SERMON ON THE MOUNT TEACHING SERIES PART 10

10

Relationships That Encourage

Matthew 7:1–12

The Christian community ought to be a supportive family where members are helping each other rise to higher degrees of righteousness, where relationships with God are being renewed and where unbelievers are being drawn to Christ. Unfortunately, it can also be a place where people feel condemned, manipulated and uncared for.

Personal Reflection: How has your church helped you grow closer to God? When has it failed to support you?

Personal Reflection: Would people say that you have been an encouraging presence in the Christian community? Why or why not?

Matthew 7 may at first appear to be a series of self-contained paragraphs, but there is a connecting thread—relationships. The Christian counterculture is not an individualistic but a community affair, and relations both within the community and between the community and others are of paramount importance.

Read Matthew 7:1–12.

What commands does Jesus make in these verses?

2. Why does Jesus tell us not to judge others (vv. 1–2)?

How do these verses expand on Jesus’ statement about the merciful (5:7)?

3. According to Jesus, why are we often unfit to be judges (vv. 3–4)?

4. Some have assumed that Jesus was forbidding all judgment, even in law courts. How would you respond to this suggestion?

5. What steps must we take to truly help a brother or sister (v. 5)?

6. What kinds of people do you think he refers to as “dogs” and “pigs” (v. 6)?

7. Why is it futile, even dangerous, to talk with such people about the gospel?

8. What encouragement does Jesus give those who ask, seek and knock (vv. 7–8)?

How can we be assured of these promises (vv. 9–11)?

9. The Jewish Talmud states, “What is hateful to you, do not do to anyone else.” Likewise, Confucius told his followers, “Do not to others what you would not wish done to you.” How does the golden rule (v. 12) go beyond these commands?

In what sense does this rule sum up the Law and the Prophets?

10. Think of a relationship that is presently strained or broken. How can this passage help to mend that relationship?

Pray that in your relationships with other people you will grow as an encourager.

LATER

Further instruction about how we relate to other people is found in Romans 13:8–10. Read this passage. What debts does the author have in mind in verse 8?

Since we are not to use God’s commands to judge and condemn each other, of what positive use can they be?

How would the “rule of love” apply to the relationship you thought about in question 10?