This transcript was generated by whisper.ai.

I want to welcome you to the look that we're having this week through the last
part of Matthew chapter 7, the last part of the Sermon on the Mount. This is day
three of that look. We're looking at decisions that change the direction of your
life, decisions like do not be judgmental, decide to not be judgmental, decide,
we said, the second decision is to be discerning, decide, we talked about
yesterday, to ask, to ask God.

Today we look at a decision about your relationships, and this decision is in
verse 12. Here's what Jesus taught, "So in everything, do to others what you
would have them do to you, for this sums up the law and the prophets. " Now this
verse, this principle, it's a very familiar principle.

It's one that many of us learned as children. But in that familiarity, we can
easily miss its power, miss its impact. We call this, you probably know, the
golden rule.

Just think for a moment. Think past the familiarity of the powerful potential
for change in this one rule. If you and I could begin to think and act in sync
with this one rule in our lives and our relationships, the difference would be
radical.

The decision that we make here would radically impact the direction of your life
every day of your life, do to others what you would have them do to you. It's a
very simple rule, but lurking off to the side of this life-changing principle is
a big question. Whether we like it or not, this question makes its way into
every one of our relationships.

And we can try to push it out of our minds, thinking, oh, it's too selfish a
question, but it's still there. The only way to really deal with this question
is not to ignore it, but to face it, to answer it. The question is, well, then
how am I going to get my needs met in a relationship?

If all I'm doing is thinking of others and meeting their needs, how are my needs
going to be met? Now, as unselfish as we may become, we still have needs. And so
we wonder, how are those needs going to be met?

Well, here's the big answer to this big question. I must give myself to meeting
others' needs if I'm to get my needs met. That's the way God's wired you.

The only way to get my selfish needs met is to be unselfish. Without exception
clauses or limiting statements, Jesus says, "Do for others what you would like
them to do for you. " This is the rule that will fuel any relationship.

It's the rule that will meet the needs of both you and others in that
relationship, the golden rule. Now, for such a simple statement, the golden rule
has gathered an amazingly varied attention over the years. In the sphere of
government, Roman Emperor Alexander Severus, who ruled from 222 to 235, he
adopted the golden rule as his motto.

He had it inscribed in gold on the walls of his palace. And it has since been
placed on countless buildings of legislature and law. In the sphere of religion,
some form of the golden rule appears in most of the world's religions, in
philosophy.

One example, apologist G. K. Chesterton famously had this debate with his
anti-Christian friend, George Bernard Shaw.

The debate was over the meaning of the golden rule. Shaw concluded the golden
rule is that there is no golden rule. And Chesterton replied that there is no
golden rule, would itself be a golden rule.

That's a little philosophical for me. In the business world, J. C.

Penny expressed his commitment to the golden rule by naming his first department
store in 1902 the Golden Rule Store. Later they changed the name to J. C.

Penny, but that was the original name of J. C. Penny because he believed in this
rule.

Now, as interesting as all this attention might be, the true meaning of the
golden rule is not seen in an inscription on a building or in a philosophical
discussion. Its true meaning is expressed when a husband sees himself through
his wife's eyes and says, "Please forgive me for my selfishness, for my
insensitivity. " Or when a friend meets a need no one else has even noticed for
another friend.

Its meaning is best seen in the way that we choose day by day to relate to each
other. When it comes to this issue of getting our needs met in a relationship,
we often play by different rules than the golden rule. Rules that we've learned
while growing up or that we've developed out of our own life experiences.

And whatever the source, these manmade rules sometimes seem to work well at the
beginning, but they spoil the relationship, they ruin the relationship in the
end. One of our rules is not the golden rule, I'd call it the reciprocal rule.
And this is whatever you do for me, that's what I'll do for you.

That's the reciprocal rule. It's you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours. A lot
of people play by this rule.

It may well be our most popular rule as we work to make our relationship
successful. And there's certainly nothing wrong with returning a kindness that's
been done to you. But this rule is really about our assumption that we've earned
a kindness because we've been kind to someone else.

And in the end, it's a rule that's based on selfishness. Not serving, but
selfishness. If this rule is all we have, relationships easily degenerate into
waiting for the other person to make the first move so that we can now
reciprocate.

This kind of rule is not powerful enough to give us the kind of relationships
that God called us to enjoy. He has something greater for us. Besides the
reciprocal rule, we also have something we've made up that I would call the
ricochet rule.

And this rule is due to someone else based on what that other person did to me.
They get the ricochet of what the other person did to you. The way I've been
treated in other relationships controls the way I treat you in this
relationship.

You see this rule frequently in a marriage. The way your parents treated you is
determining the way that you treat your spouse. Or the way a former spouse
treated you, or even the way your kids treated you, strongly influences the way
you're treating your spouse.

So for instance, you've had a rough day at work and you take it out on your
family. This rule underlines that old story about the man who comes home from
work after a lousy day and he takes it out on his wife by firing some angry
words at her. His wife speaks angrily, harshly to one of the children.

The child walks away and kicks the dog and the dog bites the head off the Barbie
doll laying on the floor. It would have saved them all a lot of pain if the man
had just come home and bitten the head off the Barbie doll. But they were
ricocheting all this anger all around.

There's the reciprocal rule, the ricochet rule. We also have what I call the
hidden motive rule. I act like I'm doing it for you, but really it's to get what
I want.

That's the hidden motive rule. Most of us see through this one quite easily.
This rule is at work in the husband who lovingly gives his wife this new
necklace right before he tells her about the new fishing boat that he just
bought without her permission, without her knowing about it.

All of our games, all of our rules, they pale alongside the simple words of
Jesus. Here's how the message paraphrase puts this verse. Here is a simple rule
of thumb guide for behavior.

Ask yourself what you want people to do for you, then grab the initiative and do
it for them. You want to transform the direction of your life? That's the simple
rule.

Now this golden rule, it is so easy to talk about. It's easy to say. It's even
easy to understand.

It lends itself well to memorization, but how do you get beyond these just being
good words? How do you begin to actually live this in your relationships? If
you're ever going to get there, you have to deal with what you do when you sense
that your needs aren't being met in a relationship, and we've all been there.

Instead of applying the golden rule, we get into this standoff. You didn't meet
my needs, so I'm not meeting your needs. We get into this downward spiral with a
spouse or a child, a parent, a friend.

Maybe you would balk at the word stubborn, but if you look deep into your heart,
there's stubbornness at work, probably in both of you, that says I'm not going
to be the first one that gives in. I'm going to make sure you go first. It's
your turn.

I went first the last five times. Think about this with me. Do you see anything
about turns in the golden rule?

Come to think about it, there is something about whose turn it is to meet the
other person's need. It's always my turn. It's always my turn.

Ask yourself what you want other people to do for you, then my turn. Grab the
initiative, and you do it for them. When you find yourself stuck in one of those
places where neither person in the relationship wants to meet the other person's
need, what can you do?

How do you turn your heart around so that the relationship can start to grow?
There is a way to break the logjam. It has to do with thanking God.

One of the ways to break the logjam in any relationship to begin to practice the
golden rule again, it starts with thanking God. You thank him for two things.
First, you thank him that he is working to meet your needs.

Even if you can't trust that other person, you feel like I can't trust them,
God's working. God is working to meet your needs, and he has many ways to do it.
It might be through that other person, or it might be through some other means.

It might come later than you want, but he's working to meet your needs, so you
trust him. By the way, you never expect any human being to meet all your needs.
How could they?

They're human, just like you are. They can't meet all your needs. That's putting
a burden on them that is a burden no human being can bear.

First you thank God that he's working to meet both of your needs, but then you
thank God for the other person. Yeah, that person who's not meeting your needs
right now. That person that there's a barrier right now.

You thank God for that other person. You think, I can't find anywhere to thank
God for that other person. How am I going to do this?

Find the smallest place to start. Thank God that he loves that other person.
Every one of us can start there.

I found that I cannot act unselfishly towards someone unless I'm thankful for
them. If I'm bitter towards someone, if I can't be thankful for that person, I
can't act unselfishly towards them, because I'm not seeing them as a creation of
God anymore. I'm not seeing them as God sees them.

But once I even a small bit of thankfulness comes into my heart towards that
person, then I can begin to act unselfishly. Then your heart is open to meet
other people's needs as you're being thankful for those other people. So let's
start there today.

As we pray together, if we talk to Jesus together, just in this moment, just
thank God for someone else. It may be someone you're having a problem with,
you're stuck, or it may be anyone else in your life. Jesus opens the door to
living out this golden rule, this doing to others what I would want done in my
life.

God, I thank you. And you put the person's name in it. I thank you for this
person.

I'm grateful that you love them. I'm grateful that you're working in their life.
And Lord, I want to act in unselfishness.

I want to do what Jesus said to do here. So give me the strength because of your
love for me and my thankfulness for them. Give me the strength to live as you
teach me to live here.

To decide to take this direction in life, Jesus. I pray it in your name, amen.
Tomorrow we're going to look for the narrow gate and we're going to watch out
for the false prophet.

See you tomorrow.