Power Up Relationships: The Golden Rule Series

We’ve been talking about how to POWER UP when our spiritual batteries are low. One thing that can de-energize our batteries is a spirit of judgmentalism in our relationships. It’s likely we all struggle with being judgmental. The problem is that it drains our relationships with others and God.

D. L. Moody and Charles Spurgeon were great preachers of the 19th century. Moody admired Spurgeon from a distance and looked forward to the opportunity of meeting him in London. On that historic day, Spurgeon answered the door with a cigar in his mouth. Moody was aghast. "How could you, a man of God, smoke that?" Spurgeon took the cigar from his mouth, put his finger on Moody's rather inflated stomach, smiled, and said, "The same way you, a man of God, could be that fat."

Today we will focus for a few minutes on one of the best-known sayings in the Bible:

So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets. -Matthew 7:12

The Golden Rule gives us insight and instruction to every area of our lives,  especially the relationships we have with God, other people, our families, friends, and the world around us in general. It is a powerful principle that summarizes the teachings of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount.

We can POWER UP in our relationships by following Jesus’ teaching here.

1. The Golden Rule Guides our Judgments (7:1-5)

*Don’t have a judgmental, critical spirit.

Matthew 7:1-2 “Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.”

Swindoll lists 3 reasons by it’s wrong to judge others:

We can never know all the facts about a person or see into their hearts to know their motives.

In our fallen, frail, and finite condition, we are never able to be completely objective.

We’re not qualified to be the judge - God is the all-knowing, just Judge.

*Don’t be surprised when it comes back at you! The Judgment Boomerang - “or you too will be judged”. Nearly everyone has been guilty of misjudging others, and nearly everyone has suffered from someone else’s misjudgment. It’s possible that this means a judgment from God.

*Don’t perform eye surgery with a log in your eye!

Matthew 7:3-5 “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? 4 How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? 5 You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.

You are a plank-eye! This prevents your eye surgery! Don’t be a hypocrite - tend to your own business (7:5). For every speck you see, there’s a log in your own eye - and that makes us hypocrites. Bruner says that the unnoticed log is often the critical spirit itself. Matthew uses the word hypocrite 14 times; seven of those times he is speaking directly to the Pharisees. We become Hypocrites when we hold people up to a standard we can’t live up to. This is what happens often when we judge others.

*Don’t ignore what is in front of you.

Matthew 7:6 “Do not give dogs what is sacred; do not throw your pearls to pigs. If you do, they may trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you to pieces.

When Jesus says “judge not”, he doesn’t mean that we should be naive and lack discernment. Bruner: “Some people have harmless specks in their eyes; others have harmful clubs in their hands.” Not everyone appreciates or wants to know about our commitment to Jesus. That requires some judgment - some discernment - is this a relationship that needs to continue?

Here’s a test, a question asked in a devotional by Paul David Tripp: Whose sin bugs you more: your own or that of someone near you? Who are you desperate to see change: you or someone else in your life?

The Golden Rule Guides our Judgments.

2. The Golden Rule Guides our Prayers

Matthew 7:7-11 “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. 8 For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened. 9 “Which of you, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone? 10 Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? 11 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!