“Your task, says Jesus, is to ask, seek, and knock. God’s task is to answer, let Himself be found, and open the door. The answer is there before the question is asked, the way is there before the search begins, the door is there before the knocking starts. In Jesus Christ everything is already bestowed upon you: the peace, the answer, the blessedness, the fellowship with the Father.” (Helmut Thielicke)
The following has been adapted from a sermon by the 20th century German Lutheran preacher Helmut Thielicke (1908-1986).
When we face a great task, we may easily be overwhelmed. All the difficulties that stand in the way loom up before our eyes. But then it is just as if Jesus had caught us in the midst of such anxious thoughts and given us the effective remedy for them:
“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 the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened.” (Luke 11:9-10)
What Jesus is saying is that your task is to simply ask, seek, and knock. God’s task is to answer, let Himself be found, and open the door. So you simply have no cause to worry at all. You do not need to be nervous about whether God really has the power, whether He really knows your need, whether your prayer has really reached His ear. God has guaranteed all this. This should not and need not be your worry.
Indeed, we could reduce the gospel to this brief formula: it teaches us everything we do not need to worry about! We need not worry about whether we shall be saved. We need not worry about whether we gain peace. We need not worry about knowing what is coming. None of this is our concern; all this has been taken care of ever since it pleased God to become our brother in Jesus Christ and to share our destiny in suffering, dying, and rising again. From now to the end of days this Jesus Christ wills to be with us in our little ship as the waves run high. It is simply not our concern whether we survive the waves and reach the Last Day. This is all taken care of by Him who slumbers in our ship and in whose hand the ocean is but a quiet pool.
“The gospel teaches us everything we do not need to worry about!”
In Jesus Christ everything is already bestowed upon you: the peace, the answer, the blessedness, the fellowship with the Father. Everything has been taken care of. Jesus is the way to the Father and the door to the fellowship and thus to the Father. So – in Jesus – there is a door, and not merely the great black wall of hopelessness against which we are constantly running. So knocking on the door is a sign of the miracle: the miracle that there is a door, that there is One who is the door, and that I may enter and speak with the Father. And because, and only because, this way and this door is there, is prayer possible. And therefore prayer is always made – consciously or unconsciously – in the name of Jesus.
Therefore, ours is simply to ask. That is to say, the one who seeks has already been found. The one who asks will receive abundantly. And to the one who knocks, the heavy door of divine mysteries will open.
Is there any greater joy than this? That we may knock and it will be opened to us because there is Someone—a Friend—there waiting for you and for me … a Friend who knows the answer before the question is asked and provides a way before the search begins?
Is there any greater joy than this, that this command and promise of Jesus—so simple even a child can be given the faith to believe it—that this should simply be true?
What a friend we have in Jesus,
All our sins and griefs to bear!
What a privilege to carry
Ev’rything to God in prayer!
Oh, what peace we often forfeit;
Oh, what needless pain we bear—
All because we do not carry
Ev’rything to God in prayer!
Have we trials and temptations?
Is there trouble anywhere?
We should never be discouraged—
Take it to the Lord in prayer.
Can we find a friend so faithful
Who will all our sorrows share?
Jesus knows our ev’ry weakness—
Take it to the Lord in prayer.
Are we weak and heavy laden,
Cumbered with a load of care?
Precious Savior, still our refuge—
Take it to the Lord in prayer.
Do thy friends despise, forsake thee?
Take it to the Lord in prayer.
In His arms He’ll take and shield thee;
Thou wilt find a solace there.
— Joseph M. Scriven, 1819–86📷 Photo by Nima Sarram on Unsplash; 🎨 Textual art by MD Sub-creaTions, using the font Barlow Condensed by Jeremy Tribby on Google Fonts.