Weekend Sermon

Matthew 7:12

     Welcome to another posting of the Weekend Sermon.  I want to wish everyone who lives in the United States a happy Memorial Day Weekend.  I would also like to thank the many people who gave their lives in defense of freedom.
     I also want to give thanks to the Lord for meeting my needs this month.  Each month it seems like there isn't going to be an answer.  However, the Lord has provided.  I am once again truly grateful.
     Before we get into the sermon, I would ask those who read this blog to pray for the people of Oklahoma who suffered such great loss in the tornadoes.  Let us pray for those who mourn, and pray that God will help the people to recover and that He will graciously meet their needs.
     In last week's message, I emphasized the inportance of perserverance in prayer.  When things look bad, we need to keep praying and asking the Lord to intervene on our behalf.  The Lord wants to give us good things.  We should always give thanks to the Lord for the wonderful things that He has done for us.  Everything that is good comes from the Lord.
     Today, I will focus on just one verse from Jesus' teaching in the Sermon on the Mount.  Jesus says in Matthew 7:12, "In everything, therefore, treat people the same way you want them to treat you, for this is the Law and the Prophets."
     If people will follow the teaching that Jesus sets forth in this single verse, the world will be a much better place to live in.  However, those who are not followers of Jesus cannot be expected to folow the commandments of the Lord.  It is the duty of those who have place their lives under the Lordship of Jesus Christ to live up to the commandments that Jesus has given to His followers.  The problem is that Christians don't follow the command in this verse very well.  That leads to Christianity having a bad name.
     The teaching is simple yet powerful.  We should treat people the way we want to be treated.  This extends to every area of our lives.
     In general everyday life, if we want to be treated with courtesy and respect, we should treat those who we meet during the day with courtesy and respect.  If we don't want people to be angry and mean towards us, then we shouldn't be angry and mean towards others.  If we want to be treated fairly, we should treat others fairly.
     This command applies in the home.  If we want others to show love to us, we should also show love to them.  If we want others to share with us, we should share what God has given to us with others.
     In other words, we should follow the example of Jesus in all aspects of our behavior.  If we make it our purpose to follow Jesus and pattern our life and actions after His life and actions then we will always treat other people the way that we want to be treated.
     Jesus is our ultimate example.  He fulfilled the Law and the Prophets.  Jesus said that we would fulfill the Law and the Prophets by living up to the teaching of this verse.  Jesus said the same things about the Great Commandment and the one like unto it.  Jesus said that if we love the Lord with all of our heart, soul, mind and strength and love our neighbor as ourself, we will fulfill the requirements of the Law.
     A heart filled with the love of Jesus that pours out of us toward others in this world is what will allow us to fulfill the Golden Rule.  We can only treat others the way that we want to be treated when the love of Jesus fills our hearts, and our lives are under the direction of the Holy Spirit.
     There is one other thing that I would like to mention about Matthew 7:12.  We aren't to treat others the way that they treat us.  Some people will treat us in a mean way in this life.  They will say things to hurt us and be generally unloving.  This isn't an excuse for us to treat those who treat us badly in the same way.
     When others treat us poorly, we are still as Jesus' followers to treat others with love.  Jesus showed us this when He was even willing to forgive those who nailed Him to a cross.
    If Christ's followers are people of genuine love, it will revolutionize the world because the Bible says that the world will know that we are Christians by our love.  If Christians will love others in imitation of the Savior, many people would come into a relationship with the Father through His Son Jesus Christ.
     Let us all strive to be like Jesus.
     Next week we will continue in our study of the Sermon on the Mount beginning with Matthew 7:13.  This is another controversial section of the Sermon on the Mount. 
     Last Wednesday was the final post on my book about my friend Toby.  I hope that you all had a chance to read all of the chapters that I posted.  I could not post two chapters because they were published in other publications. 
    I don't know what I am going to post on Wednesdays, but I am leaning to posting some book reviews of dog, cat and animal books that I've read recently.
    I've decided that when the Sermon on the Mount series is finished that I am going to do a short series on the Old Testamant book of Nahum.  May God bless you.  Amen.