Jeff Garrison
Mayberry and Bluemont Churches
May 17, 2026
Matthew 7:7-12
At the beginning of worship:
How many of you remember the movie, Hoosiers?[1] I can’t believe it’s been 40 years since it was released. The movie starred the late Gene Hackman as Norman Dale, a former college basketball coach, banned from the NCAA. After a ten-year stint in the Navy, he’s given another chance to coach basketball, only this time for a small high school in rural Indiana. It’s 1951. A lot of the townsfolk question this new coach. Many want to fire him, but then he starts winning. The movie is about more than basketball. It’s about second chances. It’s about living out the Golden Rule. Coach Dale demonstrates this rule when he recruits Shooter, played by Dennis Hopper, to be his assistant.
Shooter had been a basketball legend at the school. But that was twenty years earlier, back in the 1930s. Now, Shooter drinks heavily. Everyone thinks the coach is crazy to recruit him as his assistant, including Shooter’s own son, one of the team’s stars. But Coach Dale, who had been given a second chance, believes Shooter deserves one, too.
The Christian Faith is about second chances. Through Jesus Christ, God gives us a second (and third and fourth and forty-ninth and four hundred and nineth) chance. God forgives us. We’re to forgive others. It’s that simple. We’re to offer second chances.
Before reading the Scripture:
As we continue through Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, we’re at the end of the main body of the sermon which began back in the middle of the 5th chapter. In 5:17, Jesus says he didn’t come to abolish the law and prophets but to fulfill them. In 7:12, after he gives the Gold Rule, he summaries what he’s been saying as containing all in the law and prophets. These two mentions of the law and prophet bookend the middle of the sermon.[2]
After this section, I’ll have two final sermons, to wrap up the closing of the Sermon on the Mount. In the ending of this chapter, Jesus provides warnings about what’s ahead.
In our text today, Jesus begins on a hopeful note, encouraging the disciples to come to God for their needs.[3] Jesus has already spoken about prayer in the 6th chapter,[4] but he revisits it here. Then, he ends by empowering them to make decisions about how to live well, a passage we know as the Golden Rule
Read Matthew 7:7-14
William Carey is considered the father of Protestant missionary movement. He left England for India early in the 19th Century, telling those seeing him off “to expect great things for God, and do great things for God.”[5] We depend on God for the strength we need to do God’s work in the world. In these six verses, we see both sides. We go to God for what we need, and then do God’s work through how we treat others.
Jesus begins with Ask. We can create an acronym from this first word. ASK: “a” for ask, “s” for seek, and “k” for knock. In three different ways, Jesus encourages the disciples to bring their needs to God.[6]
In the previous chapter, Jesus provides the Lord’s Prayer as a model. He also encourages us to make our prayers short and straight forward, without repetition. These guidelines still apply. We should know that God hears us. Prayer is not about our efforts, but about a gracious God who hears our needs and answers, giving us that which is good. It’s not about us laboring in prayer, but about God gracious giving.[7] That caveat of God giving good things provides a clue into those prayers not answered. God won’t give us that which is not good for us.
As Jesus has been doing throughout the Sermon, after he presents an idea such as us coming to God, he provides examples to help us understand. Here, he draws on how parents care for their children. A normal parent will not give a child something harmful, likewise God will also look out for our needs.
However, we learn something else about prayer. Not only should we bring our needs to God, but we also shouldn’t be ashamed for asking. Sometimes those who try to appear spiritual emphasize praising God over asking.[8] Or they suggest praising God is more godly or spiritual. But here, and throughout Jesus’ teachings, we’re invited to bring to God what we need.
After this reprise on prayer, Jesus jumps to another topic, the Golden Rule. It may seem disconnected. After all, he moves from prayer to our conduct. But understand there is a link. Just as God has been gracious to us, we are to be gracious to others.[9]
“Do unto others as you’d have them do to you.” With this simple rule, Jesus frees his disciples from having to depend upon experts to direct our behavior. In Jesus’ day, Jews consulted their rabbis for guidance.[10] Those in other faith traditions consulted sages, wisemen, or even astrologers, for advice. Even today, we often consult others about decisions we make. And that’s okay. But with this little saying, Jesus provides us a way to decide for ourselves how we should live our lives and treat others.
This teaching from Jesus isn’t anything new or novel. You find similar teachings in the Old Testament. Leviticus tells us to love our neighbor as ourselves.[11] But here, Jesus doesn’t say to love our neighbor or even our brothers or sisters. He says that we are to treat others (read all people) as we want to be treated.[12] In the Talmud, the Jewish rabbinical teachings of the day, we find: What is hateful to you, do not to your fellow man. This is the law. All the rest is commentary.”[13]
But the Golden Rule goes back even further. Confucius taught, “Do not do to others what you do not want them to do to you.” In the Buddhist scriptures, we have “a state that is not pleasing or delightful to me, how could I inflict that upon another?” And from the Hindu texts, “This is the sum of duty: Do not do to others what would cause pain if done to you.” Philosophers call the Golden Rule the Ethic of Reciprocity. Socrates taught five centuries before Jesus, “do not do to others that which would anger you if others did it to you.” [14]
And, of course, this saying has been reworded. Many prefer the parody, “Do to others before they do unto you.” Rest assured, such a saying has no scriptural basis in the New Testament.[15]Nor is it okay to investigate the past and do what others have done to you. That would be the ethic of revenge. Instead, Jesus draws on a principle already old, reminding his listeners what they should have already known. If you want to know how to act toward others, look inside yourself and think about how you want to be treated.
Much of scripture is about divine generosity, what God has done for us. Verses 6 to 11 deal with this, as well the forgiveness offered by Jesus. But for our faith to be real, it needs a humanistic element. Our faith should impact our lives, change us, and that’s where this rule should come into play. The rule is not solely the domain of Christians, but that’s okay.
Those of us within the Reformed Tradition, like Presbyterians, believe God gives two kinds of grace. There’s the saving grace of Jesus Christ, but there’s also common grace, given to all people to help us get along with one another.[16] With the Golden Rule being common across religious and philosophical lines, it would be an ideal place to begin a dialogue with those of different faiths. It’s a rule almost all people agree with, but do we live it?
Living by the Golden Rule can bring a bit of heaven down to earth. It will not help us be saved, for Jesus did that for us on the cross. It’s not going to get us a better room in heaven, for we will all be equal there. But it will help the world be a better place. So, think about how you’d like to be treated. And treat others that way. And if that’s too hard, ask God to show you the way. In the end, we’ll all be better off. Amen.
[1] The movie was released in 1986. The script was written by Angelo Pizzo and directed by David Anspaugh. The story was inspired by the Milan High School surprise win in the 1954 Indiana State Finals over Muncie, a much larger school.
[2] Douglas R. A. Hare, Matthew: Interpretation, A Biblical Commentary for Teaching and Preaching (Louisville, KY: JKP, 1993), 81.
[3] Jonathan T. Pennington, The Sermon on the Mount and Human Flourishing: A Theological Commentary (Grand Rapids, Baker Academic, 2017), 264.
[4] See https://fromarockyhillside.com/2026/04/12/jesus-teachings-on-piety-and-prayer/
[5] Hare, 79.
[6] Fredrick Dale Bruner, The Christbook: Matthew 1-12 (1990, Grand Rapids, Eerdmans, 204), 342.
[7] Bruner, 343.
[8] Bruner, 344.
[9] Bruner, 346.
[10] Bruner, 346
[11] Leviticus 19:18.
[12] Bruner, 347.
[13] Talmud, Sabbat 31a.
[14] For a listing of various forms of the Golden Rule, see https://www.goldenruleproject.org/formulations
[15] While you have the “eye for eye philosophy in the Old Testament (Leviticus 24:20), Jesus has already reinterpreted that teaching in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5:38-39.
[16] See Richard J. Mouw, He Shines in All That’s Fair: Culture and Common Grace (2001).