REVIEW
FLIP CHART: SOM’S KEY VERSE, GOAL, MOTTO
“But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness ….” (Mt. 6:33a).
The law sends us to Christ for justification; Christ sends us back to the law for sanctification.
FLIP CHART: Show new “Perfect Righteousness” chart explaining steps to coming to Christ (As a worm, mourning, meek, spiritual hunger/thirst with the result of legal righteousness). Explain: moral righteousness, immediate moral change at conversion, gradual change through life’s challenges and speeding up moral change via CCRC (Concentration, Choice, Reflection and Confession/Thanksgiving). Key verse, “By one sacrifice He has made perfect forever those who are being made holy” (Heb. 10:14).
FLIP CHART: John Stott’s outline of SOM.
TEACHING GOAL: Show that the Golden Rule is a rule to be lived by and not just admired.
“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! So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.” (Matthew 7:7-12)
INTRODUCTION:
FLIP CHART: Go over the four high demand verses in order: Mt. 5:20 (For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses …), Mt. 5:48 (Be perfect ….), Mt. 6:33 (But seek first His Kingdom …), Mt. 7:12 (So in everything …). Use Flip-Charts of paraphrases of these verses.
TABLE ACTIVITY: Discuss and determine three distinct acts of kindness you would like others do for you on a continual basis. Have these listed on a piece of paper. Each table needs to select at least three.
ILL: 54 people paid for the drink behind them in a Starbucks Drive Thru.
ILL: Hello everyone, I was just inspired by 2 ideas that I just heard of. One came from a news story of 2 women in Michigan who are doing random acts in their area such as paying for the food/coffee drive-in orders of the person behind them, leaving gifts bags (simple items/low cost) at shelters, or placing ‘kind’ cards randomly in places where people will just pick them up. The other is from 2 college students at Purdue University who shout out compliments (such as “Your hair looks great!” “You have a great smile!”etc). Both of these ideas are very do-able, and they have inspired me to start doing the same in Chapel Hill, NC.
ILL: Every time something good happens to you or you are feeling grateful for something in your life, put some money into a “Gratitude Jar.” When this jar is full, give it away to someone! I created a jar for my own family and then began to share this idea with friends, family and with people in my community. The response has been wonderful. Our first jar is almost full and we are excited to give it away to someone.
ILL: I met a woman who had a cool artsy necklace on. I told her how much I liked it. She took it off and gave it to me! She said she was given the necklace in the same way by a friend. I am going to now wear the necklace and give it to the first woman who tells me how much she likes it!
ILL: I cannot go to our local Walmart store without having a sweet tea from McDonalds which is located inside the Superstore. Once when I went to the register and ordered my tea, I realized my wallet was missing. When the server saw how upset I was, she paid for my tea and then assisted me to calm down. I later found my wallet, minus money including change; but what I found that day was much more. My belief in the good of this world was again affirmed. I did notify the McDonalds corporate headquarters and notified them of their employees “random act of kindness”. God is great, life is good!
( The above illustrations were randomly selected from the website: http://www.actsofkindness.org/
Gather all of the papers in and then circulate to everyone on Monday a list of suggested Random Acts of Kindness to do to others over the next week.
OUTLINE FOR TODAY:
THE GOLDEN RULE (Mt. 7:12)
I. The Primacy of the Golden Rule
II. The Negative Golden Rule
III. The Wisdom of the Golden Rule
IV. The Golden Rule’s Attack on Selfishness
V. The Golden Rule and the Second Commandment
VI. God, Our Model in Practicing the Golden Rule
VII. Practicing the Golden Rule is Impossible
THE GOLDEN RULE
I. THE PRIMACY OF THE GOLDEN RULE
“The Golden Rule is the most universally praised statement Jesus ever made.” (James Boice, 241)
QUESTION: Why might one give primacy to the Golden Rule as compared to all of the other statements of Jesus?
The Golden Rule is called the Mt. Everest of Ethics.
ILL: A king wanted all of the wisdom in the world summarized in one sentence. His wise men came back with a 300 page book. He sent them away again to summarize all the wisdom in the world in one sentence and they came back with a 20 page booklet. Being angry, he sent them away again. They came back with a one page explanation. The king then said they had one more chance to get it into one sentence. They finally came back with a one sentence explanation of all the wisdom of the world: It was: “There is no free lunch.”
The OT is so long … the Law, the Prophets, the Psalms … all telling us how to live. The Jewish leaders developed hundreds of laws that had to be obeyed. They parsed the OT laws. There goal was to live as they should, to obey the Law and the Prophets … a noble goal. What a lot of things to obey …hundreds, thousands of pages of directions, commands etc.
Some have claimed that the Golden Rule is a summary of how we should live together, how we treat others. It is all the ethical wisdom of the world in one in one short sentence.
Mt. 22:40 – All Law and the Prophets hang on first two commandments
Rom. 13:8 – He who loves fellowman has fulfilled the law.
Romans 13:10 – Love is the fulfilling of the law.
Gal. 5:14 – Law fulfilled in one word, love your neighbor.
I Tim. 1:5 – The goal of the command is love.
The Golden Rule and the Second Commandment give a basic guideline how we are to treat others in our world. They are a basic, but not a complete guide on how we are to treat our fellow humans in this world.
According to our Lord, the Golden Rule is a general summary of all the ethical / social teaching of the OT.
John Piper refers to the Golden Rule as the “spring of persistent public love.”
Norman Rockwell painting: Do unto others.
II. THE NEGATIVE GOLDEN RULE (SILVER RULE)
Hinduism – This is the sum of duty: do naught to others which if done to thee would cause thee pain. (The Mahabharata)
Buddhism – Hurt not other with that which pains yourself (Udana-Varga)
Judaism – What is hateful to you, do not to your fellowmen. That is the entire law; all the rest is commentary. (The Talmud)
ILL: The Jews had a story like this: “A heathen came to Shammai (a major Jewish teacher) and said, ‘I am prepared to be received as a proselyte on the condition that you teach me the whole Law while I am standing on one leg.’ Shammai drove him away with a foot-rule which he had in his hand. He went to Hillel (another famous Jewish teacher) who received him as a proselyte. Hillel said to the enquirer, ‘What is hateful to yourself, do to no other; that is the whole Law, and the rest is commentary. Go and learn.’” (Barclay, 273)
Baha’iism – He should not wish for others that which he doth not wish for himself . . . . . (The Book of Certitude)
The Greeks – Do not do unto others what angers you if done to you by others. (Isocrates 436-338 BCE); “What you avoid suffering yourself, don’t inflict on others.” (Epictetus). “What you do not want to be done to you, do not do to anyone else.” (Stoics)
Confucianism – “Tzu-kung asked, ‘Is there a single word which can be a guide to conduct throughout one’s life?’ The Master said, ‘It is perhaps the word “shu”. Do not impose on others what you yourself do not desire'” (Analects, 15.24)
Tobit 4:16 – What thou thyself hatest, to no man do.
QUESTION: All feel that the negative Golden Rule is of great value. What value does a negative Golden Rule provide?
The negative Golden Rule, sometimes called the Silver Rule, can play an important part in human relations. Epictetus condemned slavery on the principle: What you avoid suffering yourselves, seek not to inflict upon others. (Barclay, 274).
READING: When this rule is put in its negative form, when we are told that we must refrain from doing to others that which we would not wish them to do to us, it is not an essentially religious rule at all. It is simply a common-sense statement without which no social intercourse at all would be possible. Sir Thomas Browne once said, “We are beholden to every man we meet that he doth not kill us.” In a sense that is true, but, if we could not assume that the conduct and the behavior of other people to us would conform to the accepted standards of civilized life, then life would be intolerable. The negative form of the Golden Rule is not in any sense an extra; it is something without which life could not go on at all. (Barclay, 275)
“It always has been possible for men to keep the negative side of this saying. In its negative form the rule is a legal principle, and the law always has self as center.” (Boice, 242)
The negative Golden Rule, e.g. the Silver Rule is beneficial, helpful and practiced by almost every member of the human race.
QUESTION: List some things all people don’t do to others because they are norms for civilized society. These norms are necessary to make civilized society work.
III. THE WISDOM OF THE GOLDEN RULE
READING: During the first quarter of the nineteenth century, toward the end of Beethoven’s life, an unknown musician made a small alteration in the construction of the harpsichord that subsequently altered the whole development of Western music. Before this time most of what we call piano music was quite limited. The strings of a harpsichord are plucked by a small hook, producing a sound even in intensity and similar to that of a harp. In this change the hook was replaced by a hammer, so that the string was struck rather than plucked. This minute alteration made all the difference musically, for the dynamic range of the instrument was greatly increased. The harpsichord became a piano. And the way was paved for the dramatic and thrilling compositions of Rachmaninoff, Schumann, Brahms, Liszt and Chopin. The development of music then revolved to a large degree around the piano, just as it had previously revolved around the organ during the Baroque era. (Boice, 241)
The minute change from the negative to the positive in the Golden Rule, was an earth shattering change in ethics.
Mt. 7:12 is a summary of the answer that would automatically be generated by Mt. 5:20: For 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.
The Question: What kind of righteousness is superior to the righteousness of the Pharisees? It is a righteousness that moves from the “Silver” (negative) Rule of life to the “Golden” (positive) rule of life.
How we treat others is not to be determined by how we expect them to treat us or how we think they should treat us, but how we want them to treat us. (John MacArthur, 46)
“However you want people to treat you sums up the Sermon on the Mount to this point, and so treat them is a summary of the Law and the Prophets. It is also a paraphrase of the second great commandment, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself’” (Mt. 22:39).
Alfred Edersheim called the Golden Rule “the nearest approach to absolute love of which human nature is capable.” (Stott, 191) Alfred Edersheim ( March 7, 1825 – March 16, 1889) was a Jewish convert to Christianity and a Biblical scholar known especially for his book, The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah (1883).
Bishop Ryle wrote, ‘It settles a hundred difficult points . . . It prevents the necessity of laying down endless little rules for conduct in specific cases.” (Stott, 191) ( John Charles Ryle (May 10, 1816 – June 10, 1900) was the first Anglican bishop of Liverpool.)
QUESTION: What is the main difference between the Negative / Silver and Positive / Golden Rule?
The “Silver” is based on selfishness whereas the “Golden” is based on selflessness.
IV. THE GOLDEN RULE’S ATTACK ON SELFISHNESS
The “negative” is not Golden because all negative expressions of the Golden Rule are expressions of self-interest, basically selfish, utilitarian rules.
The Greeks – “Do not do unto others what angers you if done to you by
Others.” (Isocrates 436-338 BCE); “What you avoid suffering yourself, don’t inflict on others.” (Epictetus). “What you do not want to be done to you, do not do to anyone else.” (Stoics)
“Those expressions go only as far as sinful man can go, and are essentially expressions not of love but of self-interest. The motivation is basically selfish – refraining from harming others in order that they will not harm us. Those negative forms of the rule are not golden, because they are primarily utilitarian and motivated by fear and self-preservation.” (John MacArthur, 447)
We all have that kind of a tendency to be self-seeking, and so this becomes sort of a utilitarian, humanistic, self-serving negative principle. We don’t do certain things out of fear. It’s egoism. It’s the protection of self and the fear of retaliation. Selfishness. It’s self-preservation. It knows nothing of selfless love. Selfless love is able to do, and to do, and to do what it wishes were done to it, even though it knows it never will be that way. (John MacArthur, the Web)
“. . . The negative form of the rule involves nothing more than not doing certain things; it means refraining from certain actions . . . . A person might for ever refrain from doing any injury to any one else, and yet be
a quite useless citizen to his fellow-men. A person could satisfy the negative form of the rule by simple inaction; if he consistently did nothing he would never break it.” (Barclay, 275)
FLIP-CHART: Have three people come to the front and each draw a straight line on the Flip Chart, each using a different color. QUESTION: What is the best, surest way to gauge which line is the straightest?
APPLICATION: The Golden Rule is a good rule / straight edge to evaluate our lives from the aspect of selfishness / selflessness. In its negative form it does not touch selflessness. In its positive form it does.
SO WHAT???
1. Our Lord gave a wonderful summary of Christian Ethics, a guide on how to live in our world, by giving us the Golden Rule.
2. The Silver Rule …. Do not do to others, touches all of society and makes it possible for a civil society to function but does not encourage selflessness.
3. By making a minute change in the Silver Rule, by making it positive, Jesus changed the whole tone of ethics in the Western world.
4. The Golden Rule attacks selfishness and thus guides us in fulfilling the whole law of God by loving, reaching out to others.