Three Results of God’s Love
Matthew 7:7-12
INTRODUCTION
A. Ancient rabbi tale of selecting a spot for a temple.
1. Two brothers lived on adjacent farms, worked the fields and divided the harvest.
2. One season, after a plentiful harvest, the married brother sat with his family and thought about his lonely brother.
3. Decided to take his share and give it to his brother.
4. Single brother was also thinking about how difficult it was for his married brother.
5. Decided to take his share and give it to the married brother.
6. Place where they met was where the temple was built.
B. Jesus spoke of criticism in the previous verses.
1. Our criticism should not be unjust or self-righteous.
2. Jesus now talks about our relationships with other people, and they must be characterized by love.
3. This is the positive side of Jesus’ instruction to us.
4. The absence of hatred and ill will doesn’t mean we necessarily love them.
5. Love involves action and is shown in what we do.
IT GIVES US SUCCESS IN LIFE
A. What does Jesus say?
1. If we ask we will receive, if we look we will find, and if we knock it will opened to us.
2. Great and comprehensive promise.
3. We can feel free to love and sacrifice because of Christ’s love and because he has promised to meet our needs.
B. The example of our Heavenly Father.
1. He has expressed generosity to us in many ways.
2. Has sent Christ to pay for our sins.
3. He blesses us daily and will do so in eternity.
4. We can do for others without fear of depleting our resources since they are given by God.
5. We keep on asking, looking and knocking.
6. As we receive these blessings, we share them with others.
C. What should we pursue?
1. Wisdom and a greater fellowship with Christ.
2. Wisdom helps to discern and discriminate between right and wrong.
3. We receive such wisdom through prayer.
4. “If any of you lacks wisdom, let them ask of God, who gives to all people generously and without reproach, and it will be given to them.” (James 1:5)
D. The example of Solomon.
1. Given the throne of Israel and realized his awesome responsibility.
2. Prayed to God, “So give your servant a discerning heart to govern your people and to distinguish between right and wrong. For who is able to govern this great people of yours?” (I Kings 3:9)
E. Wisdom is needed because situations keep changing.
1. Technological advances that present us with new ethical questions (such as cloning and other ways for women to get pregnant apart from the husband).
2. Gene therapy can present us with many new and unanswered questions.
3. Imagine the books it would take to have specific rules for every new and developing circumstance.
4. We need wisdom for such as this.
F. We need to pursue fellowship with God.
1. God’s Spirit indwells us to encourage and strengthen.
G. These verses are not a blank check.
1. Promise is made to believers alone.
2. Primary focus in the Sermon on the Mount is to believers.
3. We must live in obedience, “Whatever we ask we receive from him because we keep his commandments and do the things that are pleasing in his sight.” (I John 3:22)
4. Our motives must be right, “You ask and do not receive because you ask with wrong motives, so that you may spend it on your pleasures.” (James 4:3)
5. We must be submissive to his will, “For let not that person expect that they will receive anything from the Lord, being a double-minded person, unstable in all their ways.” (James 1:7)
6. We must persevere. Keep on asking, seeking and knocking.
H. We make our requests known to God through prayer.
1. Not to be passive but active.
2. Do what we know his will to be while believing he will reveal more of it.
3. If we are asking for a job, we ought to be looking.
4. If we need food, we need to be working.
5. Believe that God sees our needs more clearly than we do and is far ahead of us fulfilling them.
I. Not knowing what to buy a spouse, child, parent or friend for Christmas.
1. May seem they have everything they need.
2. We are constantly tuned to any hints they may drop.
3. God knows our needs but it doesn’t relieve us from asking, knocking and looking.
IT MOTIVATES US TO BE LIBERAL IN OUR GIVING
A. Bible, “Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children; and walk in love, just as Christ also loved you, and gave himself up for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God as a frequent aroma.” (Ephesians 5:1)
B. God’s giving nature should be reflected in us.
1. Jesus uses an illustration of a father’s love.
2. Would not give a child a stone when he asks for bread.
3. What father would give a snake when a fish was requested?
4. Jews do not eat snakes.
5. Luke adds what father would give a scorpion when an egg was requested.
C. What is the situation for the lost?
1. They have no divine source to receive blessings from.
2. They have no promises of help from God.
3. God will give liberally to his children, and he expects us to give the same way.
4. Our God is not harsh, vengeful or stingy.
5. There are no limits to God’s treasure house.
6. There are no boundaries to his goodness.
7. If imperfect and human fathers will care for their children, how much more will our perfect heavenly father care for us.
IT INSPIRES US TO EQUAL TREATMENT FOR ALL
A. How we manifest God’s love.
1. When we treat others as we want to be treated (the golden rule).
2. Unbelievers have no capacity to do this for they have not experienced God’s love.
3. Paraphrase of the second greatest command that we should love our neighbors as ourselves.
B. Verse is called the Golden Rule.
1. One has said that it is “The topmost peak of social ethics…the Everest of all ethical teaching.”
2. Rule is not unique to the Bible.
3. Found in the literature of almost every major religion and philosophy.
4. Jewish rabbi Hillel, “What is hateful to yourself do not to someone else.”
5. Book of Tobit in Apocrypha, “What thou thyself hatest, to no man do.”
6. Confucius, “What you do not want done to yourself, do not do to others.”
7. Epictetus, Greek philosopher, “What you avoid suffering yourself, do not afflict on others.”
C. Jesus’ unique contribution.
1. States it in positive terms.
2. This makes the obedience more difficult.
3. In England a ruler is called a straightedge, so the verse becomes the straightedge by which we discern how morally crooked we are.
D. Since God treats all equally, we should too.
1. Sent his Son to die for all (not just one race, social class).
2. God’s love extends to all.
CONCLUSION
A. We will experience success, be liberal in our giving and treat all equally. Measure your love by God’s straightedge.
B. Group of students in an elementary school.
1. Teacher tells them to draw a straight line down the middle of the paper.
2. Teacher has to step out and the students begin to compare their lines.
3. Bicker over whose line is the straightest.
4. Teacher returns, and if she would take a straightedge, they would all be crooked.
