Rule Number 1

I want to ask a question.

Have you ever known someone that has like a rule?

And for them, if you were to break that rule, you know you're in trouble.

Like something they just value very, very highly.

It is rule number one for them.

When I was in high school, my my basketball coach had had a rule like that.

And the rule was never be late to practice.

He said, if you're ever late to practice, the entire team will run full court sprints for every single minute you're late.

And so if you're if you're five minutes late, five full court sprints.

And every once in a while we'd have someone be a minute late, two minutes late.

And the reality is, one full court sprint, two, it's not, it's not the end of the world.

You know, especially during basketball season, you're in pretty good shape.

So you do it, you're kind of annoyed with the other person.

Uh one day, one day though, we had a kid who was a J V player when I was a senior.

So this is a bad idea.

When you're on JV, you better be there on time, all right?

Because the coach applied it to all of us.

And uh, and he was 17 minutes late to practice.

Now, there's more to this story.

Uh it happened to be the day before a game, and the practices before games, they're notoriously easy because you don't want to wear your team out before the game.

And so, really, you just get together, you kind of walk through the strategy.

You don't really even break a sweat.

It's more of just like, hey, let's make sure we're on the same page, let's kind of loosen up, get some shots up.

But there's there's no intensity to those practices because you don't want your team to be spent the day of the game.

And so we knew that, and we had an hour to kill between school and practice.

And so myself and several other guys on the team went to the local Mexican restaurant, and uh I ordered an entire portion.

I mean, I remember it to this day what I ordered because this moment is seared into my memory.

Um, I ordered beefy cheese nachos, and I ate a whole plate of beefy cheese nachos, and not five minutes later, uh, well, actually 17 minutes later, I guess, um, however many minutes it was, I ran 17 full court sprints after eating beefy cheese nachos less than half an hour earlier.

It was, it was, it was awful.

Funny story though, that that kid, his sister ended up marrying Matt Simmons, who's our worship leader, and now she's on the worship team too.

So that I love that family.

Like I wanted to hold a grudge, I wanted to be angry with that, like his last name for many years was like the name of a villain.

I was like, ah, but now they're basically family.

So that's just how God how God does things.

But that that was my coach's number one rule.

Do not be late.

And he made it clear to us.

So if you do anything, if I mean all kinds of things you could do that would be way less severe than if you were late to practice.

That was rule number one.

Today we're gonna look at a teaching of Jesus that is often described as a rule.

He doesn't call it a rule, but it's not inappropriate to interpret it as a rule.

And if if there is a rule in Jesus' rule book, this I think would be rule number one.

We're gonna look at it in just a minute.

But for some context, we're in a series right now called The King and His Kingdom.

We're talking about the kingdom of God.

That's a phrase that Jesus used all the time.

He's always talking about the kingdom.

You may have heard things that Jesus said before, like the kingdom of heaven is like this, the kingdom of God is like this, and you're like, what's he talking about?

What kingdom?

Well, the number one ingredient in a kingdom is a king.

A kingdom is wherever a king has reign or authority, wherever people are living under the authority of the king, that's the kingdom.

And what Jesus is saying is that God wants to, he wants to establish an entire new kingdom on this earth, a whole new way of living.

A way of living that is so different than the way the rest of the world lives that it's like it's upside down.

He wanted to change every everything about the way we treat one another, everything about the way we view the world, the way we view God, and that is the kingdom of God.

Anytime we give our lives to Jesus, we live the life that he calls us to live.

We are living as citizens of the kingdom.

But Jesus has to teach us what that kingdom is like.

And so in Matthew chapters 5, 6, and 7, he gives us a crash course, an orientation class on the kingdom, what it's like, what the values are, the culture of the kingdom.

Matthew 5 · chapter mention

We've been in this for several weeks now.

We're just studying the culture of God's kingdom.

What does it look like to live the way God wants us to live?

It's a beautiful life, but it's it's different.

And today we're gonna look at one verse.

Well, we're gonna look at a few verses in supporting it, but but this is our focus.

Matthew 7, 12, Jesus says, So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you.

For this sums up the law and the prophets.

The law and the prophets is a phrase that essentially means the Old Testament.

Like everything God's ever said, everything that God has ever said is important.

You could sum all of it up with this one simple phrase, do to others what you would have them do to you.

Now, raise your hand if you have heard this statement before.

Okay, someone shout out what it's often called the golden rule.

Now, raise your hand and be honest, raise your hand if you knew that Jesus is the first person in history to ever say that.

Not as many hands.

It's so funny how life works.

Like there's this effort to sort of scrub Jesus from history.

Like if you take history class in school, and I get it because it's separation of church and state and whatnot, but but even just the idea of studying human history and not talking about Jesus is it's so silly.

Because there's never been a person that's had as much influence on the history of the world as Jesus Christ.

Just historically speaking, there's never been someone who's lived whose life has echoed and influenced as many people in history as Jesus.

And I grew up as a kid, and I remember sitting in school classrooms and seeing posters with that thing on the wall, do to others as you would have them do to you, but there was never a dash Jesus Christ on that.

And so it's amazing, it's this idea that is ubiquitous in our culture, but no one really talks about the fact that it was Jesus.

In many ways, this statement sums up the entirety of what Jesus teaches us as far as how he wants us to live.

In fact, let's look at the context of this specific moment.

Let's look at verses 9 through 12 together.

We looked at some of this last week.

Jesus says, which of you, if your son asks for bread, we'll give him a stone.

Or if he asks for a fish, we'll give him a snake.

If you then, though you are evil, and just so you understand, when Jesus says evil, we hear that and go, oh my gosh, like how that's offensive.

Uh evil, it's just a word that means not as good as we ought to be.

Not as good as we could be.

You may have heard the word sin before, and and that word sin sounds, it just sounds offensive.

It sounds harsh in our language.

The word sin was just an archery term that meant to miss the mark.

To miss the mark.

Would anyone in the room be bold enough to raise your hand and say, I've hit the bullseye with life?

Like I've nailed it.

I have, I mean, I haven't missed it at all.

Whatever a person should be, whatever a human being is capable of being, the amount of goodness inside of a human being, I have, I've hit the bullseye, you should just do what I do, and life will go well.

Anyone?

No, like we've all missed the mark.

No one's hit the bullseye.

But Jesus did.

And so when he tells us that we're evil, this is not Jesus putting us down, this is Jesus making us look in the mirror and go, yeah, you know what?

When I look in the mirror, is there some evil there?

Yeah.

Am I as good as I ought to be or even could be?

No, in fact, there's lots of times where I know I could be better than I'm being right now.

I just don't really feel like it.

That's people, right?

And so he says, Hey, though you, even though even though you're evil, you're not perfect, if you 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?

So, in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you.

For this sums up the law and the prophets.

What he's saying here is, guys, look at the generosity of God the Father.

Look at how good he is.

Look at what he gives us.

I mean, he gives us life, he gives us breath.

He created a beautiful world.

I mean, how many of you saw the sky on Friday night?

I saw so many people talking about that.

I'm sure there's thousands of pictures on social media.

We were actually on our way here to the church to come to the art show, and it was almost like God was saying, Hey, before you go to the art show, let me show you some art.

You know?

And the whole sky was lit up.

I mean, how beautiful is this world that God gave to us.

He's been so good to us, and he gives us himself, and he gives us his spirit, and he gave us Jesus.

He's been so good to us.

Jesus is saying, look at how, look at how generous and loving God is.

And in light of that, if you've received that, if you believe that God has been that good to you, even though you have problems, even though you have struggles, if you can understand that God is so generous and loving, he's given his son, his very spirit to you, then in light of that, treat others the same way.

Be as generous, as kind, and as loving as God has been to you.

This is like the summation of the way Jesus wants us to live our lives.

And it's it's more powerful than we might think at first.

It's very interesting.

Jesus does this a lot if you read his teachings.

He likes to take things that people have said for a long time and spin them around.

Put a twist to it.

And he's actually doing this right here because for centuries before Jesus said this, there was another rule of sorts that was very common in many different cultures, and it was called, we call it now the silver rule.

But up to the point of Jesus, it was the golden rule, I guess, because it was the best thing anyone had ever thought of.

There was a rabbi in the Jewish culture named Hillel, and he wrote, What is hateful to yourself, do to no other.

Essentially, don't do something bad to someone else.

There was an ancient king named Nikokles, I think that's how you pronounce it, but I doubt it.

Do not do to others the things which make you angry when you experience them at the hands of other people.

There's a story of Confucius.

And a man asked Confucius, Is there one word which may serve as a rule of practice for all of one's life?

And Confucius said, Is not reciprocity such a word?

What you do not want done to yourself, do not do to others.

So for centuries before Jesus, people had said the negative version of what Jesus said.

Do not do to others what you wouldn't want done to yourself.

And that's that's that's that's a good thing to live by.

I have four children.

I I use the silver rule a lot in my house.

When one of my children, I don't know, punches, pushes, strangles one of the other children, which is fairly common.

You know, we'll say stop it.

Hey, would you want them to do that to you?

No.

Well then don't do it to them, right?

Raise your hand if you've had a conversation that has followed the silver rule at some point in time.

Like, why would you do that to someone?

You would never want them to do that to you.

Don't do that to them.

But what's interesting about the silver rule is that you could actually, you could make that the rule for your life.

You can make that rule number one, you could follow it to a T and never actually do anything valuable at all.

You could live your whole life, you could be on your deathbed and you could say, I never harmed anyone.

I never did anything to anyone else that I I wouldn't have wanted done to me.

And if someone were to look at you and say, Yeah, but what did you do?

Oh no.

I've missed it.

See, you could follow that rule to a T and you could avoid every every bad thing you could imagine doing to someone else.

But at the same time, you could do that while avoiding actually doing something of value to someone else.

See, Jesus isn't saying, hey, just don't hurt someone, don't harm someone, don't hurt someone's feelings.

He's saying, do something.

Do something that you would want done for you.

It's a whole different way to live.

It's a much different difficult way to live, and I would venture it's a way to live that's impossible without the Holy Spirit, without the love of Jesus inside of you.

And so let's talk for just a minute about what it really means to live out this rule of sorts.

Number one, it means you've got to be active.

Be active.

Jesus wants us to be active.

He was a man of action.

He did things, he accomplished things.

He went out, he met people where they were.

Some of the things Jesus did were amazing and bold and huge, stories of miracles.

Some of the things he did were small, but like one of my favorite stories of Jesus is a story early on in his ministry when he heals a leper.

Leprosy was a massive outbreak.

It was a massive disease in their culture, and they were desperate to try to keep it from spreading.

And they had figured out that it did spread through human contact.

So if you were a leper, you couldn't touch another person.

Another person couldn't touch you.

In fact, it was against the law to touch a leper.

If you were a leper, you had to leave your family, you had to live in a leper colony, you had to yell the word unclean everywhere you went down the street, just so people wouldn't accidentally bump into you.

That was the life of a leper.

No human contact, no touch, completely and totally ostracized.

But in their mind for the safety of everyone.

So there's this leper that Jesus interacts with, and Jesus heals him.

But he heals him by putting his hand on the leper.

And it's interesting because Jesus didn't need to do that.

There's lots of stories of Jesus healing people with just his words.

There's lots of stories where Jesus healed someone, didn't touch them at all.

In fact, there's a story of Jesus healing someone long distance, a man that was miles and miles away, and Jesus just healed him.

Jesus did not need to touch that leper to heal him, but he knew that leper needed to feel the warmth of human touch.

And so Jesus did that.

See, he's a man of action.

That was Jesus living out the golden rule do to others what you would want done to you.

He knew that the desire of that leper's heart was not just to be healed, but to be embraced.

So he embraced him.

Jesus calls us to action.

We see scripture in James, for example, that that puts it pretty pretty bluntly.

If you've never read the book of James, he was either in a bad mood when he wrote it, or uh or he's just a very blunt dude, because James just says it like it is.

James says, What good is it, dear brothers and sisters, if you say you have faith but don't show it by your actions?

Can that kind of faith save anyone?

Suppose you see a brother or sister who has no food or clothing, and you say goodbye and have a good day, stay warm, eat well, but then you don't give that person any food or clothing.

What good does that do?

So you see, faith by itself isn't enough.

Unless it produces good deeds.

It is dead and useless.

Now, someone may argue some people have faith, others have good deeds, but I say, how can you show me your faith if you don't have good deeds?

I will show you my faith by my good deeds.

You say you have faith, for you believe that there is one God, good for you.

Even the demons believe this, and they tremble in terror.

How foolish.

Can't you say see that faith without good deeds is useless?

Now, this scripture has actually been pretty hotly debated over the centuries because one of the core teachings of the New Testament is that it's our faith in Jesus that sets us apart.

It's our faith in Jesus that saves us, that we don't have to do anything to earn God's love.

All we do is we receive his son, and we are covered by his son's sacrifice.

And so some people look at this and go, oh, that's a contradiction, but it's it's not.

This is not this is not James saying you don't need faith.

It's not James saying that faith is not the entry point into a relationship with God.

It's James saying that if your faith is genuine and real, there should be some evidence of it.

See, in religion, think about a tree, think about roots and fruit, right?

Roots are the source, the fruit is the result.

In religion, which is rules and regulations that people make and then they they say that that's what God wants, Jesus did not come to set up a religion.

Religion has what you do as the roots.

And God's love for you, his favor for you, or his acceptance of you, that's the fruit.

So your roots are what you do.

And if they're good enough, the fruit will be that God will accept you.

That's basically every religion on the earth.

Whatever the version of God is, that's it.

Our faith is not like that.

See, in our faith, it's what Jesus did.

That is the root.

That's the root, that's the source, what he did for us, and our faith in that.

But the fruit, the fruit of our faith should be, should be action, should be something that we're compelled to do.

It's not that it doesn't exist, it's not the root, but it is the fruit.

We see Jesus talk about fruit in Luke chapter 6, verses 43 and 44.

Luke 6:43

He says, A good tree cannot produce bad fruit.

And a bad tree can't produce good fruit.

A tree is identified by its fruit.

It's a challenge.

As we go through the teachings of Jesus, sometimes we get to something that's just like he's going, You're awesome, God loves you.

If you were here last Sunday, that was basically the message.

You're awesome, God loves you.

And this is Jesus saying, You're awesome, God loves you.

And in light of that, in light of who he says you are and what he says you're capable of and what he's done for you, in light of that, do something.

John 14, 15, Jesus says, if you love me, obey my commandments, and his number one commandment is to love.

It's to love.

See, love is an action.

And I'm sure many of us, we know this, but it's good to be reminded of this.

It's good for me to be reminded of this.

Our culture teaches us that love is something you find.

That's what we see in every every romantic comedy, every movie, right?

Love is this thing that exists and you find it.

Or you fall in it, right?

I fell in love.

But the problem with a culture that teaches us that love is some force that we either find or fall in is that if you can find it, you can lose it.

If you can fall in it, you can get out of it.

And so we're taught that love's a thing, and that's why so often in in marriage struggles or other relationships, we essentially say some version of I'm just not feeling it anymore.

And look, marriage marriage is difficult.

Relationships are hard, and there's no shame for for having struggles or or whatever.

My dad was married once before he married my mom, and so I would not exist if not for second marriages.

I wouldn't even be alive.

But the reality is, if if you're married today, love is an action.

It's more than a feeling.

So there's actually a really well-known author that that used to say that when he would talk to a man who would say something like, I just don't know if if I love my wife anymore, he would say, Well then love her.

I don't know, you don't understand.

I don't I don't know if if I do love her.

Oh, okay, well then just love her.

No, it's more complicated than that.

I don't I don't feel like it.

Right?

It's amazing how so often so many of our objections to what we know we're we're capable of being and doing as people really boil down to some version of I just don't wanna.

You know?

I don't feel like it.

And he would say, no, no, love them.

Love is an action, love is something that we do.

If you want to have healthy relationships in life, I don't care if it's if it's your marriage, if it's a dating relationship, if it's children, whatever it is, parents, it's not about finding the perfect scenario, the perfect recipe where everything clicks together and you just feel it.

It's choosing every single day when you wake up.

I will love.

I will love.

And what does love look like?

It looks like service, it looks like encouragement, it's prayer, it's patience, it's forgiveness.

It's a choice, it's an action.

So to live this life that Jesus has called us to live, we have to be active.

But it's more than just being active, it's actually being proactive.

And this is where the golden rule gets really challenging, but really awesome.

Because this is so much more than Jesus saying, hey, wait for someone to do something awesome for you and then do it in return.

This is like when someone asks you to help them move.

You have to really seriously consider that, right?

Unless you're following the golden rule, then you're like, of course.

But uh, but like if someone asks you to help them move, if you say yes, then like it's a big commitment.

But the good thing about saying yes is that you might need to move one day.

And then you reach out to that person who you helped move, and you're like, hey, I need to move, and you know, they're gonna say yes.

Or they're supposed to.

Now, I I have I have actually been a person who's had other people help me move, and then they've let me know I'm moving, and I'm like, I can't make it, right?

You feel like a jerk when that happens, but I was I was honest.

Lee Glide, well, I'm really sorry.

Every time I think about this, I think of you.

I wanted to, I could not be there.

Um, it's Megan's fault, so I'm so sorry.

Uh no, not really.

But that's that's that's how life works.

Like, it's it's what Confucius said reciprocity.

But the love that Jesus is talking about, this way of living, it's not it's not reciprocal.

It's not Jesus saying, hey, when someone does something awesome for you, do something good for them in return.

He's actually telling us to do to do good things for strangers, for people that we don't even know, for people that that we'll never be able to receive repayment from.

Had an incredible example of the golden rule here at our church just a couple of weeks back.

Um, many of you might know Warren.

He played drums this morning.

He's our facility director here at his hands, an amazing guy.

He has a giant beard, which is very, makes him very easy to identify.

I've told him you're not allowed to shave it, no one will know who you are, so Warren's got to keep the beard.

Uh, Warren, known him since he was in high school.

Uh he's passionate about weather, he's really intelligent, he's an engineer, and so he he used to chase storms for fun, right?

And and in chasing storms, Warren saw the devastation that severe weather can cause.

And so Warren helped start this organization that that goes to places where severe weather has come in and they they just help.

They help provide relief.

And as Warren's gotten more and more involved here, some of you guys have helped with that, you've partnered with that.

In fact, I'm looking at the room.

And I'm seeing like Elliot, I'm seeing certain people that have have gone on trips last year to Alabama.

Well, a little over a week ago, Warren and four other people from his hands got on a plane and went to Texas and spent some time going to strangers' homes and simply saying, How can we help?

It's the golden rule in full effect.

And I want to show you guys a video recap of that because one of the guys that went happens to be a videographer and he had his camera and captured all.

It's beautiful.

So I want to I want you to watch this and just remember this is the living embodiment of everything that Jesus is teaching us.

Take a look, we'll come back.

Probably two to three days for the water to subside just for people to get access back to a lot of their homes and stuff.

And when I came inside and opened the door and seen water everywhere, it was pretty devastating.

When you're faced with what the world's fishing out now, it's nice to have someplace that warm feeling of security.

I lost my father when I was 15 years old, so remembering helping him build the rooms, put the naughty pine up.

The house itself doesn't mean anything.

I was at home.

I had a light rain.

I was trying to remain calm when I looked down, I realized I was getting flooded.

There was nothing I could do, nowhere I could go.

My car was already trapped in.

So it was just kind of a shock because you see it, you can't stop it.

It's dark, and the lights went out for a little bit, and then when the daylight comes, and then you see the devastation.

I've seen a lot of devastation, what flooding, uh tornadoes, hurricanes uh can dish out to homeowners, to communities, and kind of the hopelessness that's there.

Uh it was always tugging at my heart uh that something needs to be done for these families.

There are a lot of people in this world, they might even be in our backyard, and they just need help.

For me, you know, I am a couple years uh as a his hands member, and growing my faith is, you know, something that uh I said that I wanted to do when I came to this church.

But I felt called.

I just asked my boss last minute, and he was like, sure.

And it was I think it meant to be.

For someone like me, I'm not skilled in any one particular area, but I I have two hands and two feet, and I can work hard and come down here, and if I can come and help people, I know I can make a difference, and that's what inspires me.

It's pretty incredible when you get on the airplane and you're with four other individuals that are looking to have the same goal, and that's just to spread God's love.

It's incredible to be a part of that, and it just creates a feel for the fire.

I think how much y'all know our efforts.

Just a little bit of money basically, you know, to get us out to Texas.

But we were able to save the homeowners over$55,000 in home repair out of sleep one morning and uh just rolled over and asked the phone.

It was pretty much message.

I mean, I'd like to do the hell like big time.

I've been doing much of this by myself.

And had so much to do.

I couldn't have done it all by myself.

So we're actually flooded with 13 party.

And then we'll re-flood it again.

See motivation come back, and that was really awesome.

And there is hope.

Always hope.

Isn't that awesome?

I told Warren to go be at the Connect Desk in the main lobby afterwards.

If you're someone that goes, man, I want to go on a trip like that.

Um, you'll see the beard.

Just find the beard.

And uh, and that's Warren.

But that what what a what a perfect example of everything that Jesus taught.

What a perfect example of that.

And you know what's amazing to me is I was talking with Warren the other day, and and uh it just so happened that this this whole thing happened right as I was in Guatemala, and so I got back and didn't even realize he was really gone, and it just it happened fast, and and Warren, I found out he he himself paid for the plane tickets for everyone who went on that trip.

And it's just that's unusual, right?

That's unusual.

But Warren's perspective is so is so perfect, it's so Jesus-like, because he said, hey, just you know, a little investment here will get all of us to Texas, and the result of that is saving these homeowners exponentially more, and it's showing them who Jesus is.

What I want us to understand this morning is is that that's what it looks like to live as part of God's kingdom.

And I I know it's not easy, but let me ask this question is it not beautiful?

I mean, you you look at that, every single one of us has the opportunity to live like that every day.

It doesn't it doesn't necessarily mean we get on an airplane and we fly to another state and and do manual labor, although if that's what needs done, then let's do it.

But every single one of us, every single one of us rubs shoulders every single day with someone who has a need.

The question is, will we be a person curious enough and loving enough to find out what it might be?

The golden rule it's not just for the people we know and we love, it's it's for strangers.

In fact, Jesus in Luke chapter 6 extends it to our enemies.

Luke 6 · chapter mention

In verse 27, he says, But to you who are willing to listen, I say, love your enemies.

Do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who hurt you.

If someone slaps you on one cheek, offer the other cheek.

If someone demands your coat, offer your shirt also, give to anyone who asks.

And when things are taken away from you, don't try to get them back.

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

If you love only those who love you, why should you get credit for that?

Even sinners love those who love them.

And if you do good only to those who do good to you, why should you get credit?

Even sinners do that much.

And if you lend money only to those who can repay you, why should you get credit?

Even sinners will lend to other sinners for a full return.

Love your enemies, do good to them, lend without expecting to be repaid, then your reward from heaven will be very great, and you will truly be acting as children of the Most High, for he is kind to those who are unthankful and wicked.

You must be compassionate just as your father is compassionate.

What would it look like for the church to live this out?

To live this out, to actually individually in our family say this is a powerful prayer.

Lord, what would you have me do today?

Who would you have me serve?

I love the fact that Jesus says your enemies, because the reality is if you have one, you know who they are.

And enemies can be interesting things, right?

There's there's obvious enemies.

Rarely does someone walk up to you and go, I'm your enemy.

You know?

Sometimes enemies are people that we work with that just drive us crazy, that take credit for our efforts, that keep us where we we know we're we're capable of being more.

And it's a person that so often we're fighting against what would it be like for you to pray, Lord, how do you want me to serve that person this week?

How can I bless that person?

It's challenging.

Sometimes, because of the fact that we're we're people, the very people that we live with can start to feel like our enemies.

I'm not gonna ask for a show of hands of how many of you ever felt like your spouse is your enemy.

Um but like it happens, right?

Sometimes the people you live with, the people that truly deep down inside you love the most, you can go through whole seasons where they actually feel like they're the enemy because they're the one keeping you from doing the thing you want to do.

But when you feel like someone is against you, human nature says, Well, how can I defend myself?

How can I reciprocate?

How can I how can I make sure I win this battle?

What would it be like if we were like Jesus?

And our heart for those who were against us was to say, How can I serve them?

How can I love them?

How can I show them the grace of God?

Jesus dying on the cross, looking at a group of people mocking him, making fun of him, the very people that nailed him to the cross, the very people that shouted, Crucify Him, he said, Father, forgive them.

They don't know what they're doing.

Forgive them.

That's the heart of Jesus.

We ever stopped to consider whether or not God did forgive them.

Jesus asked him to.

Can you imagine what it would be like?

I don't know theologically how this all breaks down.

I'm not gonna pretend to, but what would it be like for one of those people to stand in front of God and for God to say you're forgiven?

And they're like, Why?

How could I was one of the ones who put the nails in his how could I be forgiven?

Because he asked that I forgive you.

We have an opportunity in the church to live totally different lives.

And I think we live in a world right now in our culture where we see it being divided more and more clearly.

The lines are getting bolder, and it's lines of political party, and it's lines of race, and it's lines of economics, it's just a line here, a line there, a line here, a line there, and everyone is is picking sides.

But I know that Jesus is for every person.

And if we as the church stopped playing that game, stopped choosing which side we're on and attacking the other side, if we stopped playing that game and we started doing what Jesus asked us to do, and we said, okay, the people I disagree with the most, how can I serve them?

The people that I'm I am the most opposite of in terms of the way I think and the values that I hold, how can I show them the love of God?

Lord, what would you have me do for them?

It's serving our enemies, it's serving strangers.

And it's definitely serving those we love.

Worshiping you guys can come up, we'll wrap up.

There's a reason, there's a reason that this one statement of Jesus, which by the way, is not really featured ultimately in the stories of the life of Jesus.

If you read anytime that that golden rule statement comes up, it's not it's not like Jesus builds up to it and says it and then emphasizes it and said, remember above all else, this thing.

But there's a reason that that statement of Jesus, do to others what you would have them do to you, the original statement of Jesus Christ, there's a reason that that has resonated for thousands of years.

The Bible says that God has placed his spirit in our hearts.

And I believe that because of that, we're able, as people, to recognize the voice of our Creator.

And there's certain things that Jesus says that our spirits recognize as the voice of God.

And I believe the reason that this this golden rule has has lived on and on and on, even people who don't follow Jesus, even people who don't belong to him, really care about him, even think about him, still understand, yes, this this way of living, this is the best way to live.

It's because it speaks to a deep part in our hearts.

But hear me when I say this, it sounds, it sounds epic and awesome to say from a stage, what if we actually did this and people clap?

We cannot do this on our own.

If we could, everyone would.

If we had it in our own strength to actually live this out, to serve people that we disagree with, to serve strangers, then everyone in our culture would just be doing that.

No one would be upset, no one would be angry, no one would be calling each other the most evil terms they can think of.

Everyone would just be like, Man, I don't agree with you, but I love you.

How can I help you today?

That doesn't happen because it requires something extra, it requires something different, it requires the love of Jesus.

And if you have the love of Jesus, then ask him for the strength to use it.

And this week use it.

And if you don't have the love of Jesus in your life, what I mean is you've never accepted him, you've never put your faith in him, you've never trusted him with everything, then give your life to him because here's what he's gonna do.

This is this is the beautiful thing that he does.

He transforms you, makes you an entirely different person, capable of more than you've ever thought possible.

Sometimes Jesus gets talked about in our culture today as like a life coach.

He wants to make your life a little bit better, he wants to improve your life.

He does not want to improve your life, he wants to transform it, he wants to take it, he wants to make it something it could never be without him.

That's what he does.

And there's no way to live this out unless you give your life to him.

So if you're here today and you've never done that, surrender to Jesus because he's amazing, he's awesome, he clearly gets it, he clearly understands the best way to live.

That's because he created us, and he knows what we're capable of.

And he knows what would happen if we took this seriously and lived it out.

So we're gonna leave.

We're gonna pray, we're gonna do hands in the pile.

If you're new, we put our hands together, we yell Jesus on three, it's fun.

But as we do that, we walk out of this place saying, Lord, use me.

Use me.

And if you're here by the way, and you're like, Man, this message is a challenging message about what I'm supposed to do.

I came here today to receive something for me that would help me feel better.

Go up to Warren and the other people at the connect desk and ask them who got more out of that trip to Texas?

The homeowners or them?

When you live selflessly and you live the way that Jesus teaches us to live, and you're not worried about what you're gonna get, it's funny how it works because that's when you get more than you ever expected.

That's when life becomes what it's supposed to be, and it's beautiful.

So, church, let's go do some things.

Let's get out of here, let's go do something, let's change some lives, all right?

Let's pray.

Lord, thank you so much for your love for us.

Thank you so much for all you are, all you do.

We love you.

Lord, we're admitting that we are not perfect, and and this, some of this stuff, some of this way of living, if we're gonna be honest, it does not come naturally at all.

But you are supernatural.

You are not bound in any way by our our human nature.

You give us a new nature, you make us new creations, and you show us that through faith in you, through the power of your spirit within us, we are capable of living lives we can never live apart from you.

Lord, if there's anyone here who's never given their life to you, I pray they do that this second.

I pray that they go out, sign up to get baptized.

I pray that they jump all in with you and begin this journey.

And Lord, for the rest of us that have done this, I pray that we leave this place today on a mission.

Because in the next hour, two hours, three hours, the next few days, we're gonna encounter countless strangers and I'm certain a few enemies.

And Lord, I pray that you change our hearts and our minds to see that those are people that we're meant to serve, those are people that we're meant to love.

So give us the strength and the courage to do that.

We love you.

It's in your name we pray.

Amen.