The Sermon on the Mount is an incredible guide to a “blissful state of life”—one filled with peace, joy, and meaning. It describes a person who is spiritually blessed, free from worldly anxieties, and able to live in harmony with others. But living this life requires divine grace, which we can only receive by diligently asking, seeking, and knocking.
Now, as you’ve pointed out, Jesus concludes this magnificent sermon by giving us two simple rules that summarize our duties:
- A rule for our relationship with God: Ask, seek, and knock (Matthew 7:7-11).
- A rule for our relationships with man: The Golden Rule (Matthew 7:12).
This structure is a perfect reflection of how the Bible always links our vertical relationship with God to our horizontal relationships with others. The “therefore” in verse 12 is a powerful connector, saying that because God is so gracious to you, you must be gracious to your fellow man. As Isaiah 1:15-17 and Mark 11:24-25 show, God will not hear our prayers if we have unaddressed conflict with others. Our relationships with others are a direct reflection of our spiritual state.
The Golden Rule: A Standard of Unselfish Love
The Golden Rule is a truly unique principle in ethics. While other philosophies and religions have put forth a negative version (e.g., “Do not do to others what you would not want done to you”), Jesus offers a positive command: “Whatever you want men to do to you, do also to them.” This is a revolutionary, selfless principle that goes against the very nature of unregenerate humanity.
Obeying this command requires a deep and personal application:
- Discern what pleases you: Stop and think about how you would like to be treated in any given situation. How would you like others to speak to you, or what would you appreciate them doing for you?
- Put yourself in their shoes: You can’t truly practice the Golden Rule without empathy. You must put yourself in the other person’s situation to understand what they need and how they feel.
- Act accordingly: Once you have discerned what is pleasing and put yourself in their situation, you must choose to act in that way.
This is a principle that must be intentionally and continually cultivated.
Application in the Home
Applying this rule at home—the place where our true spirituality is often revealed—can be truly transformative. For a husband, this means asking: “What would I want my wife to do for me?” and then doing that for her.
Consider the daily grind your wife faces: the laundry, the cooking, the cleaning, and the childcare, often with little rest or recognition. A simple act of service, like taking over a chore, preparing a meal, or putting the kids to bed so she can rest, can bring her immense encouragement and joy. It shows that you value her as a person, not just as a “working machine.”
When we live out this selfless love in our homes and in all our relationships, we are not just following a rule; we are reflecting the grace we have received from God.
What do wives want from their husbands? A husband comes home from a difficult day at work, having faced pressure, a bad boss, temptations, and a world full of sin. He expects his home to be an oasis, a resting place in the desert of the world. But what if he is met with a frown, a sorrowful face, and a litany of complaints? He would not want a home that makes him want to run away. Even if you have many problems, don’t greet him like Job’s wife. Welcome him with a smile and show him love. Men sometimes go astray and seek smiling faces elsewhere because they are constantly met with an angry, ugly face at home. We complain, but have we made our home a comfortable place for them?
In every area of life, we should follow the rule: “Do to others what you would have them do to you.“
Applying the Golden Rule
This rule applies to many areas of our lives.
Home and Family
- Wives: You want your husband’s love, so love him as you would want to be loved.
- Husbands: Do not push off your responsibilities to your wife, such as disciplining the children, only to hide behind the TV or your phone. Take an active role. It takes time to sit with your kids, talk to them, and discipline them. Don’t hide behind a screen, your work, or anything else.
- Parents and Children: If you have regrets about how your parents treated you, then do not repeat those mistakes with your own children. Do for them what you wished your parents had done for you. If only they had taught you, where would you be today? So, do it for your kids.
- Children: Some of you will be parents someday. When you have an eight or nine-year-old daughter, how would you want her to obey you? Remember how you behave—how you rebel, disrespect, and show ingratitude, sometimes making your parents cry. The avenging providence of God may make you drink all that bitterness when you become a parent. Your parents sacrifice so much for your future. They may stop you from doing wrong things, like misusing your mobile, TV, or online platforms. This is for your own good. They are acting as guardians, and sometimes they have to be like police, setting rules. When they do, how do you behave? The rule is, “Do to others what you would have them do to you.”
- Instead of getting irritated, you could say, “Dad or Mom, I don’t know why you are saying this, but I trust that you say anything for my good. So I will trust you, and though it is very difficult, I will submit to you.” That is what you would want your children to do, so you should do that for your own parents.
Church Life
- In church, we should not be selfish about our preferences, such as the color of the paint or the design of a building. Honor one another in love. If you want people to prefer your taste, you should prefer theirs. This simple act would resolve 99% of church conflicts. Instead of looking at things from our own selfish ideas, we should see the viewpoint of others.
Forgiveness
- How do you want to be treated when you ask for forgiveness? Would you want someone to say, “I’ll hold a grudge,” even if they say, “I forgive you”? Or would you want them to say, “I forgive you. I know it hurt me, but God has forgiven me so much that I will forgive you”? Remember that God has forgiven all your sins. Live with the joy of that forgiveness and be ready to offer it to others.
Work and Traffic
- Work: If you are an employee, how would you want your employees to be? To waste time and not work? Then, you should work for your manager, whether they are watching or not.
- Traffic: Do your driving habits reflect Christ? When someone cuts you off, do you yell and scold them? Do you ever stop to let an old lady or a woman with a child cross the street? We get angry when someone is slow, but perhaps they have a valid reason. We want others to understand us, so we should understand them. This command is so broad that it even applies to how we interact with our neighbors.
The Golden Rule as the Summary of the Law
Why should we obey this command? Because it is the summary of the second tablet of the Law. This is the whole point of all of Scripture. Matthew 7:12 says, “So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets.“
This is the whole summation of the Old Testament in terms of human relationships. In Matthew 22:39-40, Jesus states that the greatest commandment is to “Love your neighbor as yourself.” The golden rule is a remarkable summary of this, an abridgment of the duties demanded by the Moral Law. It gathers all that the Old Testament teaches about equity and justice between man and man into one concise maxim.
The primary trait of true love is that it seeks the well-being of its object. Selfishness, on the other hand, is only concerned with what it can get. The practical expression of love is following the golden rule. Love seeks to know what pleases your neighbor and then does that, just as you would want them to do for you. This covers the entire second tablet of the Law. James 2:8 calls it the “royal law.” Romans 13:8 and 10 state that love fulfills the law, for love does no wrong to a neighbor.
This is the whole reason for the whole revelation of God’s Word. It is wasted unless we are obedient to this. The commandments in Exodus 20, starting in verse 12—”Thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not steal, thou shalt not bear false witness, thou shalt not commit adultery, thou shalt not covet”—are simply a summation of, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” You don’t want them to kill you, steal from you, commit adultery against you, and so on.
This principle teaches us how to have a good conscience in all our dealings with people. For many things, the Scriptures give specific commands, but where we lack a specific command, we can fall back on this general rule and search our conscience as to how we would want people to deal with us in a similar situation. This will make us cautious of spreading rumors and cause us to treat others with the same courtesy and kindness we would wish to be treated.
This rule applies not only to giving but also to forgiving. As long as we are in this world, there will be offenses, and we will have a mutual need for forgiving and receiving forgiveness. Colossians 3:13 says, “Bear with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgive each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.” If we resent the idea that others should require flawless perfection from us, then we must not demand it from them. If we refuse to forgive those who trespass against us, God will not forgive us our trespasses (Matthew 6:15).
This rule is a summary of God’s Word and a condition for the fulfillment of God’s promises. The word “therefore” in Matthew 7:12 connects it to the previous verses, showing that God’s promise to give us what we ask for, seek, and knock for is contingent on how we treat others.
The Call to a New Heart
When we face a text like this, we should be driven to consider our depravity and our absolute necessity for forgiveness. If this is the standard of righteousness God requires, and if this is the law by which God will judge man, then every one of us must recognize the extent of our sin. Every time we have failed to follow the golden rule in any relationship—as a wife, a husband, a brother, or a neighbor—we have broken the entire second tablet of the commandments. How much forgiveness we will require for our sins at home, in church, and even in traffic!
If these things are sins, then there is one place we all must run: to fall at the foot of the cross, bathed in the blood of Christ, pleading for His forgiveness. Such verses can be the greatest blessing if they drive us to the cross and make us realize our poverty of spirit.
When we realize our great depravity and need for forgiveness and grace, we must also realize the absolute need for a supernatural work of God’s grace in our hearts. Without God’s grace, it is impossible to live like this in our fallen nature. This shows our desperate need for the work of the Holy Spirit.
The first table of the Law requires us to have no other gods and to love the Lord with all our hearts, but our hearts rebel and set up idols. The second table shows that our hearts are entirely selfish in our relationships with others. Man is a rebel to God and selfish in all his relationships with men. We deserve the wrath of God. What can change this wicked heart? Only the work of the Holy Spirit, who regenerates and sanctifies. The fruit of the Spirit is love, and love does not seek its own. The nerve root of selfishness can only be cut by the work of the Holy Spirit.
Only when we are led by the Holy Spirit and ask, seek, and knock will He give us the grace to change. Can you imagine what a home and a church it would be if this were the rule? It would be the next thing to heaven. If we just did what this verse says, there would be a great revival in our homes and churches.
Grace Reformed Baptist Church, Bangalore 