This series is Part 5 of 7 of the Kingdom Handbook (on the Sermon on the Mount).
Matthew 7:1-61
Not everyone is easy to live with. If any of you have children, if any of you have ever been married, if any of you have had a roommate, if any of you have brothers and sisters, then you know what I mean.
Not everyone is easy to live with.
I brought an example with me this morning. I’d like you to consider the case of a salesman on the road, trying to get home to his wife for Thanksgiving. But his flight is re-routed and grounded, so he’s forced to share the last available hotel room with a stranger—another traveling salesman—and he discovers the problem of living with difficult people.
[show clip from “Planes, Trains, and Automobiles”]
Today we’re beginning a new series on “Living With Difficult People”. As it turns out, because I live with my wife, Julie, I know a lot about living with difficult people…because she has told me everything that she’s learned about it from living so long with me!
If anybody would know about living with difficult people, though, it would have to be Jesus. When you’re perfect, let’s face it, living with anyone else would be difficult. So, as you might imagine, Jesus had something to say about how to live with difficult people. His words on the subject are found in Matthew 7. It’s part of the Sermon on the Mount that we’ve been studying all year.
Over the next three weeks, we’re going to look at three biblical principles—three secrets for successfully living with difficult people. And since none of us is perfect, let’s face it, all of us are difficult to live with. So, hopefully, this is some truth that you’ll be able to use in your life right away. Today, we begin with the first principle:
It has to do with the importance of guarding my thoughts.
One of the things that makes it difficult to live with difficult people is what we think about them. We think they’re difficult! And so it’s difficult to live with them. Jesus tells us that the first thing we can do to be successful in getting along with each other is to guard our thoughts. Specifically, we need to be careful about making judgments of other people.
Matthew 7:1-6 Do not judge, or you too will be judged. [2] For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.
[3] 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.
[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 then turn and tear you to pieces.
Proverbs 9:7-8 Whoever corrects a mocker invites insult; whoever rebukes a wicked man incurs abuse. [8] Do not rebuke a mocker or he will hate you; rebuke a wise man and he will love you.
1. Condemning Judgment vs. Discerning Judgment
2. Quick vs. Careful
3. Focused on Others’ Faults vs. Examining Self
4. Generalizations vs. Individual
5. Gossip / Assumptions / Appearances
vs. Benefit of the Doubt / Observations / Questions
6. Legalistic vs. Gracious
7. Motives vs. Actions
When we went through the 40 Days of Purpose, I noticed two kinds of responses. A few people went through the program asking, “What’s wrong with this book? What are the problems? What don’t I like about it?” Most people went through asking, “What can I learn from this book?”
When a new pastor or staff member comes to our church there are two kinds of responses. Some will look to discover what’s wrong with them. Others will look to discover how God has gifted them and what they contribute to our body.
When a new person walks in the door of our church, you can focus on what’s wrong with them or you can focus on what’s right with them.
When we implement a change in our ministry, there are two ways to respond. Some people make it their responsibility to identify what’s wrong with the plan. Others are excited to discover the new benefits and opportunities that change offers us as a church.
People who tend to find fault often act like they have helped everybody out by uncovering a faulty program, a faulty person, a faulty pastor, or a faulty plan. But you know what the truth is? You can always find something wrong with anything—any program, any person, any pastor, any plan. But if “finding out what’s wrong” is the focus of your approach, then you cheat yourself and everyone else out of the opportunity to learn and grow and benefit from what God has brought into your life or into your church.
Are you one that always tends to search for “what’s wrong with it?”
If you are, then stop it! Stop judging!
Thank God for people who can see the potential pitfalls in a plan. Discernment is a helpful skill and a positive contribution. Good judgment is a valuable quality. But some people miss the distinction between discernment and condemnation. They elevate fault finding to a ministry—as if they were doing the church a favor, or doing society a favor, or doing their spouse a favor—by making it their goal to find out what’s wrong.
It’s very legit to ask questions like, “Can we do this?” “Should we do it?” “How will we do it?” or “What problems need to be solved in order to do it?” But all that is different than searching for faults and focusing on weaknesses, intentionally championing problems instead of solutions. One is the gift of discernment, good judgment. The other is the bane of condemnation, the kind of judgment that Jesus says does not belong in the church and does not belong in our lives.
1 Copyright © 2004 by Lewis B. Bell III. This is the edited manuscript of Lesson 1 in the Kingdom Relationships series delivered by Chip Bell at Fellowship Bible Church Arapaho in Dallas, TX on October 17, 2004. Anyone is at liberty to use this lesson for educational purposes only, with credit.
Matthew 7:7-111
Have you ever wanted something really, really bad, only to discover that someone else was standing in your way? When that happens, you just might find yourself living with difficult people.
[clip from “Planes, Trains and Automobiles”]
People can be difficult to live with. And that’s probably never more true that when there’s competition: two people, but only one donut.
Or like here, two people, but only one taxi. No matter what it is, when we have to compete with people for limited resources, they can become really difficult to live with, and so can we.
What is it you really, really want?
If anybody would know about living with difficult people, it would have to be Jesus. When you’re perfect, living with anyone else would be difficult. So, last week we began a look at what Jesus had to say about how to live with difficult people. His words are found in Matthew 7.
We’re taking three weeks to examine three biblical principles—three secrets for successfully living with difficult people.
Last week, we saw the first thing Jesus told us about getting along with each other: we need to guard our thoughts.
It’s easy to judge each other hastily, to assign motives, and to focus on everything we don’t like about the other person. But when we judge hastily like that, the Bible says that we create an environment of unfair criticism and that we’re very likely to experience unfair criticism directed back at us. Sometimes we judge each other before we’ve had a chance to examine our own hearts and to deal with any sin in our life that could be warping our perception of other people’s faults. There is a place for making judgments—for discernment and discretion. That requires evaluating other people. But those judgments must be made carefully, looking at our own sin, giving other people the benefit of the doubt, asking questions, focusing on their actions, and exercising grace. The judging that is condemning, hasty, that makes generalizations about a whole group, that is based on gossip, assumptions or appearances, and that tries to divine someone’s motives or read their mind—those kinds of condemning judgments have no place in our relationships. And Jesus tells us to stop it. To get along with other people—even difficult people—we need to guard our thoughts and not allow ourselves to make inappropriate judgments.
This week we come to the second biblical principle for living with difficult people. Jesus says we need to be careful about how we fulfill our desires. The things we want can be a major source of conflict with the people around us. It may be a competition over scarce resources. It might be because we want something that someone else has or they want something we have. It could be that we want something from someone or we want them to do something for us, and they’re not giving us what we want. It could be that we want someone to behave in a certain way and they’re just not cooperating. Those kinds of unfulfilled desires can lead to intense personal conflict. So, when we find that someone is a difficult person to live with, it might be worth asking ourselves if our conflict stems from some unfulfilled desire.
Today we’re going to look at two passages, one in Matthew 7 and one in James 4. Together they tell us that unfulfilled desires can tear apart our relationships. But the good news is that there is something we can do about it. There is a way to fulfill our desires that doesn’t require fighting with each other. These verses tell us the secret of not allowing our desires to make it difficult to get along with other people.
Let’s begin in the book of James. James was Jesus’ brother, a leader of the first church in Jerusalem. His letter was the first book of the New Testament to be written. Here’s what he says,
James 4:1-2 What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don't they come from your desires that battle within you?
“Desires” is the word for “pleasure”, the word from which we get our English “hedonism”. The Bible says that our desire for pleasure fights a battle within us—a relentless campaign for satisfaction. And when someone gets in the way, look out! We’re willing to fight anyone who stands in the way.
[2] You want something but don't get it. You kill and covet, but you cannot have what you want. You quarrel and fight.
The phrase “you want something” is actually much stronger in Greek. It’s the same word as the word for “lust”. It means a strong, powerful desire, a longing. That kind of longing drives us to treat each other poorly. Now maybe in your life this strong desire doesn’t lead you to commit murder. But there are lots of conflicts short of murder. You know what I’m talking about. You don’t get along with someone and the reason is because you want something and you’re not getting what you want. So the fighting might be as simple as angry words or dirty looks. It might be as subtle as who you choose not to speak to. Our desires can make it difficult to live with anyone who gets in the way.
But James has a very simple alternative. It’s so simple that it makes you wonder why you didn’t think about it before you started fighting.
You do not have, because you do not ask God.
Whoa! I could ‘a had a V-8!
You don’t have, because you didn’t ask! I think what James is saying here is that often we convince ourselves that the reason we don’t have something we want has to do with some person who’s keeping us from fulfilling our desires—a parent, a spouse, a friend, a pastor, a co-worker, a neighbor. If they’d just get their act together, then my desires would be fulfilled.
But, says James, why not try going to the source. If you want something, instead of waiting on fickle, selfish, forgetful people, why not just ask God for it? Duh! And that brings us to our verses in Matthew 7. Jesus has just been talking about judging others, now he suddenly starts talking about asking God for what you want.
Matthew 7:7-8 Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.
Jesus doesn’t spell out the connection between these verses on prayer and the surrounding context. The verses immediately before and after are talking about getting along in our relationships with each other. Here in the middle of that, Jesus starts talking about prayer. Why? I think that the verses we looked at in James 4 are the answer. Our desires can be something that creates conflict with other people. And Jesus, like James, says that we should take our desires and ask God to fulfill them.
What we have here in Matthew 7:7 are three commands and three promises. Ask, seek and knock. These three commands are all in the present tense which implies that we should keep asking, keep seeking and keep knocking. The words grow in intensity: asking is basic, easy. Seeking implies even more effort. Knocking implies persistence. Each of them is followed by a promise: God will give. You will find. The door will be opened.
Just in case someone missed it the first three times, Jesus repeats the whole thing in verse 8:
[8] For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened.
Ask, seek, knock, and you will receive, find and walk in an open door. Basically, Jesus is saying SIX times that God will fulfill your desires. He will give you what you ask for. He will allow you to find that which you’re seeking. You knock and he’ll open the doors.
There’s a certain confidence in these verses, a confidence that God will answer our prayers, a confidence that he exists, that he’s listening, that he is able to act and that he will act to fulfill our requests. There couldn’t be a clearer statement that God will answer our prayers.
How can we be so confident? The reason is in verse 9:
Matthew 7:9-11 [9] Which of you, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? [10] Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake?
God is our father and he acts like a father would.
If your son asked you for something good would you try to trick him? Would you give him something worthless to eat instead of something nutritious and delicious? Of course not. Neither does God.
[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!
God knows how to give good gifts to his children. Notice that the point is not just a certainty that God will answer our prayers. It’s a certainty that God will give us good stuff. If you desire something, don’t let that draw you into a conflict with other people. Instead, simply ask God to fulfill your desire, and he will. He will answer you and he will give you good stuff.
These verses that we’ve looked at are pretty straight forward. Our problem is not figuring out what these verses mean. Our problem is that our experience doesn’t live up to the promise. We have all prayed for something and found that God does not simply give us what we want. We have all taken our desires to God and still found them unfulfilled. And that leads us to a crisis. Did I do something wrong? Is sin keeping God from answering my prayers? Is it a lack of faith? When I prayed I believed, but maybe I didn’t believe hard enough. Our experience of unanswered prayers seems to be exactly the opposite of what we read here in Matthew 7. So what’s the deal? We grow more and more disappointed and disillusioned. And ultimately the crisis leads to the big questions: Doesn’t God love me? Is this really true? Does God really answer prayer? And if we struggle too long with that one, then we begin to ask: Is God even there?
I don’t know how many of you have hit a point in your life where you began to doubt if this whole God thing was just a fable because you tried the prayer thing and it didn’t get you anywhere. I suspect that many of you have been there.
Many of the people who survived the Holocaust in Nazi Germany came away with their lives but not their faith. They grew tired of calling out to God for justice and deliverance—but all they got back was silence.
I know a couple people who have recently struggled over the same issues because several years ago they lost their jobs. And after years of praying for a new job—asking, seeking, knocking—they haven’t received, they haven’t found, and the door hasn’t been opened.
There are probably some people here who have been praying for health, for recovery, or praying that one of their relatives would come to Christ, and you’re tired of praying because nothing has changed—your strongest desires remain unfulfilled.
Have you ever been to a restaurant where you didn’t get what you ordered? Hungary, cevapcici
[clip: “When Harry Met Sally”]
God will give us good things.
What kind of food does mommy make?
James 4:3 When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.
May I Take Your Order?
1.House
2.Guidance
3.Girlfriend
4.Sanctification
5.Health
6.Patience
7.Success
8.Maturity
9.Fun
10.Character
11.Car
12.Truth
13.Wealth
14.Trust
15.Husband
16.Life
17.Safety
18.Salvation
19.Longevity
20.Glory
But instead of fighting, we should simply ask God for what we want and then trust that He will do what is good. Other people, even difficult people, can’t stand in the way of God giving us what we should have and what He wants to give us. In fact, those difficult people may even be God’s answer to your prayers. They may be the “good” thing that He has provided and we’re just having trouble understanding why it’s a good thing that they’re in our lives.
1 Copyright © 2004 by Lewis B. Bell III. This is the edited manuscript of Lesson 2 in the Kingdom Relationships series delivered by Chip Bell at Fellowship Bible Church Arapaho in Dallas, TX on October 24, 2004. Anyone is at liberty to use this lesson for educational purposes only, with credit.
Matthew 7:121
As you probably remember, this Tuesday is Election Day. People all over the country will be going to the polls to select the next President of the United States.
Some will be voting for John Kerry, some for Ralph Nader, some for George Bush, and there will probably also be some write-in candidates. So with that in mind, I thought that it might be a good idea to review the
9. Promises to improve foreign relations with Hawaii.
8. Runs a series of attack ads against Martin Sheen's character on "The West Wing."
7. His #1 choice to work on his cabinet is "that Bob Villa guy."
6. Outstanding record as President of his lodge is nullified by the fact that no one really cares.
5. Anybody mentions Washington, he asks, "The state or the DC thingie?"
4. At the debates, he answers every question with a snarled, "You wanna wrestle?!?"
3. Vows to put an end to the war in Pokemon and free the Pikachu refugees once and for all.
2. Says the Pledge of Allegiance as quickly as possible, then shouts, "I win!"
1. On the very first question of the debate, he attempts to use a Lifeline.
We want to have our country in the hands of capable leadership, so remember to vote on Tuesday. Please.
OK, now that I’ve got that out of my system, in all seriousness, I’d like to encourage you to vote this Tuesday. The Bible says that God will place in the presidency the man He has chosen. Daniel 5:21 says, “The Most High God is sovereign over the kingdoms of men and he sets over them anyone he wishes.” However, in this country, God has also given us the privilege of participating in the process of choosing our leaders. In our country, we are not only citizens, we are also rulers. And, like all rulers, God wants us to acknowledge his sovereignty and to rule wisely and justly. So this Tuesday is your chance to rule well and you can do that by acknowledging His sovereignty over our election and by voting as God leads you.
With that in mind, I’d like us to take a moment to pray for our nation and for the outcome of the election this week.
For the last couple of weeks, we’ve been talking about living with difficult people. And we all know that some people are more difficult to get along with than others:
See what I mean? Some people truly are more difficult to get along with than others. Jesus had something to say about living with difficult people. His words on the subject are found in Matthew 7, part of the Sermon on the Mount.
We’ve set aside three weeks to examine three biblical principles—three secrets for successfully living with difficult people. The first thing Jesus told us about getting along with each other is that we need to guard our thoughts.
It’s easy to judge each other hastily, to assign motives, and to focus on everything we don’t like about another person.
But when we judge hastily like that, the Bible says that we create an environment of unfair criticism and that we’re very likely to experience unfair criticism directed back at us. Sometimes we judge each other before we’ve had a chance to examine our own hearts and to deal with any sin in our life that could be warping our perception of other people’s faults. There is a place for making judgments—for discernment and discretion. That requires evaluating other people. But those judgments must be made carefully, looking at our own sin, giving other people the benefit of the doubt, asking questions, focusing on their actions, and exercising grace. The judging that is condemning, hasty, that makes generalizations about a whole group, that is based on gossip, assumptions or appearances, and that tries to divine someone’s motives or read their mind—those kinds of condemning judgments have no place in our relationships. And Jesus tells us to stop it. To get along with other people—even difficult people—we need to guard our thoughts and not allow ourselves to make inappropriate judgments.
Last week we talked about the second principle. We all have desires and sometimes when other people get in the way of our desires, we find it difficult to live with them. So in order to get along with each other, we need to give our desires to God. The Bible tells us to ask, seek, and knock. Pray. Tell God what you want and He will give it to you. But the Bible also tells us that God gives us good gifts. So what that means is that sometimes God will not answer our prayers the way we want Him to, because He wants to give us the very best—and very often that is not what we are asking Him for. So when we want something, instead of fighting with each other to fulfill our desires, we should simply ask God for what we want and then trust that He will do what is good. Other people, even difficult people, can’t stand in the way of God giving us what we should have and what He wants to give us.
Today we come to the third and final principle about getting along with difficult people.
If we want to live in harmony with each other, then we need to plan our actions. We need to think carefully about how we should treat each other and we should make a plan for how we want to act towards each other. Basically, Jesus says, that when you sit down to write an action plan for dealing with difficult people, you really only need to ask yourself one simple question:
In other words, if it was you and somebody else was writing up an action plan for how to treat you, what would you like? How would you like to be treated? What would you like other people to do for you? What would you prefer? The best way to get along with difficult people is to treat them just as you would like to be treated. How would you like it?
In verse 12, Jesus sums up all three principles here in just one simple phrase. In fact, he sums up everything he’s taught in this sermon in one simple phrase. In fact, he sums up everything God wants us to do in this one simple phrase. Almost everyone has heard this phrase—even people who have never once been to church. It’s a principle that has shaped human relationships for centuries. It is short and simple, but incredibly profound. We call it:
Matthew 7:12 So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.
Similar sayings had actually been around for years before Jesus said this. But they were all stated negatively, like, “What is hateful to do—don’t do to someone else”. Jesus is the first one to say it positively. So it’s more than just refraining from doing something evil against someone else. It’s actually taking deliberate steps to do something positive to them.
You might have also heard this expression as, “Do to others before they do unto you.” And of course, that’s not what Jesus is saying here. But there’s another way this phrase is mistaken—which is a little more subtle. Jesus is also not saying that you should do something nice for others so that they will return the favor and do something nice back to you. In fact, the order of the words is actually different than it is in English: “What you want others to do to you, do that to them.”
So let’s take a look at each part of this verse and talk about what it means. The very first step in implementing this principle from Jesus is to
Matthew 7:12 So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.
You must begin with self-examination. Don’t start with the other person. Start with yourself. What do you like? What would you like? I don’t mean “What do you want?” I mean, put your self in their shoes. If it was you in their position, then what would you want? How would you like it? That’s what you should plan to do for others.
Please notice something important here. This doesn’t mean that you become a doormat. It doesn’t mean that you cease to have an opinion and just do whatever everybody else wants you to do. For example, you’re not supposed to end up like this:
This “golden rule” doesn’t mean that you lose yourself in the desires of other people. In fact, look at the words closely. It actually means the opposite! First, get in touch with your own desires. Figure out what you would want and then make your plan according to your own wishes, your own desires, your own needs, your own longings, and your own hopes. If it was just the way you wanted it to be, what would it look like? You don’t lose yourself. You begin with yourself.
I find it really interesting that the Golden Rule begins with self. I think there’s a reason for that. God knows that the one thing that we are all really, really good at is watching out for ourselves. In fact, we’re born that way. We don’t need to read books or take classes or get personal coaching. We just naturally know how to take care of number one! And as we grow older, we become even more skilled at looking out for number one and identifying our own needs and desires.
So God gives us an assignment that we can all relate to. He starts off with a question that every one of us has a natural talent for answering: “What would you want? How would you like it? What would be your ideal scenario? What would be your perfect outcome?”
Once you have that idea firmly in hand, now it’s time to move on to the next step:
Matthew 7:12 So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.
Whatever it is that you would want to see other people do for you if it was you in that situation or in that predicament or if it was you who had that need—that’s what Jesus wants you to do for them.
Start with yourself. Project yourself into the other person’s need. Ask yourself what it is you would want. And then do that for the other person.
See how deliberate that is? That’s why I say that if we want to get along with each other, we need to plan our actions. We need to think about how we should be treating each other. It isn’t just trying to keep from hurting each other or trying to avoid sinning against each other. What Jesus actually means is that we need to actively plan to treat each other great—just the way we would choose to be treated ourselves.
You know, that brings up one important exception to the Golden Rule. Here it is. Not everybody likes the same treatment. So as we’re thinking about how we would like to be treated, sometimes we have to make adjustments and ask ourselves, “If we were that other person, what would we want?”
E.g., kissing my father-in-law.
Julie and surprise parties, staying up late or getting up real early.
Maybe you’ve heard of the concept of “Love Language”. The idea is that everyone doesn’t share the same idea of what feels like a loving thing to do. So when we’re trying to “do unto others”, we also have to think about not just what we would want, but what we would want if we were them.
Well, really, that’s it. That’s the whole principle. That’s the phrase that sums up all of Jesus’ ethical teaching in a nutshell. This is the summary of the “kingdom righteousness” that Jesus tells us to pursue as a priority. In fact, Jesus says that this one principle actually is the law.
Matthew 7:12 So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.
Literally, the phrase is, “this IS the Law and the Prophets”. The Law and the Prophets was an expression that meant the whole Old Testament—everything that God had taught them up to that point. Jesus says, that this “Golden Rule” is, or is a summary of, everything God wants us to do.
He’s probably thinking back to Lev 19:18 which says,
Leviticus 19:18 Love your neighbor as yourself.
Here in the Old Testament law was the seed of the Golden Rule. Notice that it has the same idea. You need to begin with loving yourself—something we all have at birth as a natural ability. Now treat your neighbor as well as you would treat yourself.
This brings up an important point, because although I believe we all are born with the natural ability to love ourselves, in some people that natural ability has been destroyed. Some people have been so hated or so abused or so mistreated that they don’t love themselves and don’t believe that anyone does love them or anyone could love them. When that happens, do you know what that means? It means that you will also have trouble loving other people.
There is a type of self-love which is inappropriate, arrogant, and self-centered. But God made us to be loved by him, to be loved by each other and to be loved by ourselves. There is also an appropriate type of self-love which recognizes that I am God’s beloved. I am his special creation. And if God loves me, then I must be lovable and it is appropriate to love myself and recognize that I am loved and lovely. That doesn’t mean that everything about me is lovely. It means that as someone made in God’s image and as someone who is the object of his love, I am valuable. If I don’t recognize that and appreciate that about myself, then I’m going to have a very difficult time recognizing that and appreciating that in other people.
If you’re going to love your neighbor as yourself, then you need to love yourself—or otherwise your neighbor’s not going to be very loved either.
If you are someone who finds it difficult or impossible to love yourself, then I’d like to encourage you to meditate on everything that Jesus has done for you. He loves you so much he gave his own life so that he could live with you forever. Think about the love that God demonstrated in planning you, making you, choosing you, chasing you, finding you, wooing you, winning you, forgiving you, guiding you, comforting you, helping you, protecting you, and providing for you. He loves you. And he wants you to love yourself so that you’re equipped to love others.
Let’s go back to this idea about the Golden Rule summarizing everything God wants for us in our relationships with each other. There was another time in Jesus’ life when someone asked him point blank what was the most important thing that God wanted us to do. Here’s what he said:
Matthew 22:35-40 One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question: [36] "Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?"
[37] Jesus replied: "'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' [38] This is the first and greatest commandment.
[39] And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' [40] All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments."
Once again quoting from Leviticus 19, Jesus said that everything God had revealed to mankind hung from these two commands: love God and love your neighbor as yourself. Do you think that this simple phrase might be important to God?
Paul describes the same thing in
Romans 13:8-10 He who loves his fellow man has fulfilled the law. [9] The commandments…are summed up in this one rule: "Love your neighbor as yourself."
[10] Love…is the fulfillment of the law.
Do you want to know what God wants you to do with your life? or for that matter, what he wants you to do with this afternoon? Love your neighbor as yourself. That’s it. And that means you need to begin by thinking about how you would like to be treated and then finish by making a specific action plan to treat others the same way. If we want to get along with difficult people, then we need to plan our actions to reflect the way that we would want to be treated. Let me show you what I mean:
[kids sing, “Treat others like you wanna be treated.”]
On the way out, we’d like to take an offering for our Love Fund which is used to help people that have significant financial needs. If you’d like to be a part of that, the ushers are going to be at the back door.
1 Copyright © 2004 by Lewis B. Bell III. This is the edited manuscript of Lesson 3 in the Kingdom Relationships series delivered by Chip Bell at Fellowship Bible Church Arapaho in Dallas, TX on October 31, 2004. Anyone is at liberty to use this lesson for educational purposes only, with credit.