Matthew 7:11

Matthew 7:11

In our text Christ tells us what we are to expect of God, in His treatment of us. There is mystery about God's nature; we cannot fathom it, and as God is thus mysterious, our kind Redeemer takes something that all men will know. He appeals to feelings that are lacking in very few human hearts. He goes to the love and care of parents for their child, and He says if you want to know how God feels towards you, and how ready God is to give you everything that is really good, here is something to go by. God feels towards each of us as a kind and wise father feels towards his child; and the difference is just this, that God, our Father in heaven, is infinitely better than the very best earthly father.

II. These points of superiority are so plain and simple that they need very little illustration. (1) For one thing, God knows what is good for us, as no human parent can know what is good for his child. (2) Another point in which appears the superiority of the great Father, to whom Christ points as above all earthly parents, is His power. He is able to do all He wishes. He has all power to give us all good things, to help and save. (3) Then God is always kind. There are unnatural parents; let us hope very few: "They may forget, yet will I not forget thee." (4) Our heavenly Father excels the best earthly one, in that He is always near; always within hearing; always within reach; never leaving, never forsaking; Father of the fatherless, Friend of the friendless; yea, "when father and mother forsake me, then the Lord will take me up."

A. K. H. B., Grave Thoughts of a Country Parson,1st series, p. 18.

I. Look first at the relationship of the father to the child. Christ takes as the basis of His argument the relation of the father on earth to the child on earth. Amongst all the affections of the world there is none like it, because this alone is free from the imputation or the suspicion of selfishness. Here, out of the wreck and ruin of humanity, there emerges this one affection, strongly triumphant amidst all circumstances that have tested it. This it is which is purest and strongest; and Christ says, "Even more than that is the love of the great Father towards you."

II. Can you not trust in the loving-kindness of God for that? Can you not believe that when He selects that title He is your Father, that He meant you to realize it, that He intended that you should not simply say it, but meant it to be a fact? Not alone are you to say that as there is a father in every human family, so probably there may be a fatherly feeling on the part of the great God in heaven towards His children. God rather wishes you to reverse the thought, and say that He gave you this in life, which is only a shadow after all of the fatherly relationship, that you might in that shadow learn the realities of heaven.

III. Therefore, also, we must learn to trust the wisdom of that parent. If we, as His children, receive sometimes in answer to our prayers that which we are tempted to think is a stone, we must learn to think that though the bread may be as hard even as a stone, it is still bread, sustaining bread; for we cannot doubt, knowing the Father's loving purposes, that His wisdom surpasses ours, and that He gives what we really need.

Bishop Boyd Carpenter, Christian World Pulpit,vol. v., p. 177.

References: Matthew 7:11. Clergyman's Magazine,vol. iii., p. 93; W. Gladden, Christian World Pulpit,vol. xxv., p. 200; J. Edmunds, Sermons in a Village Church,p. 128.