Golden Rule

We're continuing with the new law or law of the gospel as we read paragraphs 1970 to 1974.

We're talking about the golden rule.

That's actually one of the things, "Whatever you wish that men would do to you, do so to them.

This is the law and the prophets." Also, the entire law of the gospel is contained in the new commandment of Jesus.

We're reading paragraphs 1970 to 1974.

The law of the gospel requires us to make the decisive choice between the two ways and to put into practice the words of the Lord.

It is summed up in the Golden Rule: "Whatever you wish that men would do to you, do so to them.

This is the law and the prophets." The entire law of the gospel is contained in the new commandment of Jesus, to love one another as He has loved us.

You know, I saw that illustrated repeatedly.

President Obama, when he came out with his pronouncement embracing gay marriage, and as you know, one of his rationales for embracing gay marriage was he said his Christian faith compelled him to do so because after all, doesn't the Bible teach in the Golden Rule, "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you," and so forth? And so I did a string of interviews.

The most interesting one to me was the one I did with Martin Bashir on MSNBC.

Martin Bashir, many people won't know this, is a professing Christian, and yet in a review that came out the next day of his debate with me, it said, "MSNBC host who is professing Christian throws Bible under the bus in his debate with Jeffress." And, uh, what was interesting was [laughs] he played a clip of the president saying, "The Golden Rule is the reason I'm supporting this." And then Martin Bashir comes on and says, "And now let me introduce to you one evangelical leader who doesn't believe the Golden Rule applies to everyone." And, uh, I've never been introduced that way before.

But as I came on, he said, "Now why is it? Why is it you don't believe, uh, that the Golden Rule applies to everyone? Why, why are you wanting to discriminate against gays and not allowing them to marry?" I said, "Well, Martin, my question for you is why are you discriminating as well? You're discriminating against polygamists who want to marry.

You're discriminating against brothers and sisters who want to marry.

I mean, if marriage is anything and everything, why do you just give heterosexuals and homosexuals a right to marry? Shouldn't everybody who wants to marry be able to marry? Three men and a woman, you know, four women and two men.

And I think we can all agree it fits that definition equally well.

So today we're going to look at this golden rule of how doing unto others as you would have them do unto you and entering through a narrow gate explains what's happened in the past, challenges the status quo and announces Jesus' new vision for the future.

But first I just want to pray.

Lord, in the book of John, you say, my teaching's not my own, but his who sent me.

May the mind of you become our mindset too.

In Jesus' name, amen.

So today we'll start by looking at the golden rule and its application and then we'll get to the narrow gate a little bit later.

One of the ways to look at the golden rule is to realise it has roots and shoots.

It's that we also live here.

And that's the interesting thing about the Golden Rule is that it has benefits.

It has pragmatic use, but it is also for something beyond oneself.

It's for God, first of all.

It's an understanding of what, because our religion, because it's from the creator, Islam is from the creator and the creator created us, created our hearts and our minds of all human beings.

And so, so much of this is intuitive.

When you talk about the golden rule, I mean, I think that's a great place to start is the golden rule.

Want for others what you want for yourself.

We find it in Tobit 4.15. Do to no one what you yourself hate.

And he gives us that golden rule.

Do to others as you would have them do to you.

He kind of calls us on the carpet here.