The following blog post contains notes and application questions from our August 4, 2019 message, The Golden Rule. For more from this series, check out Summer on the Mount.
Discussing and Applying the Sermon
What’s one way you can live out the Golden Rule—to proactively love someone—this week?
Summary
There’s a good chance you heard the “Golden Rule” growing up…but did you know it’s straight from the Bible? Specifically, straight from Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount? As we continue our series, “Summer on the Mount,” Blake Holmes walks us through Matthew 7:12, the Golden Rule.
Key Takeaways
The Sermon on the Mount is a Kingdom ethic for a Kingdom people.
The Golden Rule—Matthew 7:12—“Settles a hundred difficult points. It prevents the necessity of laying down endless little rules for our conduct in specific cases.” -JC Ryle
The Golden Rule summarizes the heart behind the entire Sermon on the Mount.
The Practice of the Rule - We are to love proactively.
Up until the time of Jesus, every other form of this principle had been taught in purely negative terms. Jesus flipped it. It’s not enough to simply do no harm to others…we are our brother’s keeper; therefore, we are to initiate.
The Golden Rule is directly related to the Greatest Commandment (Luke 10:25-27).
How much better would the world be if in each and every situation we put ourselves in someone else’s shoes? If we lived with the mindset of “How would I like to be treated?”
The Motive of the Rule - Captures the love of the Father
The reason why we disobey is because we are motivated by self-interest and self-preservation.
3-things you can do in light of “So”: 1) Preach the gospel to yourself every day; 2) Do not reply upon your own strength or willpower, but ask for God’s Spirit to empower you; and 3) Begin to see others through the lens of the gospel.
Hurt people hurt people. Loved people love people.
The Priority of the Rule - The Golden Rule summarizes the Law & the Prophets and the Sermon on the Mount.
When we love the way the Golden Rule calls us to love, we are obeying the heart behind the Law and what Jesus asks of us.