The Mount No.22 The Golden Rule-2

Here is our Lord Jesus in that great Sermon on the Mount, setting this superb ethical teaching down for his disciples and for all of us to act upon. Matthew 7, Do not judge, for you too will be judged. For in the same way as you judge others, you will be judged.

And with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, let me take the speck out of your eye? When all the time there is a plank in your own eye. You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye.

Do not give dogs what is sacred. Do not throw your pearls to pigs. If you do, they may trample them under their feet, and then turn and tear you to pieces.

Ask and it will be given to you. Seek and you will find. Knock and the door will be opened to you, for everyone who asks receives, he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks the door will be opened.

Which of you, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him? Join me in the final verse. So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the law and the prophet. Shall we pray together? Heavenly Father, we thank you for the beauty of this spring day, for the warmth of the sun, for the loveliness of our south downs and the sea here at Worthing, for the blossom with its promise of autumn fruit.

Gladness fills our hearts when we contemplate the abundance of your gifts, the overflowing fullness of your love, for you are the fountain of life, and all the things of fragrance that are in us as part of your creation grow and blossom in your care and testify to your dwelling in our souls. We thank you for our presence here this morning, for bringing us together as a family in a place where we can take shelter and share with each other the everyday troubles of the outside world. We thank you for our guests and visitors this morning, and we ask that they will feel comfortable and at home here at the Taub.

Father, we ask you to bless those who have found the courage to come here of their own volition, for we know that they are called by you to believe and to follow in the footsteps of the Lord. We pray for those who are troubled and distressed for whatever reason, and ask that they will find a faith so strong that they will believe in all your creative power to bring life and to preserve and to protect those for whom you have a special purpose. We thank you for our older folk, and for the fine example which they set us in their Christian lives.

Minister to their special needs, Lord, as they deal with the difficulties which come with advancing years. We pray for those recently bereaved, and ask for your special comfort in their lives at this time, and we think especially of Judy Jarvis, and ask that you will minister to her needs as she recovers in hospital. We pray for all the sick, and for those in constant pain and discomfort.

Touch their hearts, Lord, with the knowledge of your unbounding love, and make this day a good day for them. We want to thank you for our young folk, and for those who are new to the Christian faith, and we ask for your special blessing on those who are preparing today for baptism. We pray for our Bible classes, and for our youth groups, and for all the activities of the church throughout the coming week.

We pray for those who are in the front line of evangelism, those who are out in the mission field, and we especially think of those who are in Pakistan in troubled times out there at the moment. Lord, we ask for your protection. We ask for your caring hand to be upon them.

We think also of the many mission organizations from OM and all its projects through the Mission Aviation Fellowship in Africa, and the African Inland Mission, all working, Lord, to bring your word to people in need, and we ask, Father, that they will be made powerful by your Holy Spirit in all that they do. We bring our government before you, Lord, and ask that you will give them wisdom in our present difficulties. We think especially of the effects of high interest rates, together with the new poll tax and the burden which this has placed on young couples and on single-parent families and the less well-off.

We pray for those who now face repossession of their homes, or even bankruptcy, and all the loss of human dignity and hardships surrounding those circumstances. We ask you, Lord, to rebuke the moneylenders who flood our mail with offers of more and more credit, and lead people into debts which burden them for life, and sometimes lead them to despair and even suicide. Help us as a nation, Lord, to honor your name by careful attention to the administration of the rich resources you have given us.

Help us to be mindful of that loving, saving redemption, to acknowledge your power and your majesty, and to share your loving provision with those in need, not just in this country, but around the world. We pray once again for the protection of the unborn child, and we ask for wisdom in the debate on embryo research. Lord, we spend so much time consuming to live and living to consume that we cannot see how fast and busy we are in the task of destruction, never looking back and never caring as the joy of mankind is withered away.

Lord, we have no right to interfere in the work of your creation, and we cry out to you to stop this desolation and enlighten the hearts of those who are involved, like a dawn of justice spreading across the mountains, an unbeaten army which cannot be faced. Help them to understand that what is seen is not made of what is visible, but was formed at your command, and that we can be sure of what we hope for, not by scientific research or by interference, but through the promise of eternal life in Jesus Christ. Lord, we ask that you will bless our hearts now as we continue to worship you in song and in prayer this morning, and we thank you that we have this special knowledge of your unfailing love.

Bless Tim as he ministers in Eastbourne, and we ask that you will now bless Tony Sargent as he ministers to us here from this beautiful Bible passage, and we ask that you will strengthen us so that we can live each moment in our lives in the coming week filled with joy and certainty and in ways which bring glory to your precious name. All these things we ask in the name of our dear Lord Jesus Christ, amen. Let's turn in the word of God to Matthew's Gospel in chapter 7. And with your hand in that page, let's turn on as well to the 22nd chapter of Matthew, and let me supplement our earlier reading with further verses that throw light and commentary on our Lord's teaching.

Matthew 22 and verse 34. Hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, the Pharisees got together. One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with the question, Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the law? Jesus replied, Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.

This is the first and greatest commandment, and the second is like it. Love your neighbour as yourself. All the law and the prophets hang on these two commandments.

Now back to Matthew 7 and verse 12. So in everything due to others, what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the law and the prophets. There's a lovely instructive passage of scripture in the 6th chapter of Deuteronomy which speaks of a habit that the Jews of the Old Testament engaged in, which I'm not literally suggesting we adopt, but the principle which is there is one that we ought to seize on to.

You will discover references made to the giving of the law and the enthusiasm with which the Jews received it, to the extent that they would bind passages of scripture around their arms, amulets, and they would bind passages of scripture around their ankles, and also bind them across their foreheads, phylacteries, and as they walked down the lanes they would be giving public testimony to the fact that the law of God was directing the way their hands operated, the path down which their feet trod, the thoughts their minds negotiated. Now what I'm suggesting is that we're looking at such a great verse of scripture that at least in principle the Old Testament practice ought to be applied to it, in everything due to others, what you would have them to do to you, for this sums up the law and the prophets. Here's a controlling scripture that is to guide the way your hands act, the way your feet walk, what your mind takes in.

This is known as the Golden Rule. I tried to find out why, and my researchers indicate this, that there was a Roman emperor who lived after Constantine, and he too had become a Christian, and around one of the rooms in his palace he'd had emblazoned in gold these particular words of this rule, in everything due to others, what you would have them to do to you, for this sums up the law and the prophets. Here is gold, refined in the fires of heaven, for you and for me.

Here is the rule of conduct for life that we as Christians are to practice, are to implement. Now remember, this is coming towards the end of our Lord's great statement which we call the Sermon on the Mount, and we have to realize that he is setting up the behavior patterns that are to describe Christian people. There are certain things that he says that are almost astonishing, some things that are exceptional.

For instance, the sixth verse of the seventh chapter, do not give dogs what is sacred, do not throw your pearls to pigs, that's the exceptional. But here is the rule, here is the regular way that you are to live out your life in everything due to others, what you would have them to do to you, for this sums up the law and the prophets. Here is wisdom which would set aright the problems between the Chinese in the Republic of China and the Chinese in Hong Kong.

There would be no fear amongst them as to what the mid-1990s would bring if this maxim was worked through. Here is the solution to the difficulties of facing Nelson Mandela and also Chipotlezi and the white regime of South Africa. Here is wisdom that resolves at a stroke the problems that beset us in Northern Ireland.

Here is wisdom that will set your marriage relationship in order. Here is the controlling factor between you and your classmates when you go to school. Tomorrow or to college as the case may be.

Why is it that we've had this wisdom for so long to bind on our wrists and on our ankles to have deeply written into our minds and yet we have for 2,000 years failed to live by it. Well we have to examine these problems in a moment or so. I was amused in one sense earlier on in the week having slipped to take the Daily Telegraph as against the Independent because they'd run out of my preferred paper to read of some poor lady who had great relationship problems as far as the person alongside her in a block of flats was concerned.

Her difficulty was snoring and it was really putting the other occupant of the adjacent flat through purgatory. So there was a legal case and the solicitor of the defense said snoring is as natural as the sound of the wind in the trees. There's nothing that anybody can do about it.

The prosecution on the other hand said that snoring is on a par with pneumatic drills, crowing cockerels, organ grinding and loud party music. The action was brought under the noise abatement legislation. It's daft when you consider that the simple solution was just £1,500 spent in sound insulation and then the case folded.

I use it as an absurd illustration however to underline a very important point that the problem that besets human beings like ourselves at a national level or at an individual level is this whole business of relationship. The greatest problem on earth for the majority of us is another person or other people. Well here our Lord addresses this whole dilemma of how to get on with folks in this rule, this golden rule.

Now I've tried for a long time to try and break it up into some sort of alliteration so that I could send you off with three points humming in your mind but it's defeated all my ingenuity. So what I want to do is just to break it open naturally and bring first of all some general observations about this. Look at the verse again in its context.

Those of you with the authorised version, it starts off with the word therefore. Those of us with the NIV, the scripture repeated or put out in our notes and news, it starts with the word so. And those of you who remember your English grammar lessons will recall that these words are words of conjunction.

They link what has gone before with what is to come and so here is our Lord as he sets down this golden rule, this rule for life and for practice links it into all that he's been teaching before. In the earlier verses of the seventh chapter he's been talking about judging and about our reticence or what should be our reticence to judge one another. He's talked to us in earlier verses about the way our behaviour is to be controlled by the ethics of the kingdom.

But the problem is it's easier for him to teach it than it is for us to practice it. Not so? And that's the reason why and I don't think he was going out on a tangent from the seventh verse through to the eleventh verse. He talks to us about prayer.

Some of the commentators who confuse me utterly at this point think that verse 12 is not really connected with what is immediately preceded but it seems to me just applying simple logic it must. My great difficulty is not to judge other people. My great difficulty is not to engage in unrelieved worry.

My great difficulty is to be so concerned with the material things I forget the importance of the spiritual. So what does Jesus do prior to putting down the golden rule? He tells me about father. He tells me about the willingness of father to respond when I knock on the door to open and have me enter.

When I seek for his willingness for me to discover the objective of my request. When I ask for him as a tender-hearted being to grant me my desire. Now I need his help to be able to live in the way that Jesus is telling me I ought to live.

And he has therefore reminded me as he did earlier on in the fifth chapter about this great father to whom I can direct my prayers. So I ask. I knock.

I seek. Therefore so as a result of this in everything you do do to others what you would have them to do for this sums up the law and the prophets. In other words to get this golden rule worked out in your life.

You need constantly to be coming to father to ask him. This is what makes it so utterly absurd when people speak of the golden rule in such lofty terms and think of it theologically just like turning over a new leaf. You know live by the golden rule.

I like the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus was doing a cracking good job there on the seashore of Galilee. But don't give me the epistles and the law and all that rubbish.

Let me just have the ethics. But you see all that that is referred to as rubbish which explains the way to the father is the presupposition behind the teaching of our Lord. Unless you know father at a perpendicular level you'll never get relationships right at a horizontal level because it's the horizontal he's referring to in this conduct isn't it due to others as you would be done to yourself.

Now I say that it is impossible for you to live like that unless first of all you've come to father and discovered who he is and what he's done for you. It's that that will give you the stimulus to be able by the help of the Holy Spirit to act in keeping with this glorious golden rule. You see this rule is not just a conjunction that adds on to what has gone before.

It's the application and the comparison of the of the character of a member of Jesus's kingdom over against other people. You see our Lord Jesus is not just a theorist is he. He doesn't just engage in words.

He's a pragmatist. He's a practical man. He sets down his teaching because he wants to show amongst those who've accepted it that there is a distinction in the way that they live and in the way that other people live.

So he says well listen to what I'm having to say and here is a summary of it all. As a result of what you've learned for me do to others what you would have them to do to you and that's not how people were living in Palestine in those days. You see not only is there application here but there's comparison.

Who were the people who knew about right living? Well we've mentioned this because it's a pivotal verse on many an occasion before both myself and Tim. In the 20th verse of the fifth chapter I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven. Remember it's a mixed congregation.

It's in the open air. There are these teachers of the law. There are these scribes and Pharisees.

What were they an expert? What were they? What was their expertise? Well you say it's answered in the question the law. Yes. Now what is Jesus commenting on here? He's commenting on the law.

He's giving you a summary statement of what the law is. These were people who were recognized by the ordinary folk as being those who were authoritative in their understanding and their teaching on the law and Jesus is time and time again spotlighting them and saying you have got it wrong. Indeed he says unless your lifestyle is improved on by people who follow me the latter will in no way enter the kingdom.

Jesus is using a contrast you see. These legalistic men they use the law in a negative fashion but Jesus is saying that's the wrong way to use the law. God didn't give you the law as some stern taskmaster so that you did it in a negative fashion for your own good.

The law is for the good of everyone. You keep the law not just for yourself but for the benefits of human society. Now you see how wonderful the teaching of our savior is therefore at this point.

Do to others not just a meticulous observance of the law so that in some way you'll make yourself right before God but have in mind the well-being of other people. Let that fashion your attitude which will make a lot of difference if we work through what our Lord teaches us won't it in the area of human relationships. So I say by way of general observation this statement is to be seen in conjunction with everything else our Lord has taught.

It's one of application. It's one of comparison. And indeed it is the praise of all that the Old Testament has had to teach us about behavior.

Now this is the reason why I want to take you through into Matthew chapter 22 where our savior again is saying something that is in the same context. He's been asked as to what the greatest commandment is and in the 37th verse of that chapter he says love the Lord your God with all your heart with all your soul and with all your mind. You see he erects the perpendicular and then he goes on.

There's another commandment. It's like it. It's the second commandment.

Love your neighbor as yourself. Now it seems to me if you like that that's a summary of the summary. Here is the general summary as you would that men should do to you.

I quote the authorized version do you also to them. That's a summary of all that Jesus has been teaching on the Sermon on the Mount. Now here is a further praise to you of that summary.

Love your neighbor as yourself because that's what the golden rule is all about. Not so. Now here is Jesus putting on the bottom line once more.

This in effect is the law and the prophets. All that the Old Testament scriptures have revealed about conduct can be reduced to this summary statement. So our Lord is in no sense putting a line through the Old Testament.

He's summarizing the Old Testament and he's correcting the wrong conclusions of the teachers of the law in the earlier passages in his teaching as he says in verse 21 of chapter 5. You have heard that it was said but I say unto you. Verse 27. You have heard that it was said do not commit adultery but I tell you.

Verse 31. It has been said anyone who divorces his wife but I tell you. Again and again he's going into the Old Testament and he focuses the understanding of those who are listening to him and then he reduces it all to a summary and he says all those Old Testament rules and regulations they can be grasped in terms of this single statement.

The golden rule. Now I remember reading the journal not that I often do this it was just accidental on my part being in the reference library the Journal of the British Humanist Association a couple of years ago and if memory serves me right they were actually dealing with believe it or not the ethics of Jesus and the essay claimed this that nothing that Jesus actually taught ethically was sensational. It was not new.

It was not novel. He had in effect gone into older literature and he had quoted and revamped the Greek philosophers and also the Hebrew philosophers and in some ways they were quite right because you find other presentations of the golden rule in secular philosophical literature. You find it amongst the Greeks, amongst the Stoics, amongst Confucius, amongst Epicetus.

You get it with Hillel who is a great rabbinical teacher in Judaism and he says what is hateful to yourself do to no other. That is the law and the rest is commentary and there's another Jewish writer another Jewish book called Tobit in which the hero of the book gives this advice. What thou hatest thyself do not do to any man.

Well then what is Jesus's outstanding contribution? Well if you listen to those quotations and I took you to the Greek into the Hebrew context not just to enlighten you intellectually but to sharpen the contribution that our Lord has made. If you listen carefully you will discover that they always put it in a negative. Do not do to others what you don't want to be done to yourself.

In other words in a scheming fashion work through what it is that you would that what you want them to do. It's all negative, it's all legal but when our Lord makes this great pronouncement the golden rule he does it in a very positive fashion. What you're thinking about first and in a primary fashion is other people.

It's not yourself there's no negative here it's a direct gracious statement in everything do to others what you would have them do to you. What do you think other people might like? What do you think hurts other people? Well maybe they get hurt if someone talks about them so you will not talk about them in a mean spiteful way. What hurts other people? Well when they're exploited.

When as was prayed feelingfully a little while ago that they're duped into taking on more mortgage or more debt than they can really afford if anyone can ever afford debt. Now you work out what hurts what injures other people says our Lord Jesus and having worked that out then you don't engage in that or put it on the put it in a reverse fashion. What helps other people? Well don't you think people would be helped if they were encouraged and not criticized? Don't you think other people would be helped if you took what was yours and and shared more of it with them? Don't you think other people would be helped if you passed on the kindly word and showed that you really did have a concern for them? Isn't this the the sort of milk of human kindness that ought to flow like rivulets around the globe but it doesn't? But you know full well that this is what ought to happen.

This is what would be helpful to people. Now says our Lord Jesus in effect make a list not negatively make a positive list and you go and do that and this of course is all very wonderful isn't it? This is precisely how we ought to be living and you can see as a result of this the great distinction between the teaching of our Lord Jesus and the teaching of anyone else in terms of behavior patterns. It was well illustrated by an American preacher.

I was reading his a book by this this man on the Sermon on the Mount on on Friday and he takes us to a to a classroom situation and the teacher has got rid of all the rulers for a while and she gives out some chalk to the boys and girls in the classroom and they're each one invited to come and draw as straight a line as they can and some of them seem to be very good others are fairly hopeless crooked curved the lines and then the teacher provides the rule and she puts the rule alongside and even the best attempt is shown to be defective. Now that's precisely the way that you and I look on the Sermon on the Mount and this golden rule. This is the straight edge.

This is how God wants you to live. Every other attempt is isn't in effect a distortion. It's it's imperfect but but this is the way to conduct human relationships.

This is the mind of God revealed to us through our Lord Jesus in everything due to others as you would have them done as you would have them do to you. This sums up the law and the prophets you see in the Old Testament scriptures just to amplify a statement that I made a little earlier that our Lord is not contradicting the Old Testament but sharpening it. The Old Testament scriptures in the book of Deuteronomy there are some very practical instructions given.

A man loses his ox or his donkey. Well what do you do? Are you not responsible? The dumb animal is going on its own way as a result of someone else's evil or as a result of the man's carelessness. You didn't contribute to it yourself so you're not to blame if you sit down on your bottom and you do nothing.

No says the Old Testament law that's not right. If that was your ox if that was your donkey putting it into a modern setting if that was your means of livelihood what would you want other people to see to do if they saw that this was all flowing away from you? You would want them to act wouldn't you? Now this is what Moses is saying and here our Lord is taking the Old Testament example and he's praising it and making this grand summary statement. You and I as members of his kingdom are to be people of initiative.

Our ethics are never negative. They're always positive. You know that adage it's not in the scriptures as far as I know that evil prospers when good men do nothing.

It seems to be that there's wisdom in that and it's quite right. You see you may not contribute towards the evil in as much as you're not responsible for it. You weren't responsible for these crowds in Trafalgar Square last night and this great blot on British behaviour patterns which has now been broadcasted around the world.

But there were underlying reasons behind all this. I'm not excusing the anarchists but there is a great deal of dissatisfaction in our country. Some people are being very savagely hurt by more recent legislation.

Now what do we ask Christian people to do? Nothing? We didn't contribute towards it? And no that's never the attitude of the Christian citizen. He does not use his pulpit in any way to propound a particular party line a particular philosophy but if he or she sees something that is wrong through the channels that are open to them they make their protest in a positive fashion. This is wrong Mr MP.

These are the underlying reasons behind this tendency in our nation. You have got it wrong and we are telling you as people who put you there into Parliament that we do not like the way that some of this legislation has come about. Evil prospers when good men do nothing.

And the thing that is so contrasting about the life of our Lord Jesus is that he was never, hear me carefully, negatively good. You say what you mean. All right let me give you an illustration.

Here is our Lord before the beginning of time and although I don't understand this context of scripture in principle I have a smattering of comprehension. The Lord God projects what will happen if he makes man in his own image there will be a tremendous fall. There will need to be a recovery plan instigated to redeem men and women so that eternally they can be with God.

And you find that in the eons gone by the son says to his father when the cry goes up whom shall I send and who will go for me who will be the deliverer. The second person of the Trinity says here I am send me. That's not negative goodness that's active goodness.

And it's this don't you see that's encapsuled in the life of our Lord Jesus that he now projects in his teaching so that it is to be picked up by all the citizens of the kingdom not just negatively good but positively good. That's the pivot of the golden rule is it not. Do unto others as you would have them do to yourself.

Work through what are those things that will be pleasing and helpful and healthful to people and engage in them which is precisely what our Lord does. He's the classic illustration of his own ethic is he not. He's always taking the initiative.

He sees the man with leprosy. He sees the beggar. He sees the disciples whose feet need to be washed and it's Jesus who's the prime mover.

That's what the Lord wants of us. Never would he allow people to come into such a church as this and merely listen to a sermon. He's not a theorist alone.

He does not just engage in theory. He's a pragmatist and he wants the people of the kingdom to be pragmatists. Don't let your righteousness be like the righteousness of the scribes and the pharisees.

Why not? Well they were good people by and large. But they sat back. That they didn't do this and they didn't do the other and they didn't do the latter.

And at the bottom line they felt they were all right before God the Father. And Jesus says no. That's pure negativism.

You have to be engaged in doing. In being. That's why he teaches this golden rule.

And if you say well I can't do this. Well he wants since you're right of course you can't do it. This is an absurd statement.

There is nobody here in the tabernacle. No one who hears this tape who can put into practice of their own initiative. This great golden rule which would resolve all the problems throughout Africa and our world.

This is why you see our Lord puts a little caveat in his teaching. And he says ask and seek and find. And the directive is to the father.

And the father is the one who sent the son. It's the father who grants forgiveness. It's the father who who makes it possible for for you to enter into his family by his grace.

Now father who has done all this for you will send his spirit into your life. So that you will become more like his son. Because his son is the only one who can keep the ethics of the sermon on the mount.

You can't do it on your own. This is not a political statement to be led read by the Labour Party. The beginning of their assemblies as used to be the case.

Or the ANC in South Africa as used to be the case. I have no objection to them reading scripture. But it's not a political statement you see.

It's an ethical statement. And the presupposition below this statement is God. God the father.

Know him. Recognize who you are in his sight. Recognize what he has done for you.

What he has saved you from. Be filled by his spirit. And then on that basis implement the golden rule.

And make the first thing that you do in the morning. I'm being serious. Betesting yourself in terms of what the Lord expects of you.

Today. My troublesome neighbor. My difficult partner.

My closest friend. Those squabbling kids. The predicament that so many people have brought to me.

Bring them the whole thing into the perspective of this text. And try and work through positively. What would be the most encouraging thing for these people who are creating difficulties for you.

So that as a result you might neutralize their problem. You say that's simplistic. Well I'll grant you in one sense it is.

But it's the simplicity that comes from the teaching of our Lord Jesus Christ. William Barclay says in a very skillful comment. To obey this command.

A man must become a new man with a new center to his life. He's quite right isn't he? But that's what Christians are. A new center to our lives.

Look what is the controlling factor in your life? Be honest just for a moment as I come to a conclusion. The controlling factor. Your profession.

Your house. Where you're at at this moment materially or professionally. Now those are not dishonorable goals.

Provided they're not primary goals. The overriding factor is my standing in the presence of God the Father. What he thinks of me.

What he wants me to be. Everything else will really melt away and become of very little consequence eternally. But this one thing stands out supreme.

Who am I in the presence of God? And how am I living on earth in the presence of men? So I live for the benefit of men to please the Father. That's the golden rule. You can never understand the Sermon on the Mount.

Unless you understand the Father heart of God. So take my text. Wrap it around your wrist.

Around your ankles. Around your forehead. Not literally.

But in principle. And ask this great Father to constantly give you the flow of the spirit of his Son. So that you might work through all the implications of this grand golden rule.

Amen.