For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened.

Our Reformed tradition has two sacraments and today we celebrate them both.

In Baptism we have the outward and visible sign of the inward and invisible reality that God has not only created and given life to Brian but that Brian is, by virtue of the faith of his parents and the faith of this community of Christians, a member of the covenant people of God. He is entitled to expect that his parents will be sure that he grows in the knowledge of God’s love for him and for the world. He is entitled to expect that this place, this people of God will provide him with a place of sanctuary, a place where – in a world full of pushing and shoving – he will know that he is safe and valued, where he can learn the lessons of worship and service to God. All of this is what we promised with water and words a few minutes ago.

And in a few minutes, and I am aware that summer Sundays in general and sacramental summer Sundays in particular require the preacher to show some time restraint, so I will try to only use a few minutes today, but in a few minutes in Communion we will have the outward and visible signs of the inward and invisible realities that God nourishes our souls and that our souls need nourishing just as much as – if not more than - our bellies do. And we will be – spiritually and truly – at the same table as Christians around the world and the same table as Christ and his disciples gathered at and at the same table as all of those who have lived their lives here in this world and are now fully in the presence of God – this is what we mean when we speak of the Communion of the Saints, the great feast that transcends geography, chronology and mere physical science, the feast that encompasses and exceeds all time and all space.

Having said all of that there is a third element to our worship and to our lives that is not sacramental because it lacks the outward and visible sign, there is nothing tangible about it, but it is the glue that holds the rest of our faith, our sacraments, our Church, and ultimately our lives, together.

It is the piece of faith that has grown increasingly important in my life and – as I see it – in our life as God’s Church.

It is prayer.

And while there are a half a dozen or more types of prayers that we offer – thanks and confession and intercession and praise and so on – there is one common and essential ingredient that prayer requires and that is confidence.

The letter to the Hebrews reminds us that “faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen”, well prayer is faith in words that are shared between you and God.

When we look at the prayer of Christ taught, it is remarkable how practical our prayers are meant to be, no flowery language, no mystical chants, just an acknowledgement of our relationship with God “Father . . . Holy”; a desire to be able to see the presence of God “Your Kingdom Come”; a recognition that we need the common and concrete things of life “Give us . . . daily bread”; a confession that we need the spiritual things of life “forgive us . . . as we forgive others”; and a plea that we be guided safely through the traps and disasters of life “do not bring us to the trials” that would harm us.

And when our faith fills that language, when we have the assurance and conviction of the things we hope for and can’t see, then we experience what it means to pray with confidence, knowing that everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened.

It is a bold claim that Jesus makes.

One of those bold claims that might seem to be, perhaps, a rhetorical flourish, an exaggeration of sorts, a salesman’s pitch but not meant to be taken literally.

But it is not, it is a simple statement of fact.

Does it mean that we get everything that we want to ask for?

Does it mean that we find everything that we want to search for?

Does it mean that we can open every door that we want to go through?

No, of course it doesn’t.

We know better than that.

But what it does mean is that every question we need answered will be and every treasure that we need to search for we will find and every door that we need to walk through will be opened to us.

We just keep asking for the wrong things, we keep search for the wrong things, we keep pounding on doors that we were never meant to walk through, we keep chasing our wants and ignoring our needs, as the old Country song had it we have been “looking for love in all the wrong places”.

For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened. It is a simple statement of fact.

And it is not a fact that depends upon our acceptance for its truth.

It is, quite the opposite, it is a statement of fact that provides the test of our souls, our entire existence depends upon how much we believe that everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened.

Prayer is meant to be offered in confidence and it will be answered, sometimes yes, sometimes no and often, not yet, for it is on God’s schedule that life is lived, not ours.

In the morning psalm the people are going through a dry spell in their lives, God seems distant, perhaps even antagonistic.

And yet the psalmist remembers back years and decades and generations and recounts God’s goodness and so is able to pray with confidence – in the midst of a spiritual drought – that God will again speak peace and healing and love and faithfulness and righteousness, that God will again give what is good and needed.

We have become much better, as a people, at this prayer stuff, without putting too fine a point on it, you could trace the upswing to the 11th of September 2001, when there was little we could do but pray.

I know how many of you have learned to carve out time in your daily or weekly routines for prayer and I marvel at the ways in which God has given us, together and as families and individuals, exactly what we have needed, when we have needed it.

And it comes from an abiding sense of confidence; it comes from the joyous realization that we don’t have to solve every problem alone, we don’t have to explain every mystery today. We have this underlying confidence, as we pray, that God will lead us to solutions that we would never have dreamt possible.

Our job is to ask, to search and to knock – these are the building blocks of prayer – and then to allow God to give us unexpected answers and unforeseen discoveries and unanticipated journeys as and when we need them.

Our job is to teach that confident prayer to Brian and all of the children, and each other.

Our job is to live with that quiet and comforting assurance that God will bring all of the pieces of our puzzles together when we continue to ask and seek and knock.

For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened.