Episode Transcript
[00:00:04] Right. So I'm continuing our series on what Jesus said. Isn't it good to look at what Jesus said in our lives? Jesus said a lot of things. And when I announced this series, I remember seeing all your faces at the start thought, oh, great, what Jesus said series. And I started reading some of the things out he said, and I could see all your faces dropping because sometimes he packs a bit of a punch, don't he? Jesus in what he said. So we're going to carry on with that this morning.
[00:00:27] Two things I want to look at that he said this morning. One was quite a famous one that you've heard. I'm sure you've heard of both of them. One not as famous, but we're going to look at both of them. But before we do, let's just look at another couple of things Jesus said before we start. It's so good. Do you know I got these out church. I told you last time, I've got a new Bible. When you get older, you can't see quite as well. So I've got a large print Bible which is brilliant because I can actually read it. And what Jesus said is in red, so you can easily flick through the pages what Jesus said is there in red. So I just flicked through the pages last week when I was preparing this and these are a few things I read.
[00:01:02] Luke 6. 22. What blessings await you when people hate you and exclude you and mock you and curse you as evil because you follow the Son of Man. And what Esther said last week, Bill Johnson's been saying at Bethlehem America, that that's good at the moment is being called evil and that that evil has been called good. Don't want to dive into that this morning, but the culture of this world, let's never short circuit what Jesus says. What the Bible said, what Jesus said is good is what is good. We don't change that. What God said is good is good. Interesting here then in Luke, isn't it? So when people hate you and exclude you and mock you and curse you as evil because you follow the Son of man. Luke 6. 27. I like this. It takes it a step further. But to you who are willing to listen, I say love your enemies.
[00:01:52] Do good to those who hate you. Wow. Bless those who curse you and pray for those who hurt you.
[00:02:03] Anyone here not yet know Jesus? Or maybe sliding away from God? Let's have our ears open this morning because I want to tell you Jesus loves you. It's if you're far from Jesus, he'll always have his open arms to welcome you back. If you've been coming to this church for a few weeks and you don't really know Jesus, you see people clapping their hands and singing, thinking, what the heck are they getting so excited about? I can't see anything because it's going on in here. And when you give your heart to Jesus, it's the most precious thing. So I pray Jesus words will really speak to you this morning. Matthew 6:24, 26.
[00:02:36] Jesus said to his disciples, if any of you want to be my follower, you must give up your own way. Take up your cross and follow me. If you try to hang on to your own life, you will lose it. But if you give up your life for my sake, that's giving your heart to Jesus. You will save it.
[00:03:00] And what benefit do you get if you gain the whole world but lose your own soul? Is anything more important than your own soul? Isn't it good, Church? Look at what Jesus said. It pierces like a knife. Matthew 7:12.
[00:03:15] Do to others what you would like them to do to you. Whoa, we're hotting up a bit now, church.
[00:03:22] Matthew 12, verse 46 to 50. The last one. While Jesus was still talking to the crowd, his mother, his brothers stood. Stood outside wanting to speak to him. Obviously, that's Mary, his mum, his brothers, his human brothers here on earth. And someone told him, your mother and your brothers are standing outside wanting to speak to you. He replied to them, who is my mother and who are my brothers?
[00:03:50] Pointing to his disciples. Not to Mary, not to his brothers. Pointing to his disciples, he said, here are my mother and here are my brothers. For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother, my sister, and my mother. That's powerful, isn't it? We'll look at that in a minute. So it's these last two verses I've read this morning that I want to look into.
[00:04:14] We'll start first with the famous one that I'm guessing you've all heard of, which is Matthew 7:12, do to others what you would like them to do unto you. Have a little drink.
[00:04:27] Who would like others to be nice to us?
[00:04:30] Anyone?
[00:04:32] Anyone? Had people not be nice to you?
[00:04:35] Yeah. Now, be honest, Church. Has any of you not be nice to other people?
[00:04:40] Cool. Well, I like honesty. So we all heard that, right? Do to others what you would have them do unto you.
[00:04:48] Well, those that have your Bibles open or your apps on your phones, Esther makes us feel really bad, don't you? If you open an app, it's okay. If you have an app on a phone that you're reading, that's okay. The Bible, the old school is best, having it by your bed to read. But if you've come to church with your app, do not feel condemnation from me. If you've got your apps, open your Bible. Who can shout out. What is this title? What is the title of this little one sentence in the Bible? It's Matthew 7:12. It says, do unto others what you'd like them to do to you. It's called something. What's it called?
[00:05:17] No, say again. The Golden Rule.
[00:05:21] Now, my friend Ade, he knew that I picked up the kids from Youth on Friday night. Where's Ade? Morning. Aid. I said, aid, what's the Golden Rule? He said, do unto others as you have done unto you. I thought, there's a pastor, he knows his word. It's brilliant. We're going to look at that in a minute. Because he said something else. I actually researched and he was right.
[00:05:40] So this scripture, this one sentence, do to others, that you would have them do to you, is entitled in the Bible, the Golden Rule. Pretty powerful, that church, isn't it? The Golden Rule.
[00:05:53] Suddenly it becomes very powerful, I think. Must be an important scripture. Must be an important scripture. So what do you think of gold when you think of gold? Maybe first place in the running race, first place in any race, a swimming race or whatever. And it's that prize, isn't it, that golden prize. You've done the best out of everything. You stood on the podium in the middle. Come on, you've got the flag of your country behind you. What a feeling that must be. You've won gold, a wedding ring, gave your wife a wedding ring. Some might have given them a platinum ring like I did to my wife, so it doesn't count for me. But gold, you often think of a ring, don't you, this precious metal. Yeah. Any of you getting really kind of holy and think of heaven? It says the streets are paved with gold. Must be pretty cool streets. Better than the M62 going from Leeds to Manchester. It's paved with gold in heaven.
[00:06:44] I love doing this. So I typed into Google, you can do this if you want. When you go home, if you write these specific words down, this is what Google said. I put into Google, when you think of gold, what ideas come to mind? When you think of gold, what ideas come to mind? You can check Google out if it's the same as what it says to me. And I wrote down exactly what it said. It said, this gold Symbolizes several things that humans pine, wealth, beauty, romance, peace, and so forth. Moreover, it represents these things in their most extreme state, in a state of Perfection. Thank you, Mr. Google. All sounds pretty special, Gold, doesn't it? First place, a state of perfection symbolizes all these things. Even Google reckons it's perfect.
[00:07:34] Well, I reckon, Church, what matters the most is what Jesus thinks. And in our Bible, the golden rule says this. What does Jesus think? It says that we're to do to others as we would have them done unto us. That is the golden rule in the Bible. It's great, isn't it? It makes you suddenly look at that scripture differently.
[00:07:53] How does that look in our lives, Church? How does it look in our lives?
[00:07:57] Do you look after your own finances? I bet you do. I bet you watch the pennies. Know when you can go on holiday, Know what you can afford to spend. Know what you can afford to spend in your little world. But God says, do to others what you'd have done unto yourself. And when you realize actually your finance comes from God anyway, all that we have, maybe we want to be part of the golden rule. Give in to our friends, Give in to situations that need our money. Do you look after your own health? I'm sure you do. And I'm sure if you needed to go to hospital, you'd go. Or I'm sure if you were going through a situation, you ring a friend and say, will you pray for me? I'm not so well. What's the golden rule? Do unto others. If you have done unto yourself, maybe you can pray for others. Maybe when you hear of somebody else ill, especially in the church, we can rally around, think, what can we do to help? Yeah, this is the golden rule in action, Church. Do you look after your own wellbeing? I'm sure you do. But do you look after the wellbeing of others? That's the golden rule. No, this is simple this morning, Church. But as we dive into what Jesus says in our area, some of these things, we all know them. I know them. But how much do we actually put them into practice? The Golden Rule. Do you look after your own home?
[00:09:08] I'm sure you do. That's the last one. Don't worry. No more beatings up from Phil. Well, maybe you could invite others to your home. Maybe this Christmas time you bring somebody that's needing to your Christmas meal. The golden rule is to do to others what we would have done unto ourselves.
[00:09:25] So Jesus tells us to look after others. I think we must do that. So come on you must all have times when you don't want to be nice to others.
[00:09:35] When we read Matthew 7:12, first off, this verse, it makes an important point that many of us, in fact all people need to hear. What is it? It's simply this. It matters how you treat other people. Apart from at the tip, it matters how you treat other people.
[00:09:56] Christianity is not just about your personal vertical relationship, you and God. When we get saved and we ask Jesus to come live in our heart, this starts to happen. Our horizontal relationships with other people should also change because Jesus is living within us. And if Jesus lives within us, his golden rule is due to others, what you would have done unto yourself. So yes, this changes and we become like Jesus. We become more like him every day, don't he? The Bible tells of becoming more and more like him until he returns. But this should change as well how we treat other people.
[00:10:35] Matthew 7:1 also says to me, jesus commanded us not to judge others. How many of us have judged others?
[00:10:43] Come on. How many of us have judged others motives? How many of us have judged situations without knowing the full facts? How many have judged others?
[00:10:53] So what we see here, this does not. This passage does not tell us that we can never morally, doctrinally ever question something, doesn't tell us that.
[00:11:04] But what it does say is, don't jump to conclusions in other people's lives. Don't jump to conclusions. Situations before you have the full facts. I mean that church, if we're going to do to others as we've done unto ourselves, you would want others to not judge you without knowing a full situation. Am I right? If there's a situation going on, you're thinking you don't know the full facts. Maybe somebody's keeping the full facts discreet for reasons we don't know about. But if we judge others, right, we're not living as Jesus called us to live. Let's always find out the full facts. Let's not jump to conclusions about others. Believe that what Jesus is saying until we have all the information. We know their motive, we know their hearts. We can't know all that until we have all the facts, can we?
[00:11:49] So we want to be people here, Church, that give others the benefit of the doubt, right? Wouldn't you want that? Wouldn't you? If you were accused of something you hadn't done, to be given the benefit of the doubt till the truth came out. Come on, let's do to others what we haven't done unto ourselves. Treat them in the way you would want to be treated. Sounds so simple this, this morning, doesn't it? Tell you what, do we all do it? I know, I always don't.
[00:12:14] The amount of times I've never found out the full story, have reacted to a situation and regretted it later. In fact, it happened just this week at work.
[00:12:24] The company I own up north, we're applying for an operator's license to drive a lorry and we need this thing called a transport manager and it transpires we've actually asked for the wrong license. Okay. Instead of a restricted licence where you carry your own goods, we've applied for a standard one where you can carry other goods, which has higher degrees of what you need to get. And I'd misread this situation completely.
[00:12:48] Now, Sarah, who's done this for me, who works up north, is a really lovely person. She's a Christian, actually. She's worked for me 20 years and I knew her character and I jumped to a situation about something before I had a chance to speak to her. Anyway, I texted her and I rang her and she didn't answer. Have you ever done that? Have you ever texted somebody or rang somebody about a situation? When you're getting het up about a situation and before you've waited for the answer, their lack of response, you readers. Oh, they're ignoring me. Oh, there's a problem. I mean, this. There was no problem. As I eventually spoke to Sarah, which was about three hours later, she would always get back to me straight away. Her mum had been on the phone to her for an hour and a half because her auntie had just died and she was consoling her mum, who was all upset. Then she had to catch up on a bit of work and rang me. She rang me, she was absolutely fine. But in that three hours, I'd got myself all in a tizzy. I'm thinking, but I know Sarah, I know her character, so why did I react like that? My point here is church. Find out the facts. Do you know what I mean? Do to others as you want them to do unto yourself. Don't react like that in a situation until you know exactly what's going on. Let's be more like Jesus. Yeah, sounds simple. But do we always do it? Let's not jump to conclusions and others really quick. Now, I spoke to Ade about this on Friday night and he said something about this passage that I hadn't heard, so I went away and researched it and he's right. So in other religions they actually have this passage as well as we do in the Bible, but it actually Says, I'll read to you. This is from a Southern Baptist minister I'm quoting called Shane Thomas, who lives in Texas. And I found this, and it says, notice the positive nature of Jesus command here. There were some similar sayings to this in history and in other religions even before Jesus time here on Earth, but they were all almost negative. They would say, don't do to anyone anything you wouldn't want them to do to you. Do you get that? Same words, but flicked around. Don't do to anyone anything you wouldn't want them to do to you. That's not a bad rule.
[00:14:59] But as usual, Jesus takes it so much further to not do something to somebody. You don't have to do anything. You could just leave them entirely alone and fulfill this. That Jesus says, I want you to be actively doing good for them that you would want them to do for you. So that calls for a positive action on our part.
[00:15:22] Do for them what you would want them to do for you. So it's not that. Others, I wish you wouldn't do that to me. Others, what they're saying is, you know, I wish you wouldn't do that to me, then I wouldn't do it to you. It's almost conditional. Jesus is flicking it around to positive saying, do to others what you'd want them to do to you, regardless of what they do to you. Somebody shouldn't earn our love and earn our warmth and earn our giving and all that by being good to us. It's almost like a transaction then, isn't it? It's almost like going in a shop and spending ten pounds and walking out with some stuff. I've given you this, so you give me that. No, no, no. Jesus is saying, you do to others what you'd want them to do to you. Not because what they've done for you or what you want them to do for you. Do to others what you'd have them do unto you. And that church is the golden rule.
[00:16:11] Now, Jesus gave us a blueprint out. And we're going for time. Throw things at me, Lawson, if I'm running out right. Jesus gave us a blueprint how to do this in John 13.
[00:16:23] This is in the NIV. John 13:34,35.
[00:16:27] A new command I give you which than touched on this morning. Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples if you love one another. So if we love others, if we do to others as done unto us, that's shown to be God's disciples. Another version here. John 13:34 in the new Living translation. I am now giving you a new commandment. Love each other just as I have loved you. You should love each other. For your love for one another will prove to the world that you are my disciples. Are we getting this church? Yeah, it's what we're going to do for others. Hey, church. Imagine the difference just in this church. Imagine the difference in the church in the uk. If we could be like this, if we could do to others instead of what they would do to us, if we could do to one another, if we could prefer one another, like Jesus, I believe, is telling us to do that. How we're going to reach that town and Newton Abbot out there, we've got to love them and we've got to do for them what we would want them to do for us. And I tell you, it makes a difference. Makes a difference in the workplace. It makes a difference in so many situations.
[00:17:38] Do to them as what we have done to them because be loved. Because Jesus first loved us, as it tells us in one John. Okay, second one. I'm looking at the golden rule of my family. Good. She's brilliant, Olivia, isn't she? Yeah. So that is the golden rule, Church. Do to others. You have done unto yourself. The second verse we're going to look at this morning is from Matthew 12:46, 50. I read it earlier. I'm just going to read it again. While Jesus was still talking to the crowd, his mother and his brothers stood outside wanting to speak to him. And someone told him, your mother and your brothers are standing outside wanting to speak to you.
[00:18:17] He replied to them, who is my mother and who are my brothers?
[00:18:22] Pointing to his disciples, he said, here are my mother. Here are my brothers. For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and my sister and my mother.
[00:18:36] So who is Jesus's family here? My family, as in Jesus family. What is he saying?
[00:18:44] My first thought on this was, and I'm sure it applied to some of you pretty recently, it will certainly apply to some of us at some point in life, that all of us at one point die. All of us at one point cease to be a human.
[00:18:57] And I lost my dad last summer and it was really tough. He was my best friend. I loved him a bit.
[00:19:03] He stepped in at my wedding when my best man was really ill the day before, and dad stepped in and the best man at last minute. And we used to. I used to go to the cinema with Reuben quite a bit recently and he'd do that with me. And it's just that he never took me the tip, by the way. He never showed me how to throw things in the tip. So I feel I've progressed there. But he was a good man and I loved him. He was a great listener. He was a better listener than I am, and I really miss him. Right. And if you lose a loved one, church, especially if you lose a Christian loved one, your first thought, or our first thought as a family was, will I see him again in heaven? Yeah. And I did a bit of research into that. And the Bible definitely. It doesn't definitively, but it definitely alludes to the fact that we will see loved ones again in heaven. And I want to look into that. But then I want to take it a step further, which is not hard for me because Jesus has said it. But it does change slightly the way we think about what's going to happen in eternity.
[00:19:58] 1 Thessalonians 4, the believers here are asleep in Jesus. And he said they're caught up in the air with Jesus. Okay. Also at the transfiguration, in Matthew 17, Peter, James and John recognized Moses and Elijah who have died. Okay. Also in Matthew 22, Jesus indicates that Abraham, Isaac and Jacob were existing as individuals in heaven. And he still mentioned their names. So their name carried up to heaven. So I get church. It's a wonderful thought that we will know each other after the grave. Yeah. If you. If you're a believer and you see somebody in heaven that you knew, beautiful. I'm going to see that person again. But. And it's a big but. And I lost my dad and I loved him to bits. So I'm not decrying meeting a loved one again. Hear my heart here. But what does Jesus actually say? We're saying, what does Jesus say? Well, I believe we shouldn't put heaven into human thinking.
[00:20:53] Where we're here on earth, we mustn't humanize heaven. Okay. We actually must start to live here now on earth with an eternal mindset. I'm going to read to you what he says.
[00:21:04] So Jesus done it. He points to his mother and brother as his disciples. He loved his mother, he loved Mary, and he loved his family here on earth.
[00:21:12] It didn't mean he didn't love his family in what he was saying. He was talking with that eternal mindset that I want us to get think about today. It did not mean he didn't love his mother and brother here, but he loved all the believers that are going to come be with him. In his family in heaven, which is amazing. Church. And this is what it says here in 1 Corinthians 15. Just listen to this. It really helped me understand about me seeing dad again and my mum. It's a big thing to see dad again. And it's this whole one day we're going to be with Jesus. Yes, we're going to see a loved one, but something's going to happen between now and then. And it tells us in this scripture. Listen to this.
[00:21:48] It says here 1 Corinthians 15, verse 42. So it will be at the resurrection of the dead, the body, human nature. Now, the body, the. Is sown, perishable, is raised imperishable. It is sown in dishonour. That's all the things we've done wrong. It is raised in glory. Never to sin again, never to get ill again. Yeah. It is sown in dishonor, but it is raised in glory. Wow. It is sown. What? It is sown in weakness, but it's raised in power. It is sown as a natural body. And all the things that decay in our health, in all that we are as a human. It is sown as a natural body. It is raised as what? A spiritual body.
[00:22:32] It gets better. Drop to verse 50.
[00:22:35] This is Jesus talking. I declare to you, brothers and sisters, that the flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. Two words I want you to hear twice now. It says this in verse 51. Listen. I tell you a mystery. We will not all sleep, but we will all be. And I've highlighted it here. Changed in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will all be changed twice. It tells us there in Corinthians. We'll be changed in the twinkling of an eye. Why are we changed, Turd? Have you noticed that word changed? What does it mean? We now have a heavenly body. We have a heavenly mindset. We don't sin, we don't cheat, we don't lie, we don't struggle. Going to skip when you've got a little plastic thing and you shouldn't have been. Don't do any of that. Right? We don't get ill, we don't curse one another. We don't struggle with the golden rule. Why? Because we're changed. We've now entered Jesus eternal family. We are not who we are here. The Bible infers to us that Abraham and Isaac still carry the same name dead in heaven. When Jesus is walking on the earth, you would assume doesn't tell us definitively, but most scholars assume that so would we. You will still be lost in heaven, I'll still be filled in heaven. But we're not filled here in this body as we know now. We're in our spiritual body. We are changed. I love it when a passage tells you that same word twice. In one scripture it said we are changed. So we are not living for ourself anymore. We are living for Jesus. We are in what, God's family. When Jesus speaks here, this is my family, that's my brothers and sisters. That's you church. That's you church. If you know Jesus as your Lord and Savior, that's you church. If you've asked Jesus to come live in your life and you're living your life for him, one day we're going to be in eternity with in heaven with Jesus, our focus won't be on ourselves, it'll be on him.
[00:24:35] Jesus says that as his believers will become his family one day. Look at all each other. You're all actually one big family now. I know, I know it with my dad. If somebody else passes, it's not your mum or your dad, your brother or sister. You're upset, but it doesn't hurt quite the same, does it? As a loved one person that you know that's one of your family. But actually Jesus says you're all my family. When we get to heaven, we won't look back on the pain we had on earth and we won't actually look at our brothers and sisters, mum and dad, any different. I don't think the Bible tells us doesn't mean we don't love him. We do and we recognize him. But we're in God's family. We're part of God's church. So actually this morning, all of us that know Jesus and we're going to spend eternity with him, we're in his family. Our family mindset will change to be like him. Are you still with me?
[00:25:22] Family though is important in the Old Testament. Look at Noah. The whole family was saved on the boat. Want it? Joshua 24:15. As for me and my house, we were what serve the Lord. Famous passage. So before Jesus came, this family salvation thing was important. And I believe church. I don't want you to miss my words. I believe it's still important here. If you've got a loved one, if you've got a brother, a sister, a son, a father, a grandfather, that doesn't know Jesus. Yeah, I think Jesus loves it when we want to pray for him. There's a particular bond for us as humans. It's all right because he knows us and we haven't yet changed, as the Bible tells us. We haven't gone to heaven. So I think it's okay to pray for loved ones. I think it's good. I know when I was backslidden for seven years, from 16 to 23, I was a party animal. I was out drinking, carrying on. I wasn't going to church. But I know in that time, my mum was praying for me consistently to get my life right with God. And when I did, it was a beautiful moment with me and my mum. So I encourage you to do that church. If you've got a loved one that doesn't know Jesus, you can pray for him. Don't look at the signs in front of your face, because I would go out, oh, shut up, Mom. Inside, I'm like, oh, I wonder if Jesus is coming again. I wonder what's going to happen to me. I never told my mum that, so she would have seen the pain and the anguish, thinking her son's far away from God. And that hurts, doesn't it? It hurts as humans here, when you see a loved one like that. Pray for them, Pray for them. I believe the prayers of my mum. You know, they're good. So pray for them. Pray for your family. It's a beautiful thing.
[00:26:50] But what was clear to me was, and I've said this to you before church, you cannot get to heaven on Mum and Dad's passport. You cannot get to heaven on your brother or sister's passport. We all stand before Jesus one day and if we want to join Jesus family, it's a personal thing. I was actually talking to a guy in business this week. Super customer from Bristol is really good fun. And the whole conversation came up about Christianity. He knew I was a Christian. He calls me Pastor Phil when he buys steel off me. And he said, it's quite funny, actually. He said, phil, I don't need to get converted. I said, why is that, Andy? He said, because I'm your friend now. So what's that mean? He said, well, when we get, you know, they talk. He said, when we get to the Pearly gates, and Peter said to me, I'll say, phil Daniels, I bought steel off that man. And he was the pastor of the church. Can I come in? So he said, make sure you don't die after me. I want you to die before me so you can welcome me in and put in a good word for me. And I was like, it doesn't quite work like that, Andy. But it started a conversation. I'm going to follow up and I'm going to pray for that man. He's actually ripe for salvation.
[00:27:52] Paul, you've delivered steel to him in Bristol, so absolutely pray for loved one, Pray for these friends like this. But we all stand before God one day if we want about Jesus family. Yeah. Lawson, will you come up? Can we stand church, please?
[00:28:08] Yes. So, Father, we just commit. We commit our families that don't know you, we commit our friends that don't know you, we commit these people in business that don't know you, Jesus. And we ask that Holy Spirit, you would gently do your job that we cannot do and start to speak to them. Lord, I pray you will orchestrate situations that by your amazing grace and kindness, and it is only by your kindness and grace that they will have an opportunity to bump into you, Jesus. And I pray they will make the best decision they could ever make in their life is to follow you, Lord. Is to do that 180 degree turn that I spoke of last time, to turn away from the life they were living and turn their eyes upon Jesus. As we used to sing.
[00:28:53] I pray that, Lord, hear our prayer. Lord, with your people, you work through us. You tell us that in your word you speak through your people, Lord.
[00:29:02] So we pray for our loved one, Lord, we do.
