Matthew 7: Ask, Seek, Knock, God Is a Good Father

Introduction

"The Lord loves you. Something good is surely going to happen to you." With these words, Shigemasa Shigaki, senior pastor of Tokyo Full Gospel Church, opened his message on Sunday, October 25, 2026. The passage for the day is well known: "Ask, and it will be given you. Seek, and you will find. Knock, and it will be opened for you. For everyone who asks receives. He who seeks finds. To him who knocks it will be opened" (Matthew 7:7-8).

The week before, the church had studied Jesus' call not to judge. This time, the title of the message is "the secret to receiving answers to prayer." The pastor does not present a technique. He keeps coming back to one conviction: the one who gives is God, and God is a good Father.

He takes up the three verbs of the text, ask, seek, knock, then shows what Jesus says about the Father's heart, before connecting this passage to the "golden rule" of verse 12.

Outline of the Message

1. Ask: The Freedom God Has Given Us

What strikes the pastor is that Jesus did not say, "Only ask for what matches God's will." He said: ask for what you need, and it will be given to you. "That is an immense word of blessing."
Some people pray, "Lord, should I eat bread or rice?" For the pastor, this kind of prayer does not make much sense. Apart from what he expressly forbids, God has given us the freedom to ask and to live freely, a real power of decision.
In the Garden of Eden, God had said: eat from every tree in the garden. There was only one prohibition: the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Humanity's suffering comes from the fact that this single prohibition was broken. But the text also shows how much room God leaves for our freedom.
Outside of what is forbidden, and as long as it is neither covetousness nor a request beyond what is rightfully ours, Jesus says: ask, and you will receive.
The Greek verb aiteite is a present imperative: an action that continues. "It is not once and then it is over. When Jesus says ask, he means keep asking."

2. The One Who Gives Is God

When you pray, do not forget who gives. "It is not the strength of your prayers that makes you receive. The one who gives is God the Father."
Many people get this wrong: they think their effort in prayer earns the answer. "I prayed for twenty-one days, so the answer is owed to me." The pastor is categorical: "That absolutely does not exist."
Whether you are asking for the solution to a problem, a blessing or a healing, it is not your effort that bears fruit. The answer to prayer remains a grace from God. And if Jesus tells us to ask, it is because the one who gives is good.
Jesus did not promise, "I will give you anything." He is good, so he gives good things. He does not give what we ask for wrongly: he gives better.
The pastor distinguishes four possible answers. The first is yes. The second is no, and that is also an expression of God's love: if he knows that something would destroy us, the Father will not give it to his children. The third, very common, is "wait": at the right time, the prayer will bear fruit. The fourth is "better": we thought we were asking for the best, and God gives far beyond our thoughts.

3. Seek: Get Up and Take the First Step

The verb "seek," zēteite, is also a present imperative. It does not mean seeking once, but continuing to seek.
"Just because you knelt down to pray does not mean something is going to happen. It does happen, but it is rare. If you have asked, then you have to seek."
First example: someone prays to find a spouse. If they stay on their knees and never go out, they will not meet anyone. But if they believe that God gives and opens the way, and they start to seek, they may meet the person God has in store for them.
Second example: Joshua. Before entering the promised land, where milk and honey flow, the last obstacle was the Jordan, in flood and impossible to cross. The priests carrying the ark of the covenant hesitated. But at Joshua's command, they took the first step, and the waters parted (Joshua 3). "You have to take the first step."
For a job, praying at church is not enough: you have to go to the employment office, read the job listings, ask people you know. If you want joy, seek joy. If you want to be reconciled, praying alone is not enough: a simple "I'm sorry" can unlock everything. Of course, it is God who opens the other person's heart and restores the relationship.
The pastor quotes Jeremiah 29:13: "You shall seek me, and find me, when you search for me with all your heart." Whoever seeks God meets him.

4. Seek God Himself, Not Just His Gifts

Praying is not passing information on to God. "Many people pray this way, and it is a mistake. God knows everything."
Jesus said it: do not worry about what you will eat, drink or wear, for your heavenly Father knows that you need these things (Matthew 6:31-32). "If God did not know what you truly need, he would not be God."
So when you ask, ask for God: the God who solves, the God who heals. And when you seek, seek God. "Where God is, there is the solution. Where God is, there is heaven. Where God is, there is healing."

5. Knock: A Door Is Made to Open

The third verb, krouete, is again a present imperative. Knocking once or twice, then giving up because no one answers, is not what Jesus teaches.
His promise does not change. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever (Hebrews 13:8). "It is impossible for Jesus to say: I promised, but circumstances have changed, so this time it will be no."
In the life of faith, there are moments when we lose heart in front of a door that seems never to open: the door of blessing, the door of healing, the door that would resolve what makes you suffer inside.
The pastor answers with an image: "If God had not intended to open, he would have built a wall, not a door. A door is made to be opened."
This door opens from the inside. "However hard you try to force it by your own means, it will not open." God looks at the trust of the one who knocks, and he is the one who opens.
Revelation 3:7 speaks of the one who has the key of David, "he who opens and no one can shut, and who shuts and no one opens." There are doors we cannot open ourselves. We have to start by admitting it: "I cannot open it, Lord, open it." Prayer, action, waiting in front of the door: everything rests on trust in God.
The way we knock matters too. A small, discreet "knock knock" is someone coming for a visit. Violent pounding is someone who is angry. "They will not open for you if you knock like that." The pastor invites us to knock thinking of God with joy and confidence, seeing ourselves as already blessed: healed of cancer, with no side effects, in full health, or reconciled with the person with whom the relationship is difficult.

6. A Father Who Gives Only Good Things

James 4:2-3 sheds light on the subject: "You don’t have, because you don’t ask. You ask, and don’t receive, because you ask with wrong motives, so that you may spend it on your pleasures."
Since we received Jesus Christ, we have been justified before God and have become his children. The relationship is that of a father and his child. A father does not give his child what would make him fall. It is not stinginess: he wants to give him better.
The pastor takes the example of health. Asking for health while continuing to overeat and to live in a disordered way "is reciting a formula." To seek is to say to yourself: I will exercise, eat at regular times, change my way of life. When you arrive at the door of healing, you knock, and it opens.
Jesus says it in verses 9 to 11: which father will give a stone to his son who asks for bread, or a snake if he asks for a fish? If you, 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.
Parents want to give their child what he desires, especially if it is good. Even when they have to forgo it for financial reasons, their heart aches. If human parents have this heart, how much more the Creator of heaven and earth, who is love and joy itself.
The pastor points out a nuance: Jesus does not say that the Father will give you everything you want. He says he will give good things. "He gives even better than what you ask."
He then tells the story of the early days of Pastor Yonggi Cho, who founded a church in a very poor neighborhood in Korea after the war. For six months he preached the law, and no one came. Then he received 3 John 2 as a personal word: "Beloved, I pray that you may prosper in all things and be healthy, even as your soul prospers." He began to proclaim a good God who gives a threefold blessing. For three years, he proclaimed it. People began to ask for God, to seek God at church, to knock at his door. Three years later, the residents of that neighborhood had all seen their situation change, they could send their children to school, and the church was able to move into a place that could hold a thousand people.
For the pastor, "the soul that prospers" is the one that asks while trusting God, that seeks while being sure that God will open the way, and that knocks at the door with the certainty that he will open. He also quotes Romans 8:28: all things work together for good for those who love God. "God is good God": God is good, and that is why Jesus tells us to ask.

7. Everyone Who Asks Receives, and the Golden Rule

Verse 8 begins with "everyone." It is not reserved for a few special people. All who ask receive, all who seek find, and it is opened to all who knock.
The pastor then brings up verse 12, which in his view sums up the Old Testament, the law and the prophets: "Therefore whatever you desire for men to do to you, you shall also do to them; for this is the law and the prophets."
He draws a rule from it: honor the other person first. Just as we reap what we sow, whoever welcomes and honors others sincerely will one day be honored in turn. Perhaps not by the same person, but someone, seeing your attitude, will want to do you good.
Applied to our relationship with God: when we honor God first, when we serve him, he honors us. Giving the tithe, because everything belongs to God, serving, worshiping, praising: all of this is honoring God.
Psalm 91:14-15 says it: "Because he has set his love on me, therefore I will deliver him. I will set him on high, because he has known my name. He will call on me, and I will answer him. I will be with him in trouble. I will deliver him, and honor him." God answers the one who loves him first. Knowing his name, the pastor explains, means seeking to know how great he is, and therefore exalting him.
"Our praise exists to exalt God. A praise that serves to do us good, we have no need of." Prayer and worship themselves exalt God, and God exalts each person in daily life.
It is the same logic as Matthew 6:33: "But seek first God’s Kingdom, and his righteousness; and all these things will be given to you as well." Honor God first, exalt him, love him, and the door will open.

Key Takeaways

The one who gives is God: the answer to prayer is a grace, not the wages of our efforts.
Asking, seeking and knocking are actions that last: we keep going, and after asking, we get up to act.
God answers yes, no, wait or better, and each of these answers comes from a loving Father.
A door is made to open, but it opens from the inside: we knock with trust, without trying to force it.
Honoring God first, through love, service and praise, opens the way to his answer.

Personal Application

Have you stopped asking God for something because the answer was slow in coming? What if it was a "wait"?
In your current prayer, what concrete first step can you take this week in order to "seek"?
Are you counting on the length or intensity of your prayers, or on the goodness of the one who gives?
Before which door are you losing heart right now? How can you knock with trust rather than with anger?
In what way can you honor God first today: through praise, service, your offering?

Verses Cited

Frequently Asked Questions

What does "ask, seek, knock" mean in Matthew 7:7?

Shigemasa Shigaki stresses that the three verbs are, in Greek, present imperatives: an action that continues. To ask is to keep asking. To seek is to set out and act. To knock is not to give up after one or two knocks, trusting God who opens from the inside.

Is it the strength of my prayer that obtains the answer?

No. For the preacher, the one who gives is always God. Many people think that after twenty-one days of prayer, the answer is owed to them. But answered prayer is a grace: Jesus invites us to ask because the one who gives is good.

What are God's possible answers to prayer?

Shigemasa Shigaki counts four: yes; no, which is also a mark of love when what we ask would harm us; wait, because at the right time the prayer will bear fruit; and better, when God gives far beyond what we thought was best.