The Golden Rule

Matthew 7 12

v.12 This verse is one of the most famous of all Jesus teachings. It is referred to commonly as “The Golden Rule”. The word “Therefore’ causes us to look back at the entire sermon. Christ’s teachings have compelled us to have a right relationship with God and with man. As we come to the end of the sermon we are reminded of this. The verse is really a counterpart to the second greatest commandment which is “Love your neighbor as yourself” (22:39-40).

Let’s consider some truths we can learn from this amazing verse.

*We want people to do things for us. As humans we are, by virtue of our inherited sinful nature, extremely self centered. The root of this is of course pride. Our culture is extremely narcissistic. This word comes from a figure in Greek mythology named Narcissus. He was an extremely handsome young man. He caught the eye of many young ladies but was never captured by them. After rejecting the love of many, a distressed maiden prayed that he would know how it felt to love someone you cannot have. A goddess heard the prayer and answered it. One day when Narcissus was passing a river he saw his reflection. He knelt down and fell in love with it. He stayed at the riverside begging his own reflection to come out and be his. He grew so depressed that he could not have himself that he stopped eating. Eventually he died heartbroken. His body was not found, but in its place a beautiful flower which was named after him narcissus.

The story of Narcissus is applicable to our culture today. We are in love with ourselves. In fact, when Paul was teaching on the love a husband should have for his wife he drew off of this truth. In Ephesians 5:28-29 he said “So men ought to love their wives as their own bodies He that loveth his wife loveth himself, for no man ever yet hated his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the church.” Jesus assumed that people have no problem loving themselves when He said “Love your neighbor as yourself”. Much psychology today wants us to think that our problem is that we don’t love ourselves. Biblically, the problem with us is that we love ourselves too much.

Paul spoke of the sin of loving self too much. In Philippians 3:19 he described people “whose god is their belly”. In other words their main concern in life is feeding their own appetites. In 2 Timothy 3:4 he described the end times by stating that people would be “Lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God”. Our problem is not that we do not love ourselves. Our problem is that far too many times we love our selves too much.

We want people to do things for us. Our unredeemed nature desires more than anything to be served. That is why Christ’s message is unappealing to many. He calls us to die to self, serve others, and esteem others more highly than ourselves. He calls us to love God first, others second and self last.

* Christ calls us to action. The word “Do” is an important word here. It goes beyond some emotional feeling or attitude. It’s easy to say “Sure, I love people”. In fact sometimes we attempt to prove our love by citing the things we don’t do. It’s vital that we recognize Jesus command does not say “Don’t do to others what you don’t want them to do to you.” That is not a difficult command to keep.

1) I don’t want people to cheat me, so I won’t cheat them.

2) I don’t want people to hurt me, so I want hurt them.

We know that our sinful actions could in fact cause someone to bring injury or insult into our life. Therefore, we don’t do certain things to people. This is not what Jesus is teaching. In fact, that is a self centered attitude. Our motivation for not doing those things is our own self interest. Even a lost world recognizes this.

Christ is calling us to action. He tells us to do things for others that we would like them to do for us. It’s the same principle as in 5:44 when Christ tells us to love our enemies, bless those that curse us do good to those who hate us and pray for those who persecute us. We are not to simply endure their evil we are to counteract it with godly actions. In the same way, Christ is teaching us here to be active in our relationship with God and man.

Christ is calling us out of our comfort zone and into the world. It is His desire that we emulate Him. That is, that we be a blessing to people. He does not tell us to find people we like and do good things for them. He does not tell us to find people who deserve our good deeds. He wants us to make it a way of life that we treat everyone that we come into contact with in the same way we would like to be treated.

*We know how people want to be treated. We know this because we know how we want to be treated. Let’s consider some specifics:

1) We want to be treated like we are special. We come into contact with people everyday. Most of them do not make any type of an impact at all on us. However, sometimes a person we encounter really stands out. We come home and say “There was a lady at the restaurant that was just really nice to me today” or “You know so and so asked about my dad’s health today”. It could be a smile or a simple “I’ve missed you” or a clerk that went out of their way to find an item for you. We should go out of our way to show people that we value them and appreciate tem.

2) We want people to treat us kindly. It is a shame that as believers we sometimes treat people so rudely. We are an anxious people who are often on the edge already. When someone does or says something we disagree with or that offends us we often respond with some type of rude action or statement. It is God’s will that when we find ourselves wanting to respond in an unkind way that we respond in a kind manner. In other words, He doesn’t want us just to keep our mouths shut and bottle up our aggravation. He wants us to be kind, just like we want people to treat us kindly. I think the best advice we could receive in this situation is just to give people the benefit of the doubt. If someone disagrees with us, we should consider that we may be wrong or that they are sincere and simply misguided. If they offend us or are rude to us, we should consider that maybe there is something going on in their life right now that has them worried or agitated. If these things were true of us we would want to be treated kindly even though we were not treating others very kindly.

3) We want people to help us. We are a busy people. It’s amazing that technology has allowed us to do far more in much less time than any generation before us, but yet we still have less time it seems than any other generation. It takes far less time to cook a meal, wash dishes, go to town, relay information, research information, etc. than it did in years past. You would think that we would have plenty of time to help others.

We are far too often like the priest and Levite in the story of the Good Samaritan. We are so busy taking care of ourselves that we fail to see the needs of others. Let’s consider some areas that people need help in:

*People need financial help. This is the last thing we want to hear. However, most everyone knows what it is like to scrape in order to make ends meet. For all of us there was probably someone at some time that stepped in and helped us as we started along the way or when we found ourselves in financial trouble. Probably on more than one occasion. We were thankful for that. We should do this unto others. We should actively look for the need and bless others financially as we would want someone to bless us.

* People need a break. It could be a shot at a job that they don’t deserve. It could be a second chance when they really mess up in life. It could be a babysitter so that they can go out and enjoy their spouse or their selves. No one deserves theses things, but we all would love for someone to bless us with them. When it is in our power to give people a break we should do it.

* People need to be taught. If you are a mature Christian you can bet one thing, you were not always. If you know how to change the oil in a car, you can bet one thing, somebody taught you. Whether it is spiritual or physical, all you know in life someone taught you. We are glad they did. We should be selfless enough to take time and poor our knowledge into other people for their own maturity in life and godliness. This is what we would want others to do for us and we should do this for others.

The flesh is by nature narcissistic. It loves self. It wants to be lazy, pampered and fattened up. Christ has taught us in this one amazing verse that that is contrary to His will for us. He wants us to be active in loving people to the same degree that we love ourselves. It would not take long for us to see a drastic change in those around us if we took this verse seriously. Let us commit to do so.