Sunday Sermon: The Golden Rule (Matthew 7:7-12)

You are listening to the teaching ministry of Gabriel Hughes, pastor of First Southern Baptist Church in Junction City, Kansas. Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday on this podcast, we feature 20 minutes of Bible study through a New Testament book.

On Thursday is a study in the Old Testament, and then we answer questions from the listeners on Friday. Each Sunday we are pleased to share our sermon series. Here's Pastor Gabe.

The Sermon on the Mount as a Perfect Sermon

Ask and it will be given to you. Seek and you will find. Knock and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds. And to the one who knocks, it will be opened. Or which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone?

Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask Him?

So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them. For this is the law and the prophets. Let us pray. Heavenly Father, as we come to Your Word today, I pray that Your Spirit would open this up to us that we may understand these deep and spiritual truths.

We may know what it is that You are asking of us as Your children in the way that we live in this world, as kingdom people traversing this earth. Teach us what it means to do unto others as we would have them do unto us.

And how this is the law and the prophets communicating to us this message. You have shown such great love to us through Your Son Jesus, who died on the cross for our sins and rose again from the grave so that all who believe in Him will be forgiven their sins.

We will not perish, but we will have everlasting life as You have shown this love to us, such great sacrifice in Jesus Christ our Savior. May we also go and do likewise and show love to others. It's in the name of Jesus that we pray and all God's people said, Amen.

Thank you. You may be seated. Now, those of you who have sat under my teaching for a while or you've known me for some time, you know how much I love good preaching. And I encourage you to love good preaching.

I am not so insecure a pastor that I would tell you, you only have to listen to me. In fact, I encourage you to listen to other ministers. And I may say to you, this guy is a great preacher. And then I may also warn you, this person is not so great.

This person is exegetical, for those of you who know that word. This guy is eisegetical. This person will lead you in godliness, but this person, what they're teaching would lead you to godlessness. This person wants to lead you to truth.

This teacher, beware, leads you in lies. And so it is important to me that you listen to good preaching. I've been listening to good teachers and even at times some bad teachers my entire life. And I will continue to do so for the rest of my life.

I am both a teacher and I'm a student. There are pastors that I have taught. And at the same time, there are pastors who teach me. Some of you know of my involvement in the class that I'm teaching regarding expository preaching.

So there are pastors in that class who have taught me, and then likewise there are classes in which I will have pastors under me that I will be teaching. And so there's always something for me to learn in this calling that has been given to me as a pastor to teach the Word of God.

I never feel like that I've come to the end of this or that I've learned everything that there is to learn about communicating the Word of God. There are things that I need to learn every day. And there's intense study that I put into the passage that we're going to be looking at each and every week.

As I've shared with you before about coming up and delivering a sermon, I am giving to you what the Lord has laid on my heart and convicted me with all this past week. Now may you be convicted by what we're looking at today and may it convict your heart all this coming week.

And then next week you come back together again and we just repeat the cycle. But it is the way that the Holy Spirit continues to do the work of God in our hearts that we may be sanctified according to His Word, walking in holiness and godliness as we all as Christians have been called to do.

So as a student of good preaching, I like listening to good sermons. And there is no greater sermon, I believe, than the Sermon on the Mount. What we are reading here in Matthew chapters 5, 6, and 7 is a perfect sermon.

Of course it is. It's being preached by the Son of God who is sinless and perfect. So why would we not call this a perfect sermon? But here's the thing. If you were to flip over to Acts chapter 2 and you were to read the sermon that Peter delivered there at Pentecost, I would call that a perfect sermon too.

Now wait a minute. We're talking about the perfect Son of God versus one of His own apostles. And you're saying that the apostle is preaching the perfect sermon just as Jesus is preaching the perfect sermon?

Well, how can you compare the two? Well, simply this. The Word that Jesus declared in the Sermon on the Mount was the Word of God. And the Word that Peter declared there in Jerusalem at Pentecost was also the Word of God.

See, what we're reading here in Matthew chapter 7 is actually written down for us by an apostle. Who is that apostle? That's Matthew. You may have a red-letter Bible and what you're reading here is in red letters and you're going, well, I mean, of course, that's the Word of Jesus.

But he didn't take a pen to paper and write it down for us. Matthew was the one that heard it proclaimed and he wrote for us what Jesus taught. When Peter preaches at Pentecost, he is preaching as an apostle.

An apostle is a word that meant sent one. That word applied to a messenger that the emperor himself would send out carrying the Word of the ruler. So as Peter is preaching at Pentecost, he is delivering the Word of the King.

His word there in Acts chapter 2 is every bit as much the Word of God as what we read here in Matthew chapters 5, 6, and 7. They're both perfect sermons. And there are other places throughout the scriptures that we will find perfect sermons as well.

Now, I do not deliver the perfect sermon. In fact, when I get done with a sermon, I go home and I go, oh, I could have said that. Why didn't I say that? But what I hope is going on in your hearts after we look at these things and we go through the scriptures together, those things come to your mind as you go throughout your week.

I remember reading that on Sunday. I remember Pastor Gabe saying something about that. And so the Spirit continues to work in your heart these things that we have read and learned together and apply to ourselves and our lives as we desire to live in godliness, as Christians, in the walk of Christ, in our respective callings.

As we look at the Sermon on the Mount as a perfect sermon, you may find that it follows a structure pretty similar to the way that most Bible teachers preach today. Let me give you the layout of this sermon, and this is in keeping in context with what we're looking at today.

It helps us to understand what we're looking at in Matthew 7, verses 7 through 12. How would you outline the Sermon on the Mount? Now, there may be different Bible teachers and scholars that may outline this a different way, but as I am studying this sermon and I am finding an even deeper appreciation for the Sermon on the Mount than I ever have, as long as we've been in this.

So we've been in this since March, I think end of February, right before COVID -19 happened. And then when the pandemic and the lockdowns and the shelter-in-place orders and all this stuff came into effect, we've been studying the Sermon on the Mount the entire time.

So this is a wonderful place in Scripture to be in the midst of a virus crisis. But the sermon, as it would kind of break down for us, as we were to look at an outline of this sermon, we would see at the very beginning, in the introduction to this sermon, we would receive a benediction.

Now, a benediction, that word very simply means a blessing. And is that not quite literally how Jesus begins the Sermon on the Mount? With blessing. Blessed are the poor in spirit. Blessed are the meek.

Blessed are the peacemakers. These are the Beatitudes. And so from chapter 5, verses 3 through 12, that's what we've had in the introduction to the Sermon on the Mount. We've had a benediction. The next portion that we have of this sermon is an exhortation.

That's in chapter 5, verses 13 through 20. Jesus is calling us and directing us to do something. That's what it means to exhort somebody. You're delivering an imperative. You're telling somebody to do something.

So what is Jesus telling us to do in this sermon? How does he lay this out at the very beginning? Well, simply, I believe that the instruction is to be righteous. Jesus goes from the Beatitudes to say, you are the salt of the earth.

You are the light of the world. Let your light shine before men, so they may give glory to your Father who is in heaven. But then in verse 20, he says to be righteous. He says, I say to you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and the Pharisees, you cannot inherit the kingdom of God.

So there is a call to righteousness in this particular sermon. And then following that exhortation, there are two propositions. So it's kind of like a two-point sermon. And those propositions go from chapter 5, verse 21 to chapter 6, verse 34.

And we would see those propositions laid out this way. Number one, do not put your trust in your own morality. For you are not moral enough to gain righteousness to enter the kingdom of God. That's pretty much the rest of chapter 5.

And it concludes with Jesus saying, be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect. And then the second proposition, the second point that Jesus has following his exhortation, is do not put your trust in worldly things.

They will not get you into the kingdom of God either. In fact, the more you put trust in worldly stuff, the more you will actually just be filled with anxiety. It doesn't solve anything. It won't even give you any deliverance in the present.

So do not put your trust in yourself, and do not put your trust in the world. How is it then that we gain righteousness that we may enter the kingdom of God? It is a righteousness that comes not from ourselves, but comes from Christ.

So that's where Jesus is directing us to, that we would love the Father who gives us righteousness, imputing the righteousness of Christ onto all of those who believe in Him. So then we get to the implications of this.

Well, first of all, finishing those propositions in Matthew 6, verse 33 with this, Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you as well. So do not seek your own righteousness, seek the righteousness of Christ.

Do not seek the things of this world, seek first the kingdom of God. That's how Jesus responds to these two propositions that he's presented in this sermon. And then after that, we have the implications.

How does this apply to us now? And that's where we have started, jumping into chapter 7 last week. Chapter 7, verse 1 begins with, Judge not that you be not judged. For with the judgment that you pronounce, you will be judged, and with the measure that you use, it will be measured to you.

So remember, the call now has been to seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things, everything that you need, will be added to you as well. If we're seeking first the kingdom of God, who is judge?

Not you. So having just had Jesus say this in Matthew 6, verse 33, then we get to Matthew 7, verse 1, with Jesus saying, Judge not. Now, as we considered this last week, it's not that he's saying don't judge at all.

But if you have a righteousness that is not of yourself, you must also with that righteousness be looking at the world through those eyes. Do not think that you have a judgment that is in and of yourself that you know better than anybody else, and thus make yourself a hypocrite when you declare yourself to be righteous and you're trying to correct everybody else's unrighteousness.

But Jesus instead says to cleanse yourself of that hypocrisy. First take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother's eye. As we live as kingdom people in this world, seeking the kingdom of God and his righteousness, we want to help one another also to seek first the kingdom of God and seek the righteousness of God.

Hence, why we would be cleansed of any defilement and therefore be able to help our brother or sister in the Lord walk in righteousness. That's very simply the instruction that Jesus had been giving in that instruction about judging others, which we looked at last week, chapter 7, verses 1 through 6.

Now we get to this section. Let me finish up the rest of the outline of this sermon, though, before we zero in on verses 7 through 12. Regarding these implications, Jesus is talking about what it means to be a citizen of the kingdom of God in this world.

And the final portion of this sermon is at the end of chapter 7, verses 24 through 27, where Jesus concludes with an illustration. And that's the illustration of the wise man and the foolish man. And he says, Everyone who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house upon the rock.

If you do not do the word of Christ that we have heard in this sermon, you become like the foolish man who built his house on sand. And when the storms of life come and beat against that house, it collapses because it has nothing solid that it is standing upon.

And that is the righteousness of Christ and the promise of his kingdom to come. So once again, summarizing the outline of the Sermon on the Mount, we begin with benediction. Then Jesus gives an exhortation.

He follows that up with two propositions. And then following those propositions gives the implications, how we live that out in this world. And finally concludes with an illustration. Does that not sound like most sermons that you hear preached in Bible churches today?

Jesus sets kind of a standard or a pattern of good Bible teaching with the Sermon on the Mount. Now, if we were to read through all of this in one sitting, if I were to just stand up here and read to you the whole Sermon on the Mount, it would take me about 15 minutes, give or take a little bit.

I've done this before. That's about how long it takes. But we've not been reading it through just straight through like that. So we kind of lose the context sometimes. We've been taking this apart piece by piece.

What I plan on doing when we get to the end of the Sermon on the Mount is then reading the entire thing to you. And as you've heard it taken apart, those who've sat through this entire series, there are things that are going to sound amazing to you that maybe didn't pop as much when you had heard the Sermon on the Mount before.

And like I said, as I've been studying this and listening to other teachers teach it, Martin Lloyd-Jones, Dr. Albert Moeller, John MacArthur, and many others, I've had a deeper appreciation for this sermon than I've ever had before.

So we need to keep the context in mind of what Jesus is teaching on and what He's communicating to us. When we get to Matthew 7 -7, Why is the context of the Sermon on the Mount so incredibly important, especially when we're looking at Matthew 7 -7?

Because what do you have a tendency to do if you take this verse out of context? You have a tendency to believe that you can ask for anything and God will give it to you. But is that what Jesus is saying?

No. In fact, He's told us in the Sermon on the Mount what we're to ask for. He has told us in this sermon what we are to seek. And He has even told us what door we're supposed to be knocking on and it will be open to us.

Now there are plenty of false teachers who are going to take this out of context and you must be aware of that. That's why context is so important. That's why it's important to know what Jesus was talking about, what He was instructing us to in this particular sermon.

It's not just a CliffsNotes version of something that Jesus had taught and we're just kind of catching the highlights as though it were the Proverbs of Jesus outlined for us in chapters 5, 6, and 7. There's more to this sermon than that.

And even if this sermon as Jesus was preaching it was much longer than this, Matthew still has a very specific reason why he pulls together this teaching and abbreviates it in three chapters that basically equate to 15 minutes long.

We know the teaching was much longer than that because people sat and listened to Jesus and they got hungry. And He needed to then feed 5 ,000 people with five loaves and two small fish, right? So we know that Jesus taught longer than that, the sermon was likely longer.

But Matthew is giving us this sermon in this way because there's something specifically that we're supposed to understand. Don't start ripping verses out of context because then you fall into grave error like some of these prosperity preachers who will take, ask and it will be given to you and they will say, you should be able to ask for anything and you will have it.

There's a sermon that I have taken, I use this term sermon lightly, but there's a sermon that I've taken and had taken a piece out of it and had created a video from it and the sermon was preached by Joyce Meyer.

And Joyce Meyer says to the congregation, the massive gathering of people that are there, I don't know how many people it was, but you can tell by the cheering that it's thousands. She says to this people, you need to speak to your checkbook and tell your checkbook, you're not going to be empty for the rest of your life, you're going to be full of money and it will happen.

And the audience goes crazy and they cheer that she just told the audience, ask and it will be given to you. And after the people cheer, Joyce says, well, there's somebody out there that's going, oh, this just sounds like hokey, hocus pocus, like name it and claim it stuff.

I don't believe that. I don't believe that I can speak my checkbook and it'll have money in it. She says, well, fine, then be broke for the rest of your life. And everybody laughs and they start cheering again.

And then she takes a Bible story out of context. She pulls from Ezekiel, where Ezekiel spoke to a valley of dry bones, oh, you dry bones stand up and walk and the dry bones stood up and walk. And she said, you should do the same thing with your checkbook.

Oh, checkbook be full of money and it will be full of money. And some of these prosperity preachers will also take James out of context because James says you don't have because you do not ask. So one of these prosperity preachers will say, see, that's the reason why you don't ask.

That's the reason why you're in debt. That's the reason why all your hopes and dreams haven't come true. It's because you haven't asked. But if you go on with James, he says you ask and do not have because you ask wrongly to spend it on your passions.

That's not the part the prosperity preachers will read when they quote to you that verse from James. They just say you don't have because you do not ask. And these folks will say, ask and it'll be given to you.

Jesus said it. So if you ask for it, he's going to give it to you. But we know, as we've been reading through this sermon, that that's not the context of this passage. Jesus has already told us what we are to ask for when we ask of God.

What should you ask of God? Ask him for righteousness. Ask him, as we saw in chapter 6 in the instructions on prayer, that his will would be done on earth as it is in heaven and that you may see it. Give us this day our daily bread.

Right? My daughter was really excited about that. Give us this day our daily bread. Feed us spiritually and feed us with those things physically that we need. Jesus said in chapter 6 verse 8, the Father knows what you need before you ask him.

And so we are not to hide in our hearts those things that we desire from God, but we are to express ourselves before God. Ask the Lord for grace. Ask him for forgiveness. Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.

Ask God that you not be led into temptation, but that you would be delivered from temptation. You would be delivered from the schemes of the devil. Ask God for your basic needs, just as the Father knows what you need before you ask.

What are we supposed to seek? Jesus told us what we're to ask for. What are we supposed to seek? Well, we just read it in Matthew chapter 6 verse 33. Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things will be added to you.

Seek first God's kingdom. As Paul says in Colossians chapter 4 or Colossians chapter 3 verses 1 through 4, set your minds on things that are above where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Do not set your mind on earthly things, for you have died and your life is hidden with Christ and God.

When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory. We have a mind that is set steadfastly on Christ, and we seek the things of God. We seek the Father. Jesus has taught us in this sermon to call upon God as Father, and we talked about that where we saw, especially at the beginning of the Lord's Prayer, our Father who art in heaven.

That was revolutionary. That was a revolutionary teaching for Jesus to say that. The Jews were not calling God Father. We don't have a reference of people praying to God and calling him Father in the Old Testament.

It's not until Jesus comes and teaches that you can know God as Father. You are adopted into the family of God through faith in the Son, Jesus Christ. So seek God as your Father. Know that he gives good things to his children, mercy and love and kindness and forgiveness.

Sometimes God even hurts us, but it's for our good. I have a wonderful relationship with my dad. I have a great relationship with my father. Maybe you didn't have such a great relationship with your earthly father.

But I love my dad. I can call him up anytime. He calls me up a lot of times. I hate to have to tell him I'm busy. I wish that we could sit and chat for longer. He's got more time on his hands these days than I have on mine because he's 70 and he doesn't go to work every day.

He's an empty nester. He doesn't have children at home. That's part of the reason why he's calling his kids now. I'm lonely. What are you guys doing? What are you up to? But I've got a great relationship with my dad.

I was ordained here in this church 10 years ago this coming Saturday, August the 15th. That's my dad's birthday. I was ordained on my dad's birthday, and he was here and heard the sermon that I delivered at my ordination.

That was wonderfully touching to me. We didn't plan it that way. Pastor Nate, who was the pastor here at that time, he said, Hey, what if we do your ordination on August the 15th? I said, Well, that's great.

That's my dad's birthday. I'm going to call my dad. He's going to come. He was here for my ordination. That was a wonderful thing to be able to share that with my dad because I'm walking with the Lord today because of my father.

I have a wonderful earthly relationship with my dad, but the relationship that you can have with your earthly father is even better than the best relationship that you have on earth with your earthly father.

My dad loved me, but he hurt me too. I don't mean in that way like my dad was a disappointment to me. I mean that my dad disciplined me, and it hurt. To this day, it still haunts me when I pull my belt out of my pants too fast and I hear that sound of belt flying through belt loops.

I remember when my dad did that to me. The belt comes unbuckled. Pow! You knew by that sound that justice had come. But my father would discipline me because he wanted to lead me in righteousness. He wanted me to know this is wrong.

This is sin before God. This leads to judgment, and you must change your course. You must repent of your sin so that you would walk in a right way and you would know what's good and pleasing to God. My dad explained these things to me when he disciplined me, and I know that he disciplined me in love.

And our heavenly Father, whom we are to seek, likewise disciplines us in love. In Hebrews chapter 12, we are told that if God did not discipline you, you would be illegitimate sons and daughters. You would not be the children of God.

Why do you go through difficult things? Because God is teaching you to rely more upon Him. I had a very difficult conversation online earlier this week with a woman whose daughter was recently killed by a gunman.

And this conversation came because I said online that you truly know what it means to love when you can follow this instruction from Jesus Christ. Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.

And she wrote to me and she said, does that mean I even have to love this person who killed my daughter? And my heart broke for her and I said, I'm sorry. I'm sorry for this pain that has happened to you in your life, this injustice that has taken place.

But my answer to your question is yes, you must even love that person and desire that they would repent of their sin and know Christ and be forgiven for this heinous evil that they have done so they won't perish under the judgment of God but would live forever in heaven.

And she told me about certain passages of Scripture that she had been reading and I directed her to 2 Corinthians chapter 1. I said, read 2 Corinthians 2. See what Paul went through there and how he continued to rely on God, particularly there in 2 Corinthians 1 verse 9.

After Paul is referred to God our Father as the Father of mercies and the God of all comforts, he talks about the persecution and difficult trials that he went through and he said, we thought that we had received a sentence of death.

But then Paul says that was to make us rely not on ourselves. It was to make us rely more on God who raises the dead. The difficult things that you go through in life are to teach you to rely more on God.

That's the way Paul starts 2 Corinthians. Then you get to chapter 12 and he talks about a tormentor of Satan that had been given to him to humble him. Three times he pled with the Lord that this tormentor would be taken away from him.

Because remember the prosperity preachers say, ask and it will be given to you, right? Just ask and God will give you whatever you ask for. Paul asked three times for this tormentor of Satan to be taken away.

But God responded to Paul, my grace is sufficient for you. For my power is made perfect in weakness. And from there Paul said, then I'm going to boast all the more gladly in my weaknesses, in persecutions, in hardships, in calamities.

Because where I am weak, he is strong. Paul says, I do this that the power of Christ may rest upon me. So yeah, our heavenly father sometimes will hurt us, but it's for our good. And it's for his glory that we may rely more upon God who raises the dead.

Jeremiah 33, 3, call to me and I will answer you. And I will tell you great and mighty things that you do not know. Before that in Jeremiah 29, 13, you will seek me and you will find me when you seek the Lord with all your heart.

Isaiah 55, 6, seek the Lord while he may be found. We might understand that as while the desire has been put in your heart to seek God, seek him. Because if you don't seek God when you have that desire to seek the Lord, that desire is going to be gone and you won't even think about seeking God in those days and then it'll be too late.

Seek the Lord and when you seek him, you will find him when you seek him with all your heart. These are the things that Jesus has told us to seek for. Ask and it will be given to you. Seek and you will find.

How about knock? Knock and it will be open to you. What door are we supposed to be knocking on? Well, remember, seek first the kingdom of God. We're to be knocking on the door of heaven. And God has promised that if we knock on that door, it will be open to us.

He has promised that he will give us eternal life if we ask for it in Jesus' name. Ask of God. Seek the Lord. Knock. Desire fellowship with God. God, I want to come in and have fellowship with you. He will open the door and say, well, come on in.

Jesus will say, I've prepared a place for you. And we have fellowship with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus says, for everyone who asks, receives. And the one who seeks, finds. And to the one who knocks, it will be open.

This was revolutionary for Jesus to say this to his Jewish audience as well. Now think about what was going on in this part of the world at that particular period of time. And I've talked to you before about the different things that the pagans believed and about what they thought they had to do to get their gods to respond to them.

They needed to do something to appease their gods. And if they did the right thing, then that god is going to give me that blessing that I want. So say, for example, you've got a guy who's a seller of purple cloth.

And he is shipping his purple cloth from Ephesus to Athens. And he puts this textile of his onto a ship so that it goes over to Athens and it might be sold there. And he's going to make a lot of money from this.

So when he puts this thing on the ship to go over, once the ship leaves harbor, well, then he's going to go to the temple and he's going to pray to the god Poseidon. Because, hey, Poseidon, what do I got to do for you?

I got to appease Poseidon so that this ship will make it safely to Athens and I won't lose my cargo and my investment is going to turn into just this independent wealth. So he needs to appease his god in some way to ensure that his investment is going to turn into much more money.

And if he makes a lot of money off of that, then he's going to believe, well, I appeased my god and then that god blessed me. He didn't take my stuff away from me. He gave me more. Well, that's not too different than the way that the Jews believed about the true god, about Yahweh.

They believed that if Yahweh was going to give me anything, then I was going to have to do something to appease that god in order to get anything good from him. If a person is going through really bad stuff, then that's because God is cursing them.

They didn't appease God. That's why they're going through this bad stuff. But you look at the people who have all the richness and all the good stuff, well, they appeased God and God just poured out luxury on them.

And all this blessing, look at that. That's the way the Jews believed about God. And so for Jesus to say, everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and the one who knocks, it will be opened.

He was saying to the Jews, you don't do anything to appease God. God is your father. He loves you. What father who loves their kids isn't going to give good things to their kids? Right? That's even the illustration that Jesus gives here.

Go on to the next verse, verse 9. Which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? Now Jesus is using hyperbole here, but the picture is basically you've got a kid there who's hungry, and he comes with his plate to Dad, and he says, Dad, I want some food.

Give me some bread. And Dad says, what's the magic word? That's what you say first, because you've got to teach your kids to say please, right? Please, please can I have some bread? Okay, here you go.