Sermon: Matthew 7:12 – The Power of Love (Golden Rule)

“Without the Power of Jesus’ Love at work in us, our Golden Rule will soon get tarnished!”

Of course, real gold doesn’t “tarnish”… but I’d say we all know the experience of having our observance of the Golden Rule tarnish!

Why is Matthew 7:12 called the ‘Golden Rule’?”

It doesn’t matter what nation or culture you go to, when you quote the words of Jesus “do unto others as you would have them do unto you” there’s someone who’ll say “O we believe THAT!”

Or at least we all believe something like that. Most of the time we say it differently, we say something like “don’t do something to someone else that you wouldn’t want them to do for you.”

But the emphasis we find in Jesus is something distinctive. From what I can tell, Jesus seems to be the first to have said it this way – or at least he only one who said it that anyone paid attention too.

It’s because Jesus turns the desire for self preservation we find in the saying “don’t do something to others that you wouldn’t want them to do to you” into a powerful prescription – you do for others what you want done for yourself.

It’s only possible to live this way with the Power of Jesus’ Love at work in our lives.

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