Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Welcome to Truth for the Journey from Clifford Baptist Church, 635 Fletcher's Level Road in Amherst. Please join us today as Pastor Jeffrey Campbell leads us in an in depth study of the Sermon on the Mount. Today's scripture is Matthew, chapter 7, verse 12. And the sermon is entitled the Golden Rule. If you have your Bibles tonight, Matthew chapter seven is where we're going to be at Matthew chapter seven. And every time a preacher says he's going to preach on one verse, he usually pulls more verses in.
[00:00:28] Well, tonight I'm going to preach on one verse, okay, But I will pour other verses in to teach through that. But our center focus tonight, Matthew chapter number seven, verse number 12.
[00:00:40] And I'm grateful for it as we begin or continue, excuse me, our study through the winding and the ending of a great sermon from Jesus and a great reminder to each of us as tonight, this is labeled by many as the Golden Rule.
[00:00:59] And many of you probably can recite it in some form or another, whether it's verbatim or whether it's translated into our own language, however we think about it. But what we're going to see tonight is that Golden Rule and how it applies to our lives. I want to start with a story that's adapted from Grimm's Fairy Tales, but it's about an old man, a wooden bowl.
[00:01:27] The grandpa in the family, he grew older.
[00:01:30] And as sometimes that is hard to do, Grandpa began to get age on him and he began to spill his food and he began to lose control of his hands because they, they shook. And as he was making a mess, there were times that his family would begin to scold him.
[00:01:50] And this sounds like a little bit like punishment, but they would, would make him eat alone.
[00:01:56] And eventually he was given a wooden bowl to eat out of. And his trembling hands would drop that wooden bowl and they gave him that wooden bowl so it would break. He would drop it, they'd pick it back up, clean it back up, scold him a little bit, but give him the wooden bowl back. And so as grandpa began day after day to eat those meals out of that wooden bowl, he continued to make the mess. But one day, his grandson was with wood in the wood shop and his mom and dad came out and asked their son, what are you doing?
[00:02:25] And his response was this. I'm making a wooden bowl so when you get old, you can eat alone.
[00:02:33] The parents quickly realized that that little boy was learning a lesson.
[00:02:40] And so tonight, when we recognize our actions are not what they should be, when we are not Doing unto others as we would have them do unto us.
[00:02:55] This little tale tells the story and it drives home the point tonight that we're going to look at as we look at this golden rule.
[00:03:05] Jesus calls it a summarization of the law and the prophets.
[00:03:10] And we have boiled it down to simply state, do unto others as you would have them do to you.
[00:03:17] I believe the world would be a better place if everyone followed this rule.
[00:03:24] But here's the reality. Everyone doesn't follow the Golden Rule. And so what we need to realize that this rule also reaches across boundaries of cultures and other beliefs. There are other belief systems that take this rule, but they look at it from the negative.
[00:03:42] For example, when we look at Judaism, here's what they say, what is hateful to you?
[00:03:51] Do not do to your neighbor. So do you see the negative? They start with a negative. What is hateful? Don't do that to your neighbor. Buddhism says this hurt not others in ways you hurt yourself or you yourself would find hurtful. Excuse me. Hinduism says, hurt not others with that which pains yourself.
[00:04:11] And so it is a golden rule. But it comes a little bit different flavor because it starts in the negative and encourages you not to do negative things to others.
[00:04:23] Where? When Christianity, in the Bible and what we're gonna see tonight, it does not start with the negative. It starts with you, and it starts, moves to others and how you desire to be treated.
[00:04:35] I can remember my grandfather, God bless him, Papa's been dead 12 years or so now, but I can remember as a little boy, he was trying to teach us this golden rule.
[00:04:47] But I can remember on that little farm, down 60, he, for some reason, this sticks in my head. He just says, there's coming a day where you're gonna have to hoodoo your neighbor before he hoodoos you.
[00:05:00] Now, I don't know how you hoodoo your neighbor, but what Papa was saying is things are getting bad.
[00:05:06] Things are changing.
[00:05:08] We're not taking care of one another like we should or like we desire to be taken care of. And so I'm grateful for that teaching and for that growing. And I don't know why that just sticks in my head, but it does tonight. What does it mean to live your life by the golden rule?
[00:05:27] It should be more than just checking a box.
[00:05:29] It should be more than just doing good things.
[00:05:33] It's a lifestyle that treats others far better than you would treat yourself.
[00:05:40] And so tonight, that is what we're going to look at today.
[00:05:43] It's more about knowing more than just knowing it. It's a call to live it out day by day. So I want to read Matthew chapter number seven, verse number 12.
[00:05:56] Therefore, all things, whatsoever that men should do to you, do you even so to them.
[00:06:03] For this is the law and the prophets. Let's pray. Father, thank you just for this night, God, I just pray, Lord, that you will move in such a way tonight, Lord, that you will impact the hearts of believers, Lord, that you will speak to us through your holy spirit, Lord, that you will guide our actions through from this day forward. That you will remind us, Lord, that we are to treat others the way we desire to be treated.
[00:06:29] God, what a witnessing opportunity, what an example that we could set.
[00:06:33] So, God, I pray that you move on our hearts and more importantly, move through our actions. Lord, we pray. We love you and we thank you, Lord, that you meet us here and we ask that you teach us now in Jesus name, Amen.
[00:06:49] Tonight there are going to be, I think, four points about this one verse. Four points. The golden rule, number one starts with you.
[00:06:58] And you may argue and say, well, Jeffrey, it says to treat others, or that's the way that we begin it. But it starts with you. As he is teaching how we are to treat others, he begins by saying that we need to treat others the way that we desire to be treated, that we would want to be treated.
[00:07:16] Go back to the beginning of this sermon in chapter number five. You don't have to turn there, you can just listen. But we understand that as Jesus begins the sermon, he begins with the blessed. Blessed are the peacemakers. You remember that, us going through that, right? He speaks about being angry with others and talking about our yes being yes and our no being no.
[00:07:37] He talks about loving our enemies and going the second mile. All, all of these are teachings in how we treat other people. And so the rubber stamp, maybe even you could call it a bookend on this sermon on teaching how to treat others, is this one verse that you need to treat others the way that you desire to be treated.
[00:08:01] Now, tonight, I want you to know that when we see this teaching, it's not a rule of thumb or just a good suggestion. It's how Jesus desires his followers to operate in this world.
[00:08:16] So if we don't start necessarily with others, it starts with you. It starts inside your heart. It starts with you as a believer, as someone who Christ has changed their heart and changed their life and taken the old man and the old woman and made something new out of it. And remember, Jesus is telling this crowd, this is how you need to operate when it comes to dealing with someone else, it falls on our shoulders. The responsibility does, as believers.
[00:08:48] And so how we treat others should be an overflow of how the Lord has treated us.
[00:08:56] So you just think about how good the Lord has been to us. And tonight we could call a timeout and we could spend the rest of the night praising God, how good he has been to us.
[00:09:08] And so the overflow of our hearts is just what the Lord has already done in our lives. He has showed us mercy and grace, which we do not deserve.
[00:09:19] And so he has treated us far better than we deserve.
[00:09:25] But when we think about this rule beginning with you, it must be rooted in the love that you have for Jesus.
[00:09:35] It's not just checking a box and doing a good thing. You know, I'm going to do a good thing for somebody because I want somebody to do a good thing for me. No, that's not the principle here.
[00:09:46] It's rooted in love of the Savior that is overflowing to someone else.
[00:09:53] So the driving point here, that it begins with you. So much of our society treats others the way that we have been treated.
[00:10:04] And we think about the hurt and the broken relationships.
[00:10:09] We think about excuses that we use.
[00:10:13] I've used them before. I was raised that way.
[00:10:16] Just because you was raised a certain way don't mean you got to treat somebody hateful.
[00:10:21] And just because somebody was hateful to you don't mean you have to be hateful to somebody else.
[00:10:26] And so this is what the world throws at us.
[00:10:30] It's almost like an excuse that we put off our actions and we excuse them away and we blame them somewhere else. When it starts with us, Jesus says very plainly in this rule, it starts with, with you.
[00:10:49] And I pray tonight that every one of your hearts is rooted in the love of Jesus.
[00:10:56] And out of that well of love, it overflow and it springs and flows to other folks.
[00:11:04] The second point is simply this.
[00:11:09] Before I move on, let me share these two verses with you. Matthew, chapter 5, verse number 44, says this.
[00:11:15] But I say unto you, love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you and persecute you.
[00:11:25] You remember that because we talked about that.
[00:11:28] And that's the center of that verse is you.
[00:11:33] You need to love your enemies.
[00:11:35] And so it begins with you. If you flip over to. If you want to, you can. Galatians, chapter number six, verse number ten says this.
[00:11:45] As we therefore, as we have, therefore, opportunity, let us do good unto all men, especially unto Them who are of the household of faith.
[00:11:54] And what a challenge, as we do unto others, all people, especially those in the household of faith. So tonight it begins with you. The Golden Rule has to have a starting point. It's rooted in love. It begins in a relationship with Jesus, us. But it should begin in the church house.
[00:12:18] When you, when you measure something, when you use a ruler for something, you have a starting point, you have a place to pull off of. And the Golden Rule should start with the people of God.
[00:12:32] It starts with you.
[00:12:34] Look at point number two, same verse.
[00:12:39] The Golden Rule ministers to others.
[00:12:45] There are times that we want to start with others to justify our action.
[00:12:50] Just think of our children. You know, when little Johnny hits somebody.
[00:12:55] Little Johnny hit me. So what did I do?
[00:12:58] I hit him back.
[00:13:02] Now that's due unto others as they did to you.
[00:13:08] That's not what Jesus is teaching.
[00:13:11] And if you can remember earlier on in the Sermon on the Mount, he tells us that we must be people who turn the other cheek in chapter 5, verse 39.
[00:13:25] But Jesus would say, what you want someone to do for you, you do it for them. So it starts with you, but it focuses on others.
[00:13:32] And you know, the King James here uses, in the verse number 12, it uses the word men. It uses the word them to refer to others. So as we look at who are the others, who does that refer to?
[00:13:47] Who are we supposed to treat? There's some people that think that this verse only speaks to those people that are believers. And I don't think that's true.
[00:13:56] That's not true.
[00:13:59] It's not limited to a specific person or people group. So who are the others? Who are we to treat like we want to be treated?
[00:14:08] Well, Jesus has talked about neighbors and enemies, and chapter five, we see that. But we can trace who wants to be treated or how we should treat others the way that we want to be treated by looking at what Jesus has already talked about. He's talked about others that aren't Christians.
[00:14:29] He's talked about others that are believers. He's talked about people that are in the faith and that are people that are outside of the faith. He's talked about friends, neighbors, neighbors, enemies. This is what Jesus has already covered in this sermon.
[00:14:45] And so others are not just Christians or fellow church members.
[00:14:50] They're not just people you know or that are in your circle or in your family.
[00:14:55] The word man here is talking about mankind or others and refers to any person.
[00:15:04] It includes a stranger, it includes an enemy, includes an unbeliever. And when we Think about this golden rule. We must look at ourselves and we must look at our actions, and we must look to treat others the way we desire to be treated.
[00:15:21] One of my desires for the culture of this church.
[00:15:26] Now, I'm talking five, 10 years down the road.
[00:15:31] I'm not talking maybe necessarily today, but I would like Clifford Baptist Church to have a culture that it doesn't strive for a title, but it strives to serve someone else.
[00:15:46] And so when we think about what that looks like, what does it mean? You can take tonight a greeter.
[00:15:55] You should not have to be on the welcoming committee to make somebody welcome at church.
[00:16:01] And if you see some new face, you shouldn't need Pastor John to tell you to shake their hand and welcome them to church.
[00:16:10] If I walked into a big building that's supposed to be a church with believers, I hope that I would not walk in that building and nobody say a word to me, because here's what's going to happen. I won't go back because I want to be welcomed.
[00:16:27] And so if I want to be welcomed, you don't have to put greeter on my shirt. I should be welcoming people in the church.
[00:16:34] And when we think about that title of deacon, I know we elect them every year, but that title of servant should resonate in every one of our hearts, whether you carry a title or position or not.
[00:16:49] And so tonight, when you think about treating somebody else the way that you want to be treated, I learned a lot from a lady that just passed away. We did our funeral this week. Pat Nash, many of you know her. She worked at the post office down here.
[00:17:07] And I kind of used this in the funeral. She dealt with people just like I deal with people.
[00:17:12] And I believe in a special way. She was a minister in our community, just like I'm a minister in this community.
[00:17:20] But she would always ask me this question, and I know it resonated within her job. And she probably used it every day and probably used it on every person. She simply asked me this, how are you doing?
[00:17:31] Have you ever asked anybody that?
[00:17:33] You really ask somebody that. We. We want them to say, I'm doing good, and we want to move on. We don't want to really hear their whole story, right? Do we really want to know how they're doing?
[00:17:43] Most of the time we just want to check on them. But Pat Nash would say, jeffrey, how are you doing? She had a spot up in the balcony. She. She was up in her age. She still climbed the steps. Her spot was right up there.
[00:17:55] But every time I Would shake hands with her. She said, how are you doing?
[00:17:59] And here's what I want you to know. We shouldn't be people that ask others that question.
[00:18:04] Not just in the church, but maybe in the line at the local grocery store. Or maybe you're at a ball game and you meet somebody. How are you doing?
[00:18:15] It's amazing the doors that the Lord will open up. And here's what I'm trying to tell you. We don't need the title of a deacon to serve the Lord or a. A greeter to welcome somebody to church. We don't need those things in order to treat somebody else the way that we need to be treated or we desire to be treated. One of the greatest strengths of a healthy church is not only when they reach inside, but when they reach outside of the church to other people. Now, listen, here's what I want you to realize.
[00:18:49] When you minister to others.
[00:18:52] I could show you how to do it. I could teach you how to do it. I got somebody coming this summer that's gonna tag team with me two days a week and kind of shadow me and see how I do it. I could do all. But here's the reality. The Holy Spirit's gotta lead you to do it.
[00:19:06] He's gotta be your teacher. I can't twist your arm. I can't make you. I can't preach hard enough to say this. The way that you treat others matters.
[00:19:18] And God needs to be the leader in that in your life to compel you to treat somebody else in a blessed way.
[00:19:28] And so, as we minister to others, I want to challenge you to let the Holy Spirit lead you. There are times I got back in the car and said, I probably shouldn't have done that, or I've made a fool of myself, or I made a fool of God.
[00:19:45] But more times than not.
[00:19:48] How you doing?
[00:19:50] Everything going okay?
[00:19:52] My name's Jeffrey. Your face looks familiar. You know, you tell somebody their face looks familiar. That's great. Conversation starter.
[00:19:59] The golden rule ministers to somebody else first. The golden rule. Point number three.
[00:20:06] It covers whatsoever the three words in the King James version that began verse number 12 or 4 words. Therefore, all things whatsoever.
[00:20:17] I know that is old, old Old English, but all things whatsoever. Those three words give definition to timeline and treatment of others.
[00:20:29] It's an inward look at our action. But I believe that every person in this room who knows Jesus who is saved has a gift that he has given them.
[00:20:42] And that gift is not for your own benefit, but to help others out.
[00:20:48] So that whatsoever covers our actions. And our words and how we use them in a way that ministers to others.
[00:20:58] Tonight, in just a few minutes, we're going to look at this. We're going to look at this prayer. Listen.
[00:21:03] And as we go through those names, there's a few things that you can say. You can say, yes, I'll commit to pray for them.
[00:21:10] And that's a wonderful thing. We need to do that as believers tonight. When you see a name here, you can say, I'll go to the visitation, or I'll go to the funeral, or I'll go to the. Send a card. I'll go to the hospital and visit. I'll go to the nursing home. You can say those things or you can say, that's the preacher's job, or that's somebody else's. That's the deacon's job.
[00:21:32] That's not my job.
[00:21:33] That's the two sides of the coin.
[00:21:36] If we desire a church that lives out the Golden Rule, we will look for those opportunities and we will look how we can cover the whatsoevers that God puts in our life.
[00:21:49] I want you to know one of the biggest blessings over the past two years are the people who prayed for Terri, for our family, who did not know us, but knew that Jesus could heal her, their whatsoever. The prayer that they prayed for someone that they didn't know taught me this, that you can tell a personal relationship with the Lord by how you treat somebody else.
[00:22:19] I can tell that. Now, you may call me a judge, you may call me some bad names, but. But I can tell somebody's walk with the Lord how they treat somebody else.
[00:22:28] Whatsoever matters, our words and our actions, the whatsoever we do to our neighbors, to that stranger, to that enemy matters.
[00:22:41] And so that Golden Rule covers all of those things.
[00:22:46] There's one more point, and that is this.
[00:22:50] The Golden Rule must be rooted in Jesus Christ.
[00:22:54] Just because you do something good for someone doesn't mean you're saved.
[00:23:00] There's a lot of good organizations, civic organizations, people that do good things.
[00:23:07] But Jesus is teaching that from an overflow of faith that you look past yourself to others, treating them how you desire to be treated.
[00:23:18] Jesus set the example by living by the Golden Rule.
[00:23:22] But the warning here is this. You can live by the Golden Rule and you can still miss Jesus.
[00:23:29] The end of this verse, Matthew 7, verse number 12, says this.
[00:23:36] For this is the law and the prophets.
[00:23:39] This one verse sums up the Old Testament law, the rules, all 600 plus of them, that define the law and the Old Testament.
[00:23:52] Jesus says this, this one rule is the summation of all of that.
[00:23:57] Matthew, chapter 5, verse number 17.
[00:24:03] Remember what Jesus says. He says this. Think not that I come to destroy the law or prophets of I come not to destroy, but to fulfill.
[00:24:13] And so when we think of one man that fulfills the law and prop the prophets, one rule that fulfills the law and prophets. I want to read one more verse from Galatians, chapter 5, verse number 14. Listen to this verse. For all the law is fulfilled in one word. Even in this, thou shall love thy neighbor as thyself.
[00:24:35] As this rule is a summation, not a replacement for the Old Testament or the word of God, Paul echoes that statement.
[00:24:44] And the center of that is love.
[00:24:47] The golden rule must start with you. It must extend love. It must look to Jesus, it must stretch to others. As you love yourself, you need to love others. Others. And so tonight, that's the lesson as we think about applying this to our life, applying this to our church's life.
[00:25:12] I know that me personally, I've been called to look within and how I treat others.
[00:25:21] But more importantly, how do I want to be treated?
[00:25:26] Jesus sets that example by forgiving and loving you and me and you and I need to extend that to every person we meet.
[00:25:41] That's hard, but that's the challenge.
[00:25:45] That's the golden rule.
[00:25:48] Let's pray.
[00:25:49] Father. Tonight, as I pray for our hearts, I pray for our church will begin to live this out day by day. God, I pray the golden rule will become a part of who we are, because of whose we are, Lord, that you will live in our hearts and you will live through us.
[00:26:14] God, I pray, Lord, for actions and words that match up who we claim to be.
[00:26:21] Lord, this is a call to action.
[00:26:24] And as we think about those others in our lives, God, I pray, Lord, that you are bringing to mind right now those people that fall in that category that are hard to deal with.
[00:26:37] Lord, whether that's at work tomorrow or we go home to that person, we see that person later on this week. God, I pray, Lord, that you will change our hearts, that we can treat others the way we desire to be treated, rooted in love and forgiveness.
[00:26:55] God, I pray, Lord, that you will help us. Extend that hand.
[00:26:59] Lord, we love you and we look to you tonight and thank you for what you're going to do. Lord, I pray the seed of the word has been sown. God, you will produce the fruit in Jesus name.
[00:27:11] Amen.
