The Golden Rule
Matthew 7:12 (Part 2)

Baxter T. Exum (#1790)
Four Lakes Church of Christ
Madison, Wisconsin
June 29, 2025

Good morning and welcome! If you are visiting with us today (either here in person or online or on the phone), we are so glad to have you with us, and we’d like to ask that you fill out a visitor card – either online or on a card from the pew in front of you. And we also invite you to pass along any questions or prayer concerns in this way as well.

As we get started today, I’d like to give a quick update on the New Building Fund. Thank you to all who have given so sacrificially over the past few weeks! As most of you know, we are looking into purchasing a larger and more accessible facility with a parking lot, and an anonymous donor has offered to match all contributions (up to $40,000) until July 4th. As of today, we are $19,073 toward that goal. We have until this Friday, and we are almost halfway there. So, if you have been holding back, now is your opportunity! To give in-person this morning, we have envelopes on the bulletin board right inside the front door, and then we also have the ability to give on-line, through Tithely (linked on our website under “Giving” on the “Get In Touch” tab). If you have any questions about the new facility, talk to me or Aaron, and we also have packets of information in the top left cubbyhole in the back of the auditorium.

In terms of our prayer concerns, I’d like to ask that you be praying for me this week as I will be leaving for Beaver Creek Bible Camp (up near Eau Claire) right after worship this morning. We helped establish this camp (along with Brett and Kevin Rutherford) back in 1997. I served as director from 2000 up until 2020, and then we turned it over to the church in Spencer, Wisconsin, and they have done a great job with it over the past few years. As some of you know, when they took it over, they approached me and said, “If you could create your dream job at camp, what would you like to do?” I said, “Put me in charge of making the campfires twice a day!” So, I’ve come back as “Director Emeritus,” so to speak, and I’ve also been leading the hikes, this year I’ll be teaching the book of James to the 8-9 year olds, and when the cook found out that I get up at 4 a.m., she put me in charge of making the coffee. They have this huge industrial strength coffee maker that’s plumbed into the water supply, and I have accepted that responsibility for the past several years now as well. So, please be praying for a safe session, and good weather, and that we will grow closer to God over the next several days. 

We are here this morning to share the good news that Jesus gave himself up for us on the cross, he was buried, and he was raised up on the first day of the week. We obey this good news by turning to God in faith, by turning away from sin, by confessing our faith that Jesus is the Christ, and by obeying the Lord’s command to be buried with him in baptism. At this point, we are born into God’s family, and the Christian life begins. As usual and as our encouragement to you, we are sharing several examples of what this looks like, and we are starting this morning with an update from Todd Sopolnik, who preaches the good news in Ukraine. He posted a few days ago and says, “I love seeing the baptisms that pop up on Facebook! Every time the heart rejoices - this is the true victory of good over evil! But it's even more moving to see, the fruits of God's work when you put your hand and heart into it yourself. I sincerely thank God for the saved soul, Vadim for his faithful service, and all the Bear Valley Bible Institute in Ukraine teachers who helped prepare a brother for this vocation. May God be glorified in all things! P.S. In the photo of baptism in Poltava.” With everything else going on in the world, Ukraine has been out of the news for a few days, but God’s kingdom continues to increase, and for that we are thankful.

This next one comes to us from the North Hills congregation in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. They posted this week and say that they are, “Praising our good Lord for the new baptism of our brother Jackson!  A young man who has heard the call of Jesus from a very young age throughout medical challenges and precarious situations and has grown to this point of choosing to be baptized and proclaiming his faith in Jesus Christ, the son of God who died for our sins and rose victorious from death to save us!  Alleluia! This young man has been and will be a testimony to the love of our Lord and Savior Jesus.  We are rejoicing!!” They then quote Peter from Acts 2:38 where he said to the crowd on Pentecost, “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.” We have no idea the kind of medical challenges someone may be facing, but we are thrilled with Jackson’s decision to obey the gospel.

This next one comes to us from Stephane Maillet, who preaches the gospel in Moncton, New Brunswick. He posted a few days ago and says, “Where there is love there is growth. Another successful Sunday worship, study, and fellowship. Jesus saved our friend Ekpono, he is now our brother in Christ, a legal citizen of His Majesty's Kingdom. Please pray for our new brother's spiritual journey and success.” He says that, “God is always good, bringing eternal refuge to all who "seek ye first" (Matthew 6:33).

There are many others, but this last one comes to us from the Lord’s church in Honolulu, Hawaii. Some of the best singing I’ve ever experienced over there. I feel like a part of my heart is with the church over there, but they posted this week and say, “Rejoice! Gerally and her daughter, Francesca, were baptized into Christ after our morning service. Praise God!”

As always, we share these images by way of encouragement – from a pond in Ukraine, to a baptistery in Pittsburgh, and from a tub in New Brunswick, to the Pacific Ocean off of Hawaii, we have seen several obey the gospel this week. And if you have any questions about this, if you are ready to obey the good news right now, if we can help with that in any way, we invite you to get in touch. You can send a message to info@fourlakeschurch.org, you can give me a call or send a text to 608-224-0274, or you can simply pull me aside after worship this morning, and we would love to help in any way possible.

Today we continue in our brief series-within-a-series of lessons from the Sermon on the Mount, and today we return to our study of what is often referred to as the “Golden Rule” in Matthew 7:12. Last week, we looked at what Jesus does NOT say in this statement.

    • He is not suggesting that we are only to be kind to those who are kind to us.
    • He is not suggesting that we do unto others as they have done unto us in a negative sense (this is not retaliation or revenge).
    • He is not suggesting that we can do whatever we want to another person as long as it is legal.
    • And he is certainly not suggesting that we can please God simply by not harming another person.

This morning, though, we return to Matthew 7:12, and today I’d like for us to make several observations concerning what Jesus IS saying in this passage. First, of course, let’s look at the text itself. This is Matthew 7:12, where Jesus says, “In everything, therefore, treat people the same way you want them to treat you, for this is the Law and the Prophets.” And right away, let’s notice that this is perhaps one of the most practical statements anywhere in scripture. This is not some mushy, meaningless statement about getting along with everybody, but this is a command from the King, telling us how to live in God’s kingdom, even as we live in a fallen and sinful world. This morning, then, as we apply this statement to our lives today, I’d like to make a series of four observations based on what Jesus says here.

    1. And let’s start by noticing that the GOLDEN RULE IS ANCHORED IN PRETTY MUCH EVERYTHING ELSE GOD HAS SAID UP TO THIS POINT IN HISTORY.

And this is where we notice that what is commonly referred to as the “Golden Rule” is almost always misquoted. Most people, if we ask them, “What is the Golden Rule?” and if they know what it is, they might reply by saying, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” That is so close! And, yes, that is certainly the gist of it, but Jesus actually says,“In everything, therefore, treat people the same way you want them to treat you, for this is the Law and the Prophets.” It may be easy to miss, but Jesus starts with a “therefore” (anchoring this to what he’s just said), and he ends by saying, “for this is the Law and the Prophets.” Without the “therefore,” and without the “for this is the Law and the Prophets,” we’ve taken God out of the picture; we’ve reduced this to nothing more than “just be nice to people.” But the Golden Rule is so much more than just being nice to people, because what Jesus says here is anchored to everything God has said up to this point in Scripture.

The Golden Rule, then, comes from a good Father who is eager to bless his children (the immediate context), and it comes from Jesus who affirms several times in the gospel accounts that all of scripture is summarized by two commandments: 1.) Love God, and 2.) Love your neighbor as yourself, “for this is the Law and the Prophets.”

Without “the Law and the Prophets” here, many may think that Jesus is tossing the Old in favor of something new. The Old was all about “an eye for an eye,” but the New is all about love. But that’s not what’s happening here. In Matthew 7:12, Jesus is explaining what it means to “love your neighbor as yourself,” and he’s calling his followers back to that great commandment. In fact, when we turn over to Mathew 22, we find that a lawyer is testing Jesus with a question, “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law,” and Jesus says to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.” He says, “This is the great and foremost commandment.” But he continues by saying that, “The second is like it, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets.” It’s all about 1.) Loving God, and 2.) Loving your neighbor. The Golden Rule, then, is Jesus telling us what love actually is.

The Great King is giving the New Law, and he’s explaining that what was important to God previously will always be important to God. Love your neighbor! I’m thinking of last week’s scripture reading from Galatians 5:13-14, where Paul says, “For you were called to freedom, brethren; only do not turn your freedom into an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. For the whole Law is fulfilled in one word, in the statement, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’” We had something similar in today’s scripture reading from Romans 13:8-10, where Paul says that we are to, “Owe nothing to anyone except to love one another; for he who loves his neighbor has fulfilled the law. For this, ‘You shall not commit adultery, You shall not murder, You shall not steal, You shall not covet,’ and if there is any other commandment, it is summed up in this saying, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.” I told you that I’m teaching the book of James to a bunch of 8-9 year olds this week, and I’m reminded of James 2:8, where James says, “If, however, you are fulfilling the royal law according to the Scripture, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself,’ you are doing well.” James, the Lord’s brother, describes this as the “royal law,” meaning that it is a law that has come straight from the King. And that’s what Jesus does here. From a scholarly perspective, Jesus is citing his source here, isn’t he? It may seem like he’s giving some new information in the Sermon on the Mount (“You’ve heard that it was said, but I say unto you”), but what he says here in verse 12 goes all the way back to the Law and the Prophets. The Golden Rule, then, is God-based.

    2. Secondly (and there will be some overlap in the rest of these observations), but let’s notice here that what Jesus says here is a POSITIVE OBLIGATION.

And we just barely touched on this last week by comparing the Golden Rule to what some other major world religions have proposed (basically, “don’t hurt anybody”), but let’s note today that what Jesus says here requires us to actually DO something. We aren’t just not hurting people, but we are to go out and actually do something positive. This is reflected in what Paul will say in Romans 15:1-2, “Now we who are strong ought to bear the weaknesses of those without strength and not just please ourselves. Each of us is to please his neighbor for his good, to his edification.” And this fits perfectly what what Paul says in Philippians 2:3-4, “Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind regard one another as more important than yourselves; do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others.” So yes, we aren’t to hurt our neighbor, but the Lord calls us to “please our neighbor for his good.” We are to “look out...for the interests of others.” We are to “treat people the same way we want them to treat us.”

Some of you know that John Newton, author of “Amazing Grace,” had been a slave trader most of his life. His book, “Thoughts Upon the African Slave Trade,” starts with the words of Jesus from Matthew 7:12. That statement caused him to make a positive change. Years later, Abraham Lincoln would say, “As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master.” That’s the negative side of it, but a year later he would go on to say, “He who would be no slave, must consent to have no slave.” Several years earlier (in 1855), Frederick Douglass, a former slave himself, put it in much more positive terms. He said, “I love the religion of our blessed Savior. I love that religion that is based upon the glorious principle, of love to God and love to man; which makes its followers to unto others as they themselves would be done by. If you demand liberty to yourself, it says, grant it to your neighbors. If you claim a right to think for yourself, allow your neighbors the same right. It is because I love this religion that I hate the slave-holding, the woman-whipping, the mind-darkening, the soul-destroying religion that exists in the southern states of America.” In other words, it’s not enough to just not hurt somebody, but we have to actively concern ourselves with the lives of others. This is a positive obligation.

    3. Thirdly, let’s spend a moment this morning appreciating how SIMPLE this is.

What Jesus says in Matthew 7:12 is so simple that even small children can understand it. Yes, it is significant, but it is also incredibly simple. In a time when the world has gone nuts, this is simple! As Mark Twain once said, “It ain’t those parts of the bible that I can’t understand that bother me, it is the parts that I do understand.” This is one of those statements that all of us can understand.

Several months before we got married, and knowing that we were heading into ministry, my mom got my future wife a book, and we have had many laughs about this through the years. But she got her Emily Posts’ book of Etiquette. It is basically a book about how to interact with people in a civilized society – it’s a guide for hospitality, and entertaining, and one of the most useful tools for us (in the days before the internet) was how weddings were to be organized: Who walks down the aisle, and in what order, and where do people stand, and all of that – nearly 800 pages! And you know, Jesus could have given us actual rules like this. He could have told us how to behave in absolutely every situation. He could have said, “If somebody does this, then you need to do this,” and on and on, for thousands of pages. But he doesn’t! Instead, Jesus makes it so simple! What would I want someone to do for me if I were in this situation? And whatever that is, then that’s what I need to do. Incredibly simple!

One author says that “this rule liberates the church from the rule of experts.” I appreciate that! In Jesus’ time, people were always consulting the experts. If you had a question about how to behave in some scenario, you would consult a priest or a rabbi. And these people all had their opinions, and they would debate and discuss every possible response to God’s law. They had volumes of interpretations, and they would bind these on people as if their interpretations were actually law. Someone has said, though, that “this [verse] provides a powerful yet flexible maxim that helps us decide moral issues in a thousand cases without the need for multiplied case law.” Yes! The beauty of the Golden Rule is that it is so simple. We can use it in nearly every situation. When in doubt, ask what I would want done for me in this situation, and then do that! I can apply this to my family, and to my neighbors, and to all of you here, and to my co-workers, and to my friends, and to everybody I run into on a daily basis.

I’ve told you before that many years ago my dad said that he would take up jogging the moment he saw a jogger smile. He never took up jogging! With that in mind, since I started running a few years ago, I have made a point of at least being friendly out on the trails. Maybe it’s weird, I don’t know, but when I pass someone I may be gasping and barely making it, but I will do everything to at least smile and nod, and maybe even squeeze out a “Good morning!” That’s just me. But this applies in so many other ways:

    • If I see somebody with a flat tire, and if I have the power to safely help, what would I want someone to do for me in a similar situation?
    • If I were making $2.33 an hour as a server in Wisconsin, what would I want someone to tip me? That’s what I will do for the person who’s serving me.
    • If I were a new student at one of our schools, how would I want to be treated? That’s how I’ll treat the new student at school.
    • If I know that one of our members is all alone and hasn’t been able to worship in person for months, what would I want someone to do for me if I were in that situation? That’s what I need to do for them.
    • If I were lost in sin and did not know the way, what would I want done for me? That’s what I must do for them.
    • If I were visiting here at this congregation for the very first time, how would I like to be treated? Then that’s how I’ll treat those who may be here for the first time.
      
Years ago, I had a senior-level Bible class where we had to debate the professor over the course of the semester. We picked a topic on the first day, we prepped for a few months, and then the professor played the Devil’s advocate, and we had to present and defend the Biblical position. The professor was David Lipe. I chose to debate the question concerning whether miraculous gifts are available to us today. I went to the library after class and was horrified to discover that brother Lipe had actually publicly debated a leader in the Pentecostal church on that very subject. It was right there in print, the Lipe-Lewis Debate. The cool thing was that I could use brother Lipe’s own material against him. But I say this to share the most enduring lesson I learned in that class. We met right after lunch, and one day brother Lipe came in red-faced, veins bulging in his neck, obviously upset. He’s a car guy. He restores mid-50’s Mercury’s (like Abe has right now). Well, he had gone home for lunch, and someone had mowed next to his car that was parked on the street and had blown grass clippings all up into his wheels and around the hubcaps, “Why would anybody ever do something like that?” And for the past 40 years, I think of that almost every time I mow a lawn, and I have never blown grass clippings into cars (or even into the street, for that matter). And I know that’s a negative application of this passage, but sometimes we need to be aware. There’s no law in the Bible about blowing grass into your neighbor’s car, but the simplicity of the Golden Rule would certainly cover it.

    4. Well, finally this morning, let’s just briefly think about the fact that although this passage might be simple, it is also CHALLENGING.

For one, this rule applies to how we treat “people.” And these “people” may or may not be our friends. This applies to strangers. This applies to our enemies. This applies to people who are not like us. This applies to the grumpy neighbor. This applies to the head of the homeowner’s association. This applies to the guy we know who doesn’t have a place to live. This applies to a spouse, even when we aren’t getting along. This applies to the people who may never love us back. And the challenge here is ongoing. And to top it off, we don’t have too many disclaimers here, do we? The Golden Rule is simple, yet difficult.

It may be simple, but I have to put some thought into it. I have to actually see and understand what others may be going through. I can’t say, “I like bacon and peanut butter cups; therefore, that’s what I need to do for this person,” but I need to put myself in their shoes, and I may need to get creative. This command is challenging.

I don’t remember the context, but several months ago I mentioned how awkward it is to come up on somebody at a stop light who’s asking for money. Generally speaking, I don’t think it’s wise to give cash (for several reasons) – so, instead, I’ve shared meals with some people, and so on. But a few months ago, I mentioned that I had a change of heart. Instead of avoiding eye contact, I’ve started smiling and waving and saying “Hi.” I’m not saying that’s what you need to do, but I started asking myself: What would Jesus do? And what would I want somebody to do to me if I were in that situation? I’ve mentioned before how nice it would be to have laundry facilities and a shower in our church building for those who may need it. My point is: Following the Golden Rule may be uncomfortable, even difficult at times.

Conclusion:

As we think about what we’ve learned from Jesus this morning, I’d like to close in the most Wisconsin way possible. In our family, ever since we moved to Wisconsin back in 1993, we have been buying our gas from Kwik Trip. The prices weren’t always the lowest, but there was something about Kwik Trip that made us feel comfortable – the Glazers, of course, the friendly greeting, the “See ya’ next time,” and so on. Our Kwik Trip card was our first charge card together. We survived on $2 Urge pizzas while my wife finished her bachelor’s degree at UW Whitewater. Years ago, we got a letter from Kwik Trip for some reason, and on the letterhead, I finally saw what it was that kept us coming back. Here is their mission as a company, “To serve our customers and community more effectively than anyone else by treating our customers, co-workers, and suppliers as we, personally, would like to be treated.” Many companies put a lot of time and effort into developing a mission statement (hiring consultants, hours upon hours of board and committee meetings), but wouldn’t it be great if more people simply did business according to the Golden Rule? What we’ve studied this morning comes from God himself, it’s positive, it’s simple, but it’s challenging enough to keep us motivated from here on out. We do unto others what we would like them to do to us.

Before we sing together, let’s close this part of our service by going to God in prayer:

Our Father in Heaven,

We are so thankful for Jesus and for his message to us this morning. We pray that we would not just be hearers of your word, but doers of it. We ask for your help as we do what we can to treat others just as we ourselves would like to be treated. Help us to be Jesus to the world around us.

We come to you today in Jesus’ name. AMEN.

To comment on this lesson: fourlakeschurch@gmail.com