I'm going to tell you a story. Several men were in the locker room of a golf club. A mobile phone that was on a bench begins to ring. And so a man reaches over and engages the hands free button, and he begins to talk as he's putting on his golf shoes. Everyone else in the locker room stops to listen. The man begins. Hello? There's a woman's voice that says, Honey, it's me. Are you at the club? Yes. Well, I'm at the shops now. And I found this beautiful leather coat. It is Onley $500. Is it okay if I buy it? Sure. Go ahead. If you like it that much. Well, honey, thanks very much. But I want you to know, I also stopped by the Mercedes garage this morning and I saw the new models. There was one that I really, really liked. Or Honey, how much is it? $80,000. Okay, but for that price, just make sure it has all the optional extras on it. Great. And, honey, one more thing. The house we wanted last year is back on the market and they're only asking a million five for it. Well, then you go ahead and make them an offer. But don't give Mawr than a million to 50. Okay, I'll see you later. I love you. Bye. I love you, too. The man hangs up. The other men in the locker room are looking at him An absolute astonishment. And then he smiles and asked, Anyone knows who's mobile phone? This is now. When Jesus, in the sermon on the Mount was talking about do or treat others the way you want to be treated. I don't think he had that in mind. And we're going to examine what exactly he was saying As we come to this great summation of the sermon on the mountain, many of you familiar with the sermon on the Mount. Slight reading starts in chapter five of Matthew goes to chapter seven. We're not going to look at all of it, but we're going to look at different portions of it that lead into what we see here in chapter 12 and there's four piece that we're going to look at now. The first p that we're going to look at is simply the principal. When I say the principal, what I mean is the principle of what this verse are. The whole sermon on the Mount is teaching us. In fact, if you remember when we were Children, well, when I was a child, some of you are much. Well, let's just say you're not my age. Anyway, When I was a child, I remember every day citing the pledge of Allegiance, one nation under God and citing what we call the golden rule we do to others as we would want them to do to us. I think we've gotten away today from reciting the Golden rule, and I think we ourselves have gotten away from remembering that recitation in childhood. There's a principle that calls it the golden rule. Now, Ah, principle and you're going to laugh A TMI. But I literally wanted to get the correct definition from Oxford Dictionary. A principle is a fundamental truth that serves as a foundation for a system of belief or behavior for it, for a chain of reasoning, and we call it Golden because Golden means it's the highest form of measurement. It's the highest, it's golden. It's the holiest and the bestest. I know I've got English people in here. That's why I said the best is It's more than best. Okay. And so we talk about the golden rule. We're talking about that standard as a means of measurement. It's where Jesus is saying, tow us. Check yourself before you wreck yourself. Check yourself and your relationship with others. Check yourself and how you respond to others. Check yourself to make sure you are treating others with the same desires and wish of how you want to be treated. Now I'm going to try a little experiment right here. Excuse me. Yeah, the mic works. I'm going to ask each of you give me with your both hands. And I know you're sometimes in close quarters. But if I were to ask you to show me 12 inches with your hands, what would you show me in the way of measurement people out there? I'm going to see you go ahead and do this. Okay. Now, as you look around, does everybody have the exact same measurement that you have? Yeah, And what's interesting is because we're trying to achieve that measurement. And if I were to go around with a ruler even though we think we're showing the 12 inches we would find out through that ruler that we were off in that measurement. That's kind of what Jesus is saying with this principle called the Golden Rule. It's a measurement of encouragement for us as God's kingdom Children, because just to remind you this is the sermon on the Mount where he is instructing and giving to believers. And that's the second P I want us to look at the second p is perspective gaining perspective on what Jesus is saying that the reason why I tell you that is because if you go through Chapter five through Chapter seven, which is the whole sermon, Jesus is talking about being in the kingdom of God, and we are people as believers in the kingdom and he is the king. And the perspective is understanding what the purpose is of the sermon on the mountain. It's related to ourselves and how we respond in living in today's world as believers in him, it goes over the attributes of giving and prayer and fasting and even materialism and the anxiety over material things. It continues to give instruction on the world and the word and the morality and religion, prayer, money and possessions. And then we come diverse or to Chapter seven and were given instruction on relationships. If you look at all of versus one through 12 and forsake of time, we're not going to look at everything. But I challenge you to look how the first verses in Chapter seven versus one through six talk about relationship and how we respond toe others. And it's a negative way as far as Do Not, Do Not Do not. Then we come to Chapter seven, and it's talking about the positive response, and it begins with the perspective of the positive response of how we are to respond to our heavenly father. Now the perspective also talks about Jesus Christ and how he relates to us. The Romans. Five Verse A. It talks about how God demonstrated his own love for us and that while we were yet sinners while we were yet enemies, Christ Jesus died for us, giving us opportunity for eternal relationship. One of my favorite perspectives that I see is over in Philippians, where the Apostle Paul is writing this letter to the church at Philippi, and when you begin in verse five, he says, your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus. And then he explains how Christ Jesus who being in very nature God did not consider equality with God, something to be grasped. But he made himself nothing. Taking the very nature of a servant being made in human likeness and being found in appearance of a man. He humbled himself and became obedient to death, even death on a cross. Therefore, God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name that at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. So the glory of God. The father. Now some scholars believe this was an early New Testament him one that they recited during their times of gathering during their times of teaching. If you go up a few more verses, it talks about how us having the example, getting the perspective of who Jesus is and what he calls us to do. If we begin in verse three, it says, do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility. Consider others better than yourselves, and each of you should not only should look not only to your own interests, but to the interest of others. There again, that underlying perspective on everything of how do I view others in light of my relationship with Christ, how do I respond to others in basically doing for them? And it goes back to this the golden rule. Now I'm going to bring you back again to your childhood. How many of you have ever played the game? Follow the leader. It's a simple game. Everybody can play right. The simple part about it is, is that there is a leader that has chosen and everybody lines up behind the leader. And then everybody that's behind the leader follows every movement. Everything that that leader does. And if you don't follow, then you put out of the game. So it's followed the leader game. Well, I'm going to apply that to we, as God's Children, through faith in Jesus Christ and in his kingdom are to follow the leader, our savior, our Lord Jesus Christ. And that's the perspective. That's the overall perspective. The perspective is my actions should reflect my leader, my king. Jesus Christ. The third p that we're going to look at is the promise of God. The promise of God can be found just in a few verses before verse 12. And if you still have your Bibles open, read with May Verse seven. Ask and it shall be given to you seek and you will find knock and the door will be open 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 profits. Yeah, the promises of God Come when we ask, Of course, The first asking is to come and be a believer and understand who Jesus is and what he came to offer when it says that we should ask notice the progression of the verbs that are used. Ask, seek, knock its president tents also, which means keep on asking, keep on seeking, keep on knocking. And then it says it's because we know that our heavenly father, who has a much better nation than a nature than our earthly fathers he will give. And the reason why we say that is because it says earthly fathers who are evil. It doesn't mean that earthly fathers or bad it's just we have a sinful nature. And if we, in our sinful nature, know how to do good and give good to our Children when they ask how much Mawr does the father give when we ask him in prayer? Now the asking is just like a simple request that a child would bring. The seeking involves Mawr involvement and participation with us, because we're actually using our senses to seek out the will of the father and the knocking. Knocking is where you are banging at the door, but the faith comes and the trust comes because you know the door will be opened. I'm laughing because this morning on Zoom Sunday school class, unbeknownst to me, because the screen had changed, I had about 10 people that were knocking at the door trying to get into the class, and it made me think this passage of Scripture of what it's like and knocking where sometimes we don't understand what's going on when sometimes we need help when sometimes we have to bang at the door and go, Hey, I hope, he hears May. I hope I get his attention and I love it because it says and we know the door will be open God never turns us away and that is the promise of God. The promises of God is that we ask, seek and not and he provides. And we keep on asking and seeking and knocking. And he keeps providing. And as we continue to knock and look, our persistence grows. The relationship toe understanding Heavenly Father Better now, the last P is the purpose. Here's we're going to camp out for a little while because it's found there at the end of Verse 12 where it says this sums up the law and the profits. Now, when we talk about the law, Faris sees and Saddest sees, they understood the 613 laws that they had all written down instead of you remember. And if you were in Sunday school this morning, we talked about that particular thing when they came to Jesus and said, What is the greatest commandment? And he said to them What's found in the dude Ironic law, the shema, Which means here Oh, here, Israel, The Lord your God is one, and we will worship him with all of our heart, our soul, our mind and our strength. And we can find that in Chapter 22 as well as in Mark. When they came to ask Jesus that he cut directly to it and said, This is what you need to know because the importance of our life is based upon the relationship with God, which impacts the relationship with one another. That's the reason why he goes further. Leviticus 19 8, where it talks about you shall love your neighbor as yourself. So he goes back to the law and the prophets and what was being taught. And he goes to the understanding of knowing that the whole purpose is for us to be different. Now you're going to say to me, Well, you know, I just don't bother with my neighbor, so they know I love them. No kind of reminds me of the story. Husband and wife driving down the road One day, Wife looks at her husband and she says, You don't ever tell me that you love me. He looks at her and he says, 40 years ago, we got married. I told you, my mind hasn't changed since then. I'll let you know if it does. No, love is a proactive love is a constant love is where you actually think of the needs of others based upon how you would want someone to take care of your needs. It's a proactive. We all know that the word love. It's a verb. It's an action verb. You could tell me all day long that you love me, but if I don't see any actions, I question what your definition is. You know, it's a funny thing. There were two young boys that were at the breakfast table, and they were waiting for their mother to give them the pancakes. And she was preparing the pancakes for the sons. This was Kevin, who was five, and Ryan, who was three. Well, the sun's began to argue over who would get the first pancake. The mother saw the opportunity to teach a moral lesson. So she said, Now, boys, if Jesus were sitting here, he would say, Let my brother have the first pancake I can wait. Just then Kevin turned to his younger brother and said, Hey, Ryan, you be Jesus. Like I said, it's a matter of doing for others what you would want have done to you. It's a respond ability, a responding proactively toe others. Now, a lot of times we respond based upon what people's actions are, tow us or what we think they're going to do. This response is proactive, not counting on anything about their actions, but totally being proactive. And it's coming from you show. How is that golden rule looking about now? Yeah, I try to do the others, but others really are testing my patients. It's kind of like whenever I drive down the road, I could truthfully say I drive great, not because I'm respective of my neighbors, but because I see people like Karl Pain knowing they're going to give me a ticket. If I don't drive Draped, see the motivation totally different. The motivation is all about you, and we are selfish people. Christ Jesus died for us self sacrificial e and that's what he calls us to do in our relationship with others. How do we respond to others pro actively. You know, I used to tell Ashley this all the time. There were times whenever she and I would have disagreements based upon people that would say things to her. And I always tell Ashley you know how it's like this. I'm going to tell you there's two sides to every story, and usually truth is in the middle. And I'm just going to tell you I'm always going to want you to take my side. So whenever I tell you, I might just fluff it up a little bit to make me look good. It's not the right motive. The right motive is not being bothered, but letting it go and finding out what's going on with the other person that they should respond that way. See, it's the understanding where people are seen. How many times do we reach out to others and we do for them what we think that they're expecting us to do without ever checking in to find out what is really there need. When you examine the scripture and it begins, it says so in everything. It's not just Monday, Wednesday, Friday. It's not just some hours of the day. It's basically in all things, in everything that comes up. This is the guiding principle, which is due toa others, which you would have them do to you. And that's what we're called to do. And that is the fulfillment of the law and the profits. Yeah, that's really kind of hard to do to give positive action, Thio others without any thought about yourself, even if they don't reciprocate. And the only way we can do that is because as Christians, we have the power of the Holy Spirit in our life. You know, Jesus promised us that he will give us the comforter in acts. When he was leaving, he told those disciples to gather together and pray, and the comforter will come. The Holy Spirit will come and he will give you power to impact the world, and that's what we have to do. We have to look at what's called our Christian conscience. Now I know a lot of people say Tom my conscience is just fine. No, I'm talking about your Christian conscious, the one that's not motivated about self and how I will benefit from this. No, no, no, it's what would Christ call me to do? There's a movie that was popular several years back on. The movie is called Pay It Forward and Pay It Forward is about a social studies teacher. Pete gives an assignment to his seventh grade class, and the assignment of the seventh grade class is for them to devise and then put into action a plan that will change the world for the better. Now Trevor, one of the students, came up with a plan, and he called it Pay it forward and what his plan Waas is that the recipient of a favor does a favor for three others rather than paying back the favor. Thus, you pay it forward, you have a favor, you find three others and you pay them a favor. Who then pay it to three others. And you could imagine how this goes throughout the whole world. The first three, then impacts nine, then impacts. Well, I'm not a good mathematician, but you could do the math And what the caveat or the special thing about this waas is that in doing the favor, it has to be a favor that the recipient cannot complete themselves. See, that's the understanding of how you can give help and assistance to someone else. It's putting yourself in their place and understanding how you can help them, especially if they can't help themselves. That's paying it forward. And that's what Jesus called us to do. He called us that in everything. Consider others before yourself. Do everything to other people just like you would want them to do to you. And it doesn't matter what their response is if they don't ever do it to you. We're called to be proactive and do it to them. So have a strong feeling that if we were to go back in daily, read what we call the golden rule, do to others as we would want them to do to us. We might have a gentler nation, a more peaceful home life, a better work environment, because then it's not all about me and my self interest. It's all about them and what God's equipped me to do for them. When Jesus is talking about asking and seeking and knocking. It's preying on behalf of others as well as for ourselves. Toe have the understanding of how we can respond to the needs of others literally, if every day and for me, maybe every hour, just to respond myself. When I see someone to think, How should I treat them? Making sure I treat them the way I always want to be treated. Good question to ask. Now, just let you know. Thanks for listening to my little sermon today because the sermon was really for me. I just let you all listen as I'm talking to myself and reminding myself of who I need to be now I just challenge each of us. So look in the mirror, see who we are and respond accordingly to this teaching. Do the others, as we want them to do to us