Matthew 7:7-12 Life's Guiding Principle

Intro

For many years the basic instrument of music was the harpsichord.

As its keys are depressed, a given string is plucked to create the desired note, much as a guitar string is plucked with a pick.

But the tone made in that way is not pure, and the mechanism is relatively slow and limiting.

Sometime during the last quarter of the eighteenth century, during Beethoven’s lifetime, an unknown musician modified the harpsichord so that the keys activated hammers that struck, rather than plucked, the strings.

With that minor change, a major improvement was made that would henceforth radically enhance the entire musical world, giving a grandeur and breadth never before known.

That is the revolutionary change Jesus gives to the golden rule.

Up until this point this principle has been given in negative terms

The Jewish rabbi Hillel said, “What is hateful to yourself do not to someone else.”

Confucius taught, “What you do not want done to yourself, do not do to others.”

Jesus flips that and tells us to do unto others and you would do unto yourself

In the process Jesus gives us one of Life’s guiding principles

Read Matthew 7:7-11

Transition

Here is the conclusion of the main theme of the Sermon on the Mount, which is to give the standards for kingdom living.

Jesus has given the standards related to self, to morality, to religion, and to money and possessions.

Here He concludes giving the standards related to human relationships

The positive side of love is the active side, the productive side, the side that is the true measure and test of love.

It is not seen in what we refrain from doing but in what we do.

In the descriptions of love in 1 Corinthians 13:4–7 all emphasize action.

The key expression of that principle is in verse 12, however you want people to treat you, so treat them, to which verses 1–11 point as advance commentary and illustration.

That verse, often referred to as the golden rule, has also been called the Mt. Everest of ethics

Bishop J. C. Ryle wrote, “[This truth] prevents the necessity of laying down endless little rules

Verses 7–11 make a perfect bridge between the negative teaching about a critical spirit and the positive teaching of the golden rule

Ask, Seek, Knock vs. 7-8

We can live by Life’s guiding principle because of God’s infinite resources

Here is one of the Lord’s greatest and most comprehensive promises to those who belong to Him

In light of this great promise we can feel free to fully love others and totally sacrifice for others, because our heavenly Father sets the example in His generosity to us

He promises that we have access to His eternal and unlimited treasure to meet our own needs as well as theirs.

We can do for others what we would want done for ourselves without fear of depleting the divine resources and having nothing left

Isn’t that what keeps people from treating others like they want to be treated?

They are afraid of losing what they worked hard to get

In God’s economy we don’t have to worry

What you sow, when it comes to treating others, will be reaped back more than what you gave

What if you are uncertain?

John 15:7 ESV

If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.

Jeremiah 29:13 ESV

You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart.

Give Good Gifts vs. 9-11

We can live by Life’s guiding principle because God has given us good gifts

This is a continuation of the previous verses

You can give good gifts to those God puts in your path because God has given you good gifts

Don’t give them less than you can or something completely opposite

Jesus talks about giving gifts to our children

You wouldn’t give a stone or serpent to your child if they asked for food

Jesus adapts a standard Jewish argument here called qal vahomer: arguing from the lesser to the greater

if the lesser is true, how much more the greater?

Fish and bread were basic staples, integral to the diet of most of Jesus’ hearers

When you have a chance to bless others, take it

Galatians 6:10 ESV

So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of faith.

vs. 11a If You being evil

Jesus is talking about sinful nature

We are selfish by nature

Our basic motives are to get as much as we can

We need to understand that and realize that God is trying to move us beyond that immaturity

vs. 11b Father in Heaven gives good gifts

Even though we are evil by nature, God stills shines his love on us

He gives good things to those who ask

What have you asked for?

First, you asked for Jesus to come into your life

You understood that you were a sinner in need of being rescued

He not only plucked you from the hands of death, but he gave you a fresh start

Second, you asked for forgiveness

He not only forgives your sins, but he deposited His righteousness into your heart and made you right in God’s eyes

Third, you lost and lonely, but He poured His love into your heart and gave you purpose and the tools to accomplish it

The point Jesus is trying to make is that you have been bestowed

Jesus covered this earlier in the sermon

Matthew 5:41–44 ESV

And if anyone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles. Give to the one who begs from you, and do not refuse the one who would borrow from you. “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,

Live by The Golden Rule vs. 12

We can live by life’s guiding principle because that is how we want to live

The perfect love of the heavenly Father is most reflected in His children when they treat others as they themselves wish to be treated.

How we treat others is not to be determined by how we think they should treat us, but by how we want them to treat us

Man’s basic problem is preoccupation with self.

Narcissism, is a condition named after the Greek mythological character Narcissus, who spent his life admiring his reflection in a pool of water.

Man can never come up to the standard of selfless love—the love that loves others as oneself and that treats others in the same way that one wants to be treated.

Only Jesus can give the power to love that way

It can come only from the indwelling Holy Spirit, whose first fruit is love

In Jesus Christ, “the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us” (Rom. 5:5).

Only Christ’s own Spirit can empower us to love each other as He loves us (John 13:34).

We can only love in a divine way because God Himself has first loved us divinely

1 John 4:19 ESV

We love because he first loved us.

Selfless love does not serve in order to prevent its own harm or to insure its own welfare.

It serves for the sake of the one being served, and serves in the way it likes being served—whether it ever receives such service or not.

That level of love is the divine level, and can be achieved only by divine help.

Only God’s children can have right relations with others, because they possess the motivation and the resource to refrain from self-righteously condemning others and to love in an utterly selfless way.