Christ and Your Relationships #1

Hello, my friend, and welcome to another episode of The Truth Pulpit.

We're so glad that you joined us. And I know that many of you have recently signed up for the podcast looking for the series that I told you about called Building a Christian Mind, and that series is going to start on February the 5th. February the 5th for Building a Christian Mind. Until then, here's the next episode of our teaching as we look to God's Word and as we continue our commitment to teaching God's people God's Word on The Truth Pulpit. We want to see four aspects of the golden rule so that you would have a sense of what the implications of a vertical salvation received in Christ from God has for your horizontal relationships. It's been said that for the Christian, Jesus is either Lord of all or he isn't Lord at all. Hello and welcome to The Truth Pulpit with Don Green, founding pastor of Truth Community Church in Cincinnati, Ohio.

I'm Bill Wright. Today we'll see that Jesus Christ wants us to allow him to lead and guide us in every area of our lives, including our relationships. Here's Pastor Don to kick things off. Welcome to this new series in which we address the golden rule from Matthew 7-12. Jesus said, in everything therefore, treat people the same way you want them to treat you, for this is the law and prophets.

That's a searching standard that applies to all of our relationships, and the reality, my friend, is this, is that we all fall short of that. You know, we act selfishly in our relationships, our words and the things that we do are not the way that we would want others to treat us. And so you and I, we need a savior, and that's why Christ came, was to deliver us from our sins and to empower us to live different lives. And we need that same loving savior to teach us how to love like he did. And part of the way that he's done that for us in his word is through the golden rule found in Matthew 7-12, and that's the subject of our series here this week. So open your Bible and stay with us here on The Truth Pulpit as we examine these most important matters that are so applicable and relevant to our daily lives.

Thanks, Don. And friend, open your Bible now as we join our teacher for today's lesson in The Truth Pulpit. Truth Pulpit. We come to our text, which is found in the book of Matthew chapter 7, if you would like to begin to turn there. One of the most important things that we could remember about this salvation that we have celebrated is that it is a work of God. Scripture says that salvation belongs to the Lord, it's of the Lord, and it's a work in which He gives new life to someone who is dead in their trespasses and sins. Ephesians chapter 2 verses 4 and 5 says, But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together in Christ. By grace you have been saved. There is such an important implication to that in terms of what the impact is that salvation has on a true believer.

There are implications that flow from that. If salvation was a work of man, what you would find is, to our horror and grief, is that it would bear the marks of men going forward. If salvation was a work of man, you would find men marked by pride and self-centeredness as being the mark of the life of one who had truly been saved, if salvation were a work of man, because it would flow from the nature of man. But friends, salvation is a work of God. Salvation is a supernatural work by the triune God in the heart of a dead and lifeless sinner. In salvation, God not only applies the merits of Christ to our account, but He also imparts to us a new life. And that's what the passage in Ephesians is speaking of. God made us alive together in Christ.

By grace you have been saved. It is a complete break with the past old man, and there is a new man with a new life and a new principle of spiritual life in his heart going forward. A new life comes from God. And you know what that means?

You know what the consequence of that is? Of what that new life looks like? That new life bears the imprint of the character and the holiness and the love of God. Because God is the author of salvation, because God is the one who has given it to us, because it is an impress of His very nature on the soul that has a consequence, meaning that the new life that we have is going to bear the flavor, bear the aroma, show something of the characteristics of the holy gracious good God who did the work in us. And I think that gives us the proper perspective to think about our verse from Matthew chapter 7 verse 12.

Matthew chapter 7 verse 12 says, "...in everything, therefore, treat people the same way you want them to treat you, for this is the law and the prophets." Now what we said last time was that the therefore in this verse is very significant, because it shows us the ground in which Jesus proclaims what has become known as the golden rule. And without rehearsing everything that we said last time, we saw that the therefore is a reference to the fact, in part, that there is a coming judgment that even for believers we will stand before Christ and give an account of our lives. And at that moment, whether you've thought seriously and deeply about it or not, I can tell you one thing for sure, my beloved Christian friend. The one thing that you are going to most want at that most significant moment is that Christ would deal graciously with you. In light of your life of sin and pockmarked with failures and imperfect obedience and love rendered in response to his salvation when he's giving out the eternal weight of reward, you're going to want him to deal graciously with you.

That's part of the therefore flowing from chapter 7 verses 1 and 2. Jesus said, in the way you judge, you'll be judged. And that reality of coming judgment affects the way that we interact with people here on earth. Christ dealt graciously with us, we want him to deal graciously with us in the future, then it's only right that our lives would bear the imprint of the grace of God as we deal with others, and that the harsh, critical, hateful spirit which marks the unregenerate man would be foreign to the believer in Christ. I've received grace and I hope to receive more grace going forward in the future.

You know what I'll do? I'll let the power of that work in my heart so that it affects the way that I view others and the way that I deal with them. And we saw that principle of grace emphasized in the immediately preceding verses where we saw the grace of God and how he deals with us. We'll just look at verse 11 for now, where Jesus said, if you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give what is good to those who ask him? Part of the experience of the Christian life as you grow in maturity is to realize that we go to God and we ask him for grace to sanctify us, to change us, to make us more like Christ. We realize that we need the help of the omnipotent spirit of God to conform us to the image of one of who is Christ and that we want to grow in that and we want to manifest the righteousness that is fitting for one who has been redeemed, but we find that we lack the power to do so. And so we go to God and we say, God, help me to live the kind of life that you call me to now that I belong to you. And what this scripture is telling us is that of course God answers prayers like that. Of course God will give what is good to his children. It's not a statement that he'll give us every earthly material blessing that we want. It's not a statement that he'll heal our every disease. It's not a statement that that we'll avoid hardship in life if we just ask God to do that for us.

That's not the point. The point is is that we come as disciples of Christ realizing that we need help to grow in this Christian life that he's called us to. We say, God, help me manifest this in my heart and in my life. What Jesus says at that point is of course God will answer.

That is a good request. That is noble. That's the will of God for your life, your sanctification. And when you ask God to further the work of sanctification in your life, he'll graciously answer even when you've fallen short along the way.

And Jesus says, remember coming judgment. Remember the gracious way that God deals with you and therefore, Matthew chapter 7 verse 12, therefore, verse 12, look at it with me again in light of that little summary, therefore in everything treat people the same way you want them to treat you for this is the law and the prophets. God, I want you to be gracious to me. You've been gracious to me in Christ.

I want you to continue being gracious to me. I won't be like that wicked servant that scripture talks about that Jesus described where a king forgave him of a massive debt and the man went away with his massive debt forgiven and then he came across someone who owed him a paltry amount of money and grabbed him by the throat and said pay back what you owe. Jesus said that is utterly foreign to the spirit of true salvation.

That's not how it works, beloved. If you have been a recipient of grace, it changes you into a dispenser of grace. Now what we're talking about, just to be clear, I think that we've been utterly clear on this point, but just to emphasize it one more time, what we're seeing here in Matthew chapter 7 verse 12 is not a plan for you to go about earning God's favor. This is not the way that you earn salvation. It's not the way that you keep salvation.

We have made that so clear that that should not be foggy in anybody's mind. We have emphasized that salvation comes by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone based on the testimony of Scripture alone, and that's all for the glory of God alone. And so we're not talking about earning God's favor with this lifestyle that Christ is describing here. What Christ is describing in verse 12 is the response that the believer makes to men with his heart having been transformed by the grace that he's received from Christ. This is the natural overflow and implication of what it means to be a believer. Look at it there in verse 12 again as we start to dive into the text. I want to keep the text fresh in your mind.

Jesus says, in everything therefore treat people the same way you want them to treat you, for this is the law and the prophets. Now what does this mean? What's this verse mean? We've kind of set the context, perhaps having belabored the point. I don't mind that, having belabored the point.

It's an important point to make. What's he saying here? Well, many commentators have noted that other religions besides Christianity have their own form of a form of a golden rule, but they tend to state it in the negative, saying don't do to others what you would not want them to do for you. Don't do that if you don't want it done to you. Negative form of the statement.

Now, beloved, what I want you to see is there's two things I want you to see. One is that that is not what Jesus is saying here. That purely negative statement is only a statement designed to restrain bad behavior. You don't want somebody to do something bad? Don't do something bad. Do you realize that that's not at all what Jesus is saying? Jesus's teaching includes that negative command, but it goes further.

Think with me. If the golden rule were simply don't do to somebody what you wouldn't want them to do to you, think about what you could do. Here's how you could fulfill that. You could get out a piece of sidewalk chalk and just kind of circle around and draw a circle around yourself and stand inside that circle, inside that selfish circle around yourself and shut the world out. Just don't mess with me and I won't mess with you. Leave me alone inside my circle, and you could fulfill that truncated false version of the golden rule.

You could just shut out the world, say I'm not doing anything bad to you, therefore I'm meeting the standard required. Well, that might work in other religions. It's not what Christ is talking about at all. Look at the verse with me. Christ requires positive action. Christ requires a positive engagement. In verse 12 he says, in everything treat people the same way you want them to treat you, for this is the law and the prophets. He says there is now something for you to do as a believer, as a disciple of mine, as a citizen of the kingdom of God, and it requires positive action. So you say you you start to understand and process it this way. If you enjoy being loved, if you enjoy being on the receiving end of kindness, then go love and go show kindness. That's the positive duty of it. If you like to receive things, give to others. That's what Jesus is talking about in a very simple way. I want you to see that there is a positive obligation being placed on it.

This is something that I'm going to go on a tangent here and that's all right. There could be nothing that is more foreign to the true spirit of Christianity than someone who says I am a Christian, I believe in God, but I'm going to keep that as a private matter to myself. I'm not going to engage with people when I worship God.

I'm going to go out and and sit among the trees and worship God in nature all by myself, not to be bothered by men. That's not Christianity at all. Jesus gives a positive command here in 1 John chapter 4.

It says, beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. And it says in 1 John chapter 3, let us not love simply in word but in deed and in truth. You see, there is no room anywhere in Scripture for an approach to Christianity that says I am going to be isolated, I will be my own man. I do not want to interact with others, I don't want to be involved with the people of God, I want nothing to do with them. My Christianity is a private matter and I will stand alone and be right with God. Beloved, that's not true. That is a delusion that has nothing to do with true Christianity. You cannot fulfill what Jesus commands in Matthew 7 verse 12 by standing alone, isolated, and refusing the interaction and fellowship of the saints.

It's just not true. And so what we need to see as we go through this verse, we want to see four aspects of the golden rule so that you would have a sense of what the implications of a vertical salvation received in Christ from God has for your horizontal relationships going forward in obedience to our Lord and Savior. Four points that I want to show you. First of all, I want you to see it's broad application.

It's broad application and you see this broad application right from the start. And let me just say one other word by way of preface. This, when you understand it, is a staggering verse. The implications of this verse are immense. They are incalculable. They are humbling to realize what Jesus is saying here. Look at what he says there in verse 12. He says, in everything.

Stop right there. In everything. This phrase here is so dramatically emphatic that it's hard to express. The underlying Greek in the original language literally means in all things whatsoever. Jesus uses three Greek words to say what we've translated in English, what our translators have said, everything.

One word would have worked, the Greek word panta, all things, that would have worked. He could have used a two-word construction that was also available to him, hasa ean, meaning whatever. But what he does here is he combines these three words where one would have done to make a very broad and a very, a very comprehensive general statement about the entire way that you think about human relationships.

In all things, in everything whatsoever, in all of your interactions, in all of your inner in relationships, what follows is the approach that is to be applied. And you know, the emphasis is even greater in the original text because Jesus takes this idea and puts it at the front of the sentence. It's emphatic by its position in the sentence. It's emphatic by the words that he uses, by the multiplicity of it. Here's what I want you to see. This is a statement of very broad application.

Let's put it this way. There is nothing, there is no relationship there is no relationship in your existence that is outside the comprehensive umbrella that Jesus has placed over us in what he is saying here. All things whatsoever. You could translate it this way, you could state it this way, understand what Jesus is saying this way. As he starts this, what's called this golden rule, you could express it in English this way and say, in everything, and I mean absolutely everything about human relationships is governed by what I'm about to say. Every relationship in your life is brought under the umbrella of what Jesus says here. That's what everything means. And so, beloved, good relationships and bad relationships. Family relationships and work relationships. Close friends, general acquaintances. In church, in school, in all the circumstances surrounding them, Jesus says, I want you to understand that I am talking about everything in your life in what I'm about to say.

That's the broad application. Everything. And we have to kind of let that kind of punch us in the solar plexus to stop for a moment and realize that this is not some some little spiffy little moral maxim designed to give us a little perspective and then we move on from it. This is comprehensive in every aspect of our lives, and it reminds us of something about our Lord Jesus. Jesus Christ comes to us and saves us. Jesus Christ is Lord, and when we say Lord it means that he is sovereign over all. To be in union with Christ is to be under his sovereign authority in absolutely everything. And here Christ is working out one of the implications of his lordship. And what we should see is that is that Christ is not someone to trifle with.

Christ is not someone to that we speak to on equal terms. He is over us, and he speaks to us as one who asserts authority over our souls and over our lives and says, this is how you must be. I command you as the Lord of the universe. I command you as the Lord of your salvation. This is what it means to be my disciple in this realm.

There's not an option to opt out on this. Well, Lord, I'll take your blood, but I don't want this kind of authority in my life. I want to live like I want to live, okay? And so, Lord, that's the terms on which I'll be your disciple.

It doesn't work that way. We come to Christ as beggars, and we receive his terms in in a spirit of absolute surrender, unconditional surrender. Yes, Lord, save my soul.

Whatever you say to me, I'll do. That's the spirit in which we receive him. And so, as Christ says in everything, we step back and say, there's a lot at stake here. I am in the presence of one who is asserting complete dominion over my life. Only then do we begin to enter into the spirit of what Jesus is saying here.

That's the broad application. Point number two. I want you to see it's deep examination. It's deep examination. Jesus here probes our hearts as he sets the standard for us. He's probing our hearts.

This is not something that is judged by external matters. He goes to your inner man. He speaks to who you are inside and addresses you at that level. He's asserted dominion over all of your external relationships, and now he comes and asserts dominion over your heart.

Total surrender to the lordship of Jesus Christ. That is the key to enjoying all God has for our lives, including better relationships. Well, friend Don will continue his look at the subject of God-centered relationships next time here on The Truth Pulpit as he concludes the message, Christ and Your Relationships.

We do hope you can be with us. Until next time, we invite you to visit our website, thetruthpulpit.com. There you can download podcasts, arrange to receive CD copies of Don's radio messages for your personal study library, or you can click the Follow Don's Pulpit link and take your Bible study time to the next level. Again, check out thetruthpulpit.com. And now for Don Green, I'm Bill Wright. We'll see you next time on The Truth Pulpit.