. WHAT??? The Bible is clear that we reach Jesus' blood in baptism and are forgiven of our sins at that moment. Romans 6:3-4 describes immersion as reenacting Jesus's death, burial, and resurrection. We die to our sins, are buried in water, and rise up to live a new life. She had watched YouTube videos, was reading her Bible, and was eagerly learning. When it was announced that MARELLA was baptized, she asked Wayne for a Bible study, wanting to be baptized. We were ready to approach her for a study and this was perfect! Now she wants to be connected to podcasts and studies! Yay! By the way, I love her shirt, “It’s never luck. It’s always God.†My dad was big on this. We were not allowed to use the word “luck†when we were growing up, for this reason. This woman found the Lord, not because of luck, but because a Christian welcomed her into the community, a Christian posted a sermon on YouTube, she read her Bible, a friend was baptized, she asked a preacher to study the Bible together, and the preacher was willing. Luck had nothing to do with it. There are others, but this last one comes to us from Patrick Roberson, a retired emergency room paramedic from Tennessee. He says, “We never know when doors will open to teach the Gospel of Christ! [I] started off buying a tool box, which turned into a Bible study and a new Christian being born again!†He says, “Thank you Brother Paul Mays for teaching me to listen during study. If you have a TikTok account and want to help share the gospel via TikTok let me know, or follow brother Paul at neanderpaulmays on the TikTok platform.†Paul Mays is the guy from Virginia who sent us a TikTok contact several months ago, somebody from Watertown (I think) who wanted to know more, and Paul is one reason why we are on TikTok right now. In the comments, somebody wanted to know exactly how buying a toolbox led to a Bible study, and Patrick says, “I paid for the tool box and started to leave, [I] saw this information card which our Elders gave out for personal evangelism efforts in my truck and gave it to him. It sparked his interest and I [simply] answered questions as he has been reading the Bible for a couple years now. He knew lots of the truth and simply needed guidance as found in Acts 10.†We have cards here at Four Lakes. We have the pens. We have wooden nickels. All of us interact with people who may be interested in learning more, if we are only willing to share. As always, though, we share these images by way of encouragement. And if you have any questions about this, if you are ready to obey the good news right now, if we can help with that in any way, we invite you to get in touch. You can send a message to info@fourlakeschurch.org, you can give me a call or send a text to 608-224-0274, or you can simply pull me aside after worship this morning, and we would love to help in any way possible. Back in 1997, when I became a dad, my understanding of prayer expanded tremendously. This morning, we return to our study of prayer in Matthew 7, and today we come to a passage on prayer where God is described as our “Father.†Last week, we looked at how important it is to pray. We noted that most of us know that it is important to pray, and yet few of us would claim that we pray as we should. Jesus, though, tells us to “ask,†to “seek,†and to “knock.†And he promises that when we do, God will answer. Today, we continue as Jesus illustrates these concepts by describing God as our Father. As I was preparing today’s lesson, I ran across someone who suggested that “virtually every error in prayer is ultimately traceable to misconceptions about the character of God.†And I think that’s true. Whether we are talking about the frequency of our prayers or the content of our prayers, everything hinges on our understanding of who God really is. This morning, then, let’s look at the whole paragraph again, but let’s pay special attention to Jesus’ description of God as our Father. The passage is 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. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened. Or what man is there among you who, when his son asks for a loaf, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, he will not give him a snake, will he? If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give what is good to those who ask Him! This morning, let’s focus in on verses 9-11, where Jesus illustrates what he’s said in verses 7-8 by picturing God as our Father. We’ll look at comparison itself, and then we will apply today’s lesson by noting some possible reasons as to why it might not appear that God is answering our prayers as we think that he should. I. But let’s start by noting the COMPARISON. In verse 9, Jesus turns this back on the people who were listening that day, and he aims this at the parents in the audience,“Which of you,†“Which one of you,†“Who among you,†(as other translations have it), “What person is there among you, when his son asks for a loaf, will give him a stone?†And in the same way, “If he asks for a fish, he will not give him a snake, will he?†And the answer is: Of course not! When a child is in need and asks for help, a good father will not give his children what is either useless or harmful. Isn’t that the picture here? The child is not asking for a toy or some luxury, but the kid in the picture here is asking for food. The child is asking for a loaf or a fish. Loaves and fish are among the most basic necessities. We think of the feeding of the 5,000, a miracle recorded in all four gospel accounts, when the crowd was hungry and the apostles found a young boy who had five loaves and two fish. That was apparently his lunch for the day, the basic necessities back then. And so, in the illustration here, we have a hungry child asking his father for bread and fish. Jesus puts it back on his audience, he invites them into the illustrating by asking: If your child is hungry and asks you for these basic necessities, you wouldn’t give him a stone, would you? You wouldn’t give him a snake, would you? Of course not! Otherwise, what we have here is either neglect or abuse (failing to provide or actually providing something that is harmful). A good father, though, provides for his children. As we think about this, the fact that a good father provides for his children helps us understand something of how God answers prayer. Many of us here today are parents. So let me ask: As parents, how would we respond if our child were to ask us for something dangerous? Returning to the illustration Jesus uses here, let’s turn it around a little bit: As a dad, how would I respond if my kid was hungry and wanted to eat rocks? Or how would I respond if my young child was hungry and wanted to eat a snake? As a dad, I would have to say “No.†In fact, looking back on my life as a dad over the past 28 years, I might even be able to say that a big part of dad-life is saying “No.†Obviously, we want to say “yes†as much as we can, as parents we want to provide what our children want and need, but there are probably even more times when we need to say “No.†• Can I stay up all night? No. • Can I eat ice cream for dinner? No. • Can I skip school today? No. • Can I have these $300 shoes? No. • And on and on... As I was preparing today’s lesson, I ran across a study from Britain that found that parents say “no†to their children an average of 8,395 times a year, or an average of 23 times a day. Sometimes, when we are kids, what looks like a fish is actually a snake, and what looks like a loaf is actually a stone, and we need a parent to give us some guidance. As parents, the love we have for our children will sometimes force us to say “no†to what they are asking for. Well, Jesus continues in verse 11,“If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give what is good to those who ask Him!†He’s arguing from the lesser to the greater. Compared to God, we are evil, and if we as mere mortals can figure out how to give good gifts to our children, then certainly God can as well, and even more so! At this point, we need to acknowledge that not all fathers are good. Personally, I am thankful that I have a good father. Perhaps hundreds of times over the past ten years, as I have driven away from seeing my dad, I have said, “Thank you, Father, for an awesome father.†Sinlessly perfect? Of course not. But a good and decent man who has provided for his family (spiritually above all else)? Absolutely. Not all fathers, though, are good. And yet even with the bad fathers, most of them are often able to figure out how to give something “good†to their children. Even terrible fathers will sometimes get it right. God, though, is a Father who never lets us down. God is the best Father ever, and he is eager to give good gifts to his children. II. So, how do we react when we ASK, and SEEK, and KNOCK, and WE STILL DON’T SEEM TO GET WHAT WE ARE ASKING FOR? In the few minutes we have left, I just want to give a brief list of possibilities. And this isn’t everything, but generally speaking, why don’t we always get what we want? 1. We’ve already alluded to this, but I would suggest, first of all, that WHAT WE ARE ASKING FOR MAY NOT BE GOOD FOR US. We take this back to the illustration Jesus gives here: Usually, earthly parents know what is best for their children, and will often need to say “no†or maybe “later†to certain requests. So also with our Father in heaven. So, if we ask for something that really isn’t in our best interest, God would be blessing us by not granting that request. 2. Secondly, we should also realize that God may not be granting a request due to SIN IN OUR LIVES. We know from Isaiah 59:1-2, for example, that there are times when our iniquities have made a separation between us and God and that our sins have hidden His face from us so that he does not hear. There are times, then, when we pray but due to sin our lives, God is not listening. We might think of that passage in 1 Peter 3:7, where Peter is speaking to husbands and wives and says, “You husbands in the same way, live with your wives in an understanding way, as with someone weaker, since she is a woman; and show her honor as a fellow heir of the grace of life, so that your prayers will not be hindered.†Husbands, if our prayers don’t seem to be getting answered, maybe it’s time to reevaluate how we are treating our wives. 3. Thirdly, there are times when we may ask with IMPROPER MOTIVES. And all we’re doing here is allowing scripture to interpret scripture. Over in James 4 (as Josh read for us earlier), James specifically says (to a group of Christians),“You ask and do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, so that you may spend it on your pleasures.†James is honest here: Sometimes we ask with selfish motives: I want, I want, I want. We might benefit from going back and taking a look at the sample prayer in Matthew 6, “Give us this day our daily bread.†So simple! This is a need, not a want. And not a lifetime supply of bread, but “daily bread.†And the rest of the Lord’s sample prayer is spiritual – praising God, praying for his kingdom, asking for forgiveness, and so on. We may do well to compare our prayers to the model prayer from time to time and then to ask ourselves: Based on what I’ve just prayed, am I more concerned with my kingdom or am I more concerned with God’s kingdom? 4. Another reason we may not get exactly what we ask for is that sometimes what we ask for is not in line with GOD’S WILL for our lives. We mentioned this last week, that Jesus prayed three times (and really, all night long) that he might somehow avoid the crucifixion. But even there, he prayed (in Matthew 26:39), “My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me; yet not as I will, but as You will.†So also with Paul’s thorn in the flesh. In 2 Corinthians 12, Paul also prayed three times, but God never removed that challenge from Paul’s life. In fact, God answered and said, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.†God had a plan for Paul’s life that superseded Paul’s request to have that difficulty removed. I want a life free of trouble; God wants me to be like Jesus and make it to heaven; and these two wants do not always agree. And so, we are to pray for God’s will to be done. As John said in 1 John 5:14-15, “This is the confidence which we have before Him, that, if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. And if we know that He hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests which we have asked from Him.†Our prayers must be according to God’s will. 5. And a final reason prayers may not be answered the way we’d like them to be answered is that FREE WILL plays a role. In other words, if I’m praying for someone’s salvation, if I’m praying for someone to get their life straightened out, that really depends on that person making some choices, and I don’t believe God will override that person’s freedom to choose. So also when God tells us to pray for those in positions of authority: God will not necessarily override the free will of our elected leaders. I think there’s a value to still praying, but we may need to get creative with our prayers. With our children, for example, we have often prayed that they would be given opportunities to serve, that they would be surrounded by good friends. We know that a person’s friends will often help determine that person’s behavior. So also with government officials. Perhaps we can pray for them to be surrounded by wise advisors and to take that advice, and so on. Conclusion: This brings us to the end of verses 9-11. Last week, the key was persistence. This week, the key is to pray knowing that God is our Father. He loves us, he really does want what is best for us, and so we pray, and we pray, and we pray. Prayer is not just about getting what we want, but more than that, prayer is really about the joy of communicating with our Father in heaven. He is the best Father ever, and he loves to hear from his children. In just a moment, Josh will lead us in a song, but before we sing, let’s go to God in prayer: Our Father in Heaven, We have come to you so many times over the years. We’ve given thanks, we’ve asked for things. We know that you’ve heard us, and we know that in your wisdom you have provided exactly what we’ve needed. What an amazing blessing, to come to you in this way! Thank you for answered prayers. And thank you for protecting us when we did not truly understand what we were asking for. We pray for your grace and mercy as we make our way through this life, until we can see you face to face. We come to you today in Jesus’ name. AMEN. To comment on this lesson: fourlakeschurch@gmail.com