Christian Conduct pt. 2

Introduction

Have you ever met someone who is so busy that they seem to be somewhere else whenever you converse with them? Maybe that person is you this morning! Our nation and society continues to get busier and busier by the year, it seems. Pew Research conducted a poll in 2017 that attempted to gain some perspective regarding how people are so busy and what keeps them busy. What they found is this: American Children, pre-k through seniors in high school, are incredibly active in activities. 73% of parents with school-aged children polled noted that their children are involved in at least 1 sport. For those of you with kids or grandkids who play sports, you know that sports are no longer seasonal but rather they are year around! There is a season that they play at school and then there is an offseason team that travels and plays all over the area. There is never a true “offseason” of rest nowadays. 60% of parents polled noted that their children are active in a youth group. 54% said that their children are involved in music, dance or art. 53% said that their children help out with volunteer work after school or on the weekends over the past year.

All of these things are good. Being in sports and building character is a good thing. Being in music is a good thing that has scientific proof to boost intelligence. Volunteering is a great practice to get into at a young age and being involved in a youth group is a great way to grow your faith, learn more about Jesus Christ and build relationships. With that said, we are busier today than we have ever been in history. Some of you can feel free to disagree, but that’s just what the statistics show. We are busy and whenever we have free time we are so glued onto our devices and smart phones that we don’t interact with others very often, or at least as often as generations in the past. To some of you this is a big deal, to others it’s simply your reality and that’s completely fine. We are all different. The issue lies in what this poll concluded with. Because we are so busy, 31% of parents noted that they feel as though they are always rushed while 53% of the remaining 79% said that they feel rushed sometimes. Parents who feel rushed are more likely to see parenting as tiresome and stressful and less likely to see it as enjoyable.

There is a correlation between doing stuff, being busy and being rushed. There is a correlation between being rushed and forgetting things. Sadly, as a result of forgetting things, one of the things that is most often left out is our relationship with the Lord. He gets bumped to the back burner and we do the, “God I’m sorry, I’ll do my quiet time tonight when I’m done with this activity or when I’m done with this game or whenever I’m done with my list.”

In doing this, more times than not, we forget about it completely. We fail to pray. We fail to seek the Kingdom of God and His will in our life and we continue on with our busy, chaotic schedules. I’m reminded of Susanna Wesley, in studying our text this morning. Susanna Wesley was the mother to 10 children - 2 of them being the great hymn writers and theologians Charles and John Wesley. Susanna had difficulty in finding time and a place to have her quiet time with the Lord and so she devised a solution: she would gather in the kitchen with her children, bring her Bible and her favorite chair to the table and then put her kitchen apron over her head and pray and read Scripture while her children did the same and studied their school work. You might laugh at the practicalness of this today, but she did this for roughly 2 hours every single day. She did this for years and years. During some of the busiest years of her life in raising 10 children. Yet, despite her busyness, she set aside those 2 hours for the Lord. Just as Susanna Wesley did, we must prioritize prayer in our lives and in our homes.

Being busy isn’t an excuse to neglect to spend time with the Lord. As Christ declares in , we are to ask. If we merely ask and spend that time with the Lord, Scripture shows us that God promises to answer and give us something good. So why on earth would we fail to ask? Why would we fail to call upon the name of the Lord and grow our relationship with Him? There is no excuse, we all can improve in this regard and have confidence that God both hears and responds to our prayers.

Matthew 7:7–12 NASB95

7 “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. 8 “For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened. 9 “Or what man is there among you who, when his son asks for a loaf, will give him a stone? 10 “Or if he asks for a fish, he will not give him a snake, will he? 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! 12 “In everything, therefore, treat people the same way you want them to treat you, for this is the Law and the Prophets.

God’s Promise to Us (7-11)

We talk a lot about prayer as Christians and we acknowledge that it is a wonderful honor and privilege to be able to call out our heavenly Father and know full and well that He hears us! This is something unique to Christians because Christ has given us that ability as adopted children of the King. Christ tells His followers in verse 7 to “Ask.” This is a present imperative command. Christ calls for His followers to simply ask. This is a general thing to say, but that’s how prayer should be, friends! Whenever we are facing a difficult situation, ask God for help! Whenever we are deciding between two options, ask God for wisdom! Whenever we are in pain and seemingly lost for words, we groan and ask God for comfort and understanding! We simply ask. Yet, many times we fail to even ask. We are too busy. We are too preoccupied. We are too confident in our own knowledge and ability. We are too focused on the temporary things that we miss out on what God is trying to show us. We are not commanded to figure it out on our own, we are commanded to acknowledge that we need help!

Whenever a child does not know how to do something they are left with a couple options, leave the question blank, hope that their best guess is adequate, or ask a question to better understand what is being asked of them. The same thing exists as children of God. We might think that we know the answers, after all we’ve read the Bible and many of you have been Christians a long time and you’ve done many in depth studies of Scripture. We are tempted to think that we have it figured out, but we don’t. We are finite. We are wicked and we are deceitful. That’s not very encouraging but it’s what the Bible says we are as sinners without God. We are commanded to pray and ask God for help. The first step is to admit that we don’t have it all figured out and for many people they are unable to do this. If you ask atheists why they reject Christianity one of the most common answers you’ll get is because they are good people and they don’t need Jesus’ help. Pride has been the root of our issues since the Garden and will continue to drag us away from God until we kill our pride. This takes a daily dying to self and giving everything over to God. We ask Him for help in all things knowing that we are nothing without Him.

We ask and Jesus says that it will be given to us. The word “give” is seen throughout this passage and is the theme of these verses. We ask knowing full and well that whatever we ask for is something that God *can* give to us because He is Lord of all and all-powerful. With that said, we know that God is God and we are not. As a result, whenever we ask we know that it can be given to us but what we are given will be exactly what we need even if it’s not what we thought we needed at the time.

We seek and we knock as well. These are also present imperative commands in the Greek. These are things we are called to do right now. We continue to ask God for help. We seek His will and we knock. The Greek is more helpful than the English, the Greek idea is this, “Ask and keep on asking, seek and keep on seeking, knock and keep on knocking.” A couple of weeks ago we looked at Paul’s prayer for the church in Philippi and noted how Paul prayed purposefully and with great power as He relied upon the power of God. That is how we should pray as well!

Verse 8 continues this thought by showing that God does answer. As Piper notes, “The asker receives. The seeker finds. The knocker gets an open door. Your Father will give you good things.” That is where our confidence lies. We trust that He will give us exactly what we need and hear and answer our prayer! Notice how the words are changed in verses 7 from “it will be given” to “receives” in verse 8. We know that there is a difference in being told you’re going to get something and actually getting it. Have you ever received one of those telemarketing calls that says, “Congratulations, you’ve just won an all expenses paid cruise to the Bahamas. Please go to this website and enter in your social security number, credit card and address. If you do this then you’ll receive this trip of a lifetime for free!” While this is a cool thought, we know that there is a difference between being told this story and actually stepping foot on the supposed cruise ship.

Just as there is suspicion whenever we hear these things from telemarketers, it can be a little odd for someone to hear about the power of prayer. It can sound too good to be true to hear that the one and only God of the universe actually cares for, listens to and answers the prayers of His beloved children. Yet, that is exactly what Scripture declares! We must realize that prayer is not a bad thing or something to be looked down upon, rather it should be something that we genuinely look forward to as prayer helps us be conformed to the image of Jesus Christ. In the words of James Merritt, “What we need in our churches today is not a declaration of independence. What we need is a declaration of dependence.”

Verses 9-11 show us a story of the goodness and faithfulness of God. Jesus reasons from the lesser to the greater in verse 9. If a normal father would strive to give good gifts to his son rather than bad gifts, how much more will our heavenly Father do so?! Our earthly father would not give us a stone whenever we ask for bread (unless its a practical joke), neither will our heavenly Father. God is not a magician nor is He going to give us something wicked. No loving parent would trick their child into thinking that their requests have been granted by deception. Even though parents fall short sometimes, the Christian can take hope that God will never mistreat His children.

This example continues into verse 10 as Jesus shows that no loving Father would consider giving his son a snake (something dangerous and venemous) whenever his son asked for a fish. Again, no loving father would do this and God is no exception! He gives us what we need. He loves and cares for His children. Even among sinners like ourselves, there is a natural nature to help those we love. We desire to give one another what we need.

Father’s help to provide for the needs of their children. Our world is changing in many ways and not every family is the same, but in general we see in Scripture that the man helps his family and provides along the way. Just as the man wants to provide, God does provide. Whenever the earthly father falls short, God provides through thick and thin. We can take it to the bank that God cares, knows, listens, hears and answers our requests! There is nothing that catches us off guard and we are merely supposed to keep the lines of communication open. We depend and rely completely on Him in the good and bad times.

Verse 11 finalizes this point with another lesser to the greater idea. If humans, who are evil and sinful, know to give good gifts to our children then how much more will our God (who is good and perfect) seek to give us what we truly need and what is truly good! It would be easy for us to look at this verse and feel good that God is going to give us exactly what we need whenever want it. While this is a novel idea and a popular one for many churches today, there is a part at the beginning that can get overlooked. Verse 11 reminds us that we are evil. Jesus’ argument for the goodness and faithfulness of God is grounded partly in the fact that we are not good and we are not faithful. Jesus doesn’t give an example, He simply says that humanity is evil. Can we think of any such example that would back up Jesus’ argument here? I certainly can. We know of horrible atrocities that have transpired over the last hundred years that demonstrate the evilness of humanity. Maybe you think that as science has advanced and technology has become more integrated into our lives that things are better, but we still see that we are evil and sinners. The New Testament tells us that we are sinners. I am a sinner. You are a sinner. We are sinners by nature. We are 2000 years removed from Jesus’ sermon but the message rings true: you are a member of the human race which is composed of sinners. We are not Jesus. We are not our heavenly Father. Praise God for the fact that He knows best!

We can rest comfortably on the fact that God gives to those who simply ask Him. God is the promise keeper and the way maker - He will come through!

God’s Command for Us (12)

Verse 12 is the famous verse in this passage as we see the Golden Rule. The Golden Rule is found in nearly every religion and people group out there. We know the Golden Rule but we forget it sometimes. We know how we feel and we feel as though we are in control and that we have the intrinsic right to be the boss and judge others by our standard rather than God’s standard. God’s command for us in this passage is simple: Treat others the way that we want to be treated and rejoice along the way rather than nag others and complain.

Some application questions for us regarding treating others well. Ask ourselves: Would I want to be made fun of for the way I look or talk? Would I want to be looked at as inferior? Would I want to never be invited over for dinner? Would it make me feel good if other people didn’t want to be my neighbor? Of course not! As a result, we should treat others how we want to be treated. Even if they wrong us and hurt our feelings, we treat them well and we forgive them as Christ has forgiven us.

What we see at the end of verse 12 is that “this is the Law and the Prophets.” This refers to the entire New Testament. If we remember, Jesus and Jesus’ audience in the early 30s AD did not have any New Testament to go off of. Their “Scripture” and “Bible” consisted largely of the Law (Decalogue - Pentateuch) and the Prophets. This phrase appears 3 times in Matthew. in the passage about being “salt and light” as followers of Christ, our text today in and again in as Jesus notes that foundation of the Old Testament is to love God and love others. In the words of Spurgeon, “This is the sum of the Decalogue, the Pentateuch, and the whole sacred Word. Oh, that all men acted on it, and then there would be no slavery, no war, no sweating, no striking, no lying, no robbing; but all would be justice and love! What a kingdom is this which has such a law! This is The Christian Code.”

This is the sum of the Decalogue, the Pentateuch, and the whole sacred Word. Oh, that all men acted on it, and then there would be no slavery, no war, no sweating, no striking, no lying, no robbing; but all would be justice and love! What a kingdom is this which has such a law! This is The Christian Code.

The Golden Rule is not just something to make us feel better, but it truly should be the marker of a follower of Jesus Christ. We selflessly love others and care for them. In doing this, in keeping the Golden Rule, we keep all the regulations in Scripture regarding how we are supposed to live with one another.

If we could simply keep this teaching of Jesus Christ then the impact upon the church would be incalculable. If we, as Christians, truly bought into the mentality of treating others the way that we want to be treated then we wouldn’t play the “I’m better than them, game” because we wouldn’t want other people to think that they are better than us. Because of this, we wound’t dare think that of them either. Think back to your time in school, we were all taught the Golden Rule. We know that it is a good rule and we try to live it out at a very young age, but something happens along the way. We get distracted. We think that we’re right and the opposing side is wrong. We get so narrow minded in our thinking that, again, we are so full with pride when we are called to empty ourselves of all pride and be full completely with a spirit of humility. Many religions teach and practice the Golden Rule within reason (as in if you do something so bad then the Golden Rule no longer applies), but the Christian always loves others and extends grace and mercy as Christ has done for us.

Akin, D. (2019). Exalting jesus in the sermon on the mount. Nashville, TN: Holman Bible Publishers.

As individuals we must get back to the Golden Rule. In our interactions with people of different religious backgrounds, we speak the truth in love and treat them the way that we would want to be treated. We don’t compromise our message or the Gospel, we stand firm on that message but we don’t go up to someone who thinks differently and simply preach hell, fire, damnation and leave out the message of hope found in Scripture! We obediently teach and preach Scripture in love.

This also extends to our conversation with people from the opposing political party and people who think differently than us on any controversial issue. It can be easy to get defensive and call out names and rip Scripture out of context to support our position rather than taking Scripture in its right context. That’s not how we are supposed to act, though. We don’t name call. We don’t get defensive and rip off the oppositions head. We treat them the way that we want them to treat us. Not the way that they do treat us, but the way that we would like them to treat us. We don’t fight fire with fire, we fight fire with water. We love the unlovable and most importantly, we pray for the other person.

If we really want to get uncomfortable this morning, ask yourself this question: If you’re a Republican, when was the last time I genuinely prayed for a Democrat? Not that they would understand that they are wrong on a specific issue, but when was the last time that I prayed for them and their wellbeing and for God to continue to work in their life. If you hold any opinion that there is an opposing side that you converse with, when was the last time you prayed for them? If the answer is never or rarely, then we have some work to do. I have some work to do. We’re called to something greater than being tribal members to our own ideas and parties, we are united as adopted members of the Kingdom of God and our heavenly family encompasses people that have radically different positions than we do here in Morgan, Missouri. We treat them the way we want to be treated. We love them.

Conclusion

Jesus modelled what it looks like to pray for our enemies. Jesus modelled what it looks like to pray consistently and persistently. Jesus loved His enemies and those who persecuted Him. Jesus gave mercy and grace to those who followed Him and those who held the opposing religious and political viewpoint - we should as well. There will never be an ounce of disappointment for treating others the way that we want to be treated. We know that sometimes people will take advantage of us and step over us, but we know that this is how it was for Christ as well. We follow His leading.

If we would simply pray. If we would simply life our requests up to God knowing full and well that He has the ability to solve whatever situation we are facing and that He not only hear’s us but He also answers us! He answers in His timing, though, and His answer is not always the way that we want it to be. We need to be reminded of who we are and who He is. There’s a song by Casting Crowns that’s about a decade old that I want to close with:

Isaiah

Isaiah 38:15–20 NLT

15 But what could I say? For he himself sent this sickness. Now I will walk humbly throughout my years because of this anguish I have felt. 16 Lord, your discipline is good, for it leads to life and health. You restore my health and allow me to live! 17 Yes, this anguish was good for me, for you have rescued me from death and forgiven all my sins. 18 For the dead cannot praise you; they cannot raise their voices in praise. Those who go down to the grave can no longer hope in your faithfulness. 19 Only the living can praise you as I do today. Each generation tells of your faithfulness to the next. 20 Think of it—the Lord is ready to heal me! I will sing his praises with instruments every day of my life in the Temple of the Lord.

Who am I, that the lord of all the earth Would care to know my name Would care to feel my hurt? Who am I, that the bright and morning star Would choose to light the way For my ever wandering heart?

Not because of who I am But because of what you've done Not because of what I've done But because of who you are

It’s all about Him. May we never forget that fact. May we pray with confidence and boldness, knowing that He is able and that we are loved and created by the King of Kings! Let’s pray