“The Golden Rule & the Golden Request: Living with Perfection
The Pause Before the Go: Finding the Presence and Faithfulness of God in Hard Times
Lesson 11: “The Golden Rule & the Golden Request: Living with Perfection. Matt:5-44-48; 6:31-34; 7:7-14, Proverbs 1:1-19.
44 [o]But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you, 45 that you may be sons of your Father in heaven; for He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. 46 For if you love those who love you, what reward have you? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? 47 And if you greet your [p]brethren only, what do you do more than others? Do not even the [q]tax collectors do so? 48 Therefore you shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect. Matthew5:44-48
31 “Therefore do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32 For after all these things the Gentiles seek. For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. 33 But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you. 34 Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble. Matthew 6:31-34
7 “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. 8 For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened. 9 Or what man is there among you who, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? 10 Or if he asks for a fish, will he give him a serpent? 11 If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask Him! 12 Therefore, whatever you want men to do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets13 “Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. 14 [c]Because narrow is the gate and [d]difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it. Matthew 7:7-14
The Fear of the LORD is the beginning of Knowledge but fools despise Wisdom and Instruction. Proverbs 1:7
The early 1980’s were a difficult time for the American Automobile Industry, gone were the days of no outside competition, big budgets, no cost controls, and gas guzzling engines. FORD’s mission statement had been coined by “Old Man” Henry Ford himself and he simply called it: “Job 1”. Everything the company did was directed by Job 1 and for 70 years Job 1 was turning out new models of cars as quickly as possible while worrying about performance and quality later. Issues of quality control eventually caught up with FORD and nasty little acronyms started to appear in newspapers expressing customer dissatisfaction with their automobiles. There were sayings like: Fix Or Repair Daily, and Found On Road Dead! FORD would have to change Job 1 if they wanted to survive: enter Ad Executive Rob Cox.
Cox was having a difficult time with upper-management and convincing them that their “Job 1” needed to change. After one frustratingly long board meeting where leadership was not listening, Cox slammed his fist on the table and shouted: “I don’t care how many new models of cars you come out with each year! Variety can’t be your Job 1 anymore. You need to go down on that assembly line and tell the autoworkers that- AT FORD QUALITY IS JOB 1!” The slogan stuck, and so did the new Job 1 mission statement; and fortunes were changed! How important is “quality” is “perfection” in the way we understand and live the Christian life? How can we successfully serve our LORD and Savior when the standard is “perfection” (Matt 5:48)? How can we find peace of mind, fulfillment, and contentment in our walk with Him when we fall short of His perfect standard and in successfully loving God and our fellow human beings?
We are living in difficult days… Our nation is suffering from a physical pandemic, an economic crash, and social unrest caused by injustice, racism, anger, fragmentation, division, violence, and strife. How can any of us in this environment make a difference for the Kingdom, or hold to Jesus’ standard of perfection in loving not only our neighbors, but our enemies (5:48)? We want REVIVAL but all we seem to get in our communities is REVOLT and we feel alone, are tired, frustrated, and sorrowful over our failure and in how little progress we have made in loving our brother and our neighbor and in treating him with justice, equality, grace and mercy. God’s call to us of perfection AS His Children is a long way off! Where is the freedom, fellowship, fraternity, forbearance and forgiveness that we need to heal our fractured faith and our broken land?
Trying “really hard” has done nothing to soothe our failures if anything it just makes us obsess more. Peter O’Toole (of Lawrence of Arabia fame) summed up his frustration over his life’s work as an actor when he tells a story about a jacket he once owned… Peter had a beloved and worn out leather jacket that he had dragged all over the world during his acting career. It had been covered in everything from dirt, sand, mud, and blood to chicken feathers but he couldn’t bear to part with the dingy thing. When he returned home to London he sent it to the best dry cleaners in the city to see if it could be salvaged and restored. The cleaners returned the jacket after much work and no success with a note attached: “It distresses us to return work which is not perfect.” O’Toole described that note as the sum of his frustrated acting efforts: an obsessive relentless pursuit of perfection because his own imperfections were so unnerving!
Are we unnerved by our own imperfections, by the fallen and sinful nature of this world, for our own failures in “doing unto others as we would have them do unto us” and our own sin? Have we tried to be good and “love our neighbor as ourselves” only to fail miserably? Why do we fail so much in our pursuits of such a simple statement as treating others the way we ourselves would like to be treated? Why is something so simple so difficult? I know I sound like a record needle stuck on the same track, but a lot of it has to do with where we begin. We ALWAYS begin with an outside source not ourselves; we BEGIN WITH GOD! As believers, we need to understand and follow through with the proper balance of how we COME to Jesus, and how we GO with Jesus. We need to know who we are without Him, who we are with Him, and what He has provided for us to live this Christian life successfully in loving God and loving our neighbor as ourselves.
Proverbs 1 in our lesson book this week reminds us of Proverb’s “purpose statement”- the “Job 1;” the Wise qualities of a godly life and where the necessary knowledge begins. It starts with “the fear of the reverence, humility and bended knee, hand, mind and heart before the LORD. The interesting thing in Proverbs is the context for Solomon’s wise sayings. It is a parent teaching his child how to live successfully with spiritual and mental skill. Wisdom is hard to define in scripture but I think a working definition would be: learning and living a godly life in an ungodly world through proper and spiritually enlightened relationships with God, ourselves and one another. From the child’s perspective and the “instructive” context of the book we could call it “How not to be a punk and instead be the faithful servants God intends us to be.” It is important for us to remember that Proverbs is not a “book of advice” but a message of instruction. Instruction is based on Truth and what is needed for one to live and advance God’s Kingdom in life and community while advice is only one’s opinion.
We must also be careful not to confuse the Truth of Proverbs’ statements with the desired results of its principles. If we follow the instructions of the Teacher will we have a successful and long life filled with rich and heavenly reward while we live? Most likely, but not always; remember we follow God’s Commands and trust in His promises because we believe them to be True, and because God has demonstrated His love to and for us. The material blessings and earthly good results of our listening and willful obedience to Him in this life are not guaranteed. Jesus came to save us, and show His love for us by dying on a cross and rising again, but was He guaranteed that He would receive our love in return? Jesus died for us while we were yet sinners but there was no guarantee that we or all of us would turn and repent from our sin as a result. His death was not done for a “favorable transaction” but as an act of love for us, and willful loving obedience to the Father’s instruction. How about us; are we listening and following Jesus only for what we can get out of it (favorable results, and good earthly conditions) or because He first loved us? Motivations for our obedience and wisdom in living matter. How then do we change our motivations towards others to treat them as we would like to be treated?
Proverbs reminds us that without God we can do nothing and are nothing; we are merely “punks” and “fools” the Encyclopedia Browns of this world (“Know-it-alls” who refuse to listen to anyone but themselves). We can deceive ourselves into thinking we have it all together and can live this life in self-reliance, and independently with little help from God. Our darkened hearts and minds never understanding that the Kingdom of Heaven is completely shut to those who think they have no need of it and we destine ourselves for failure.
Perhaps you’re like me, you know Jesus, you believe His Word, you try real hard to follow Him and obey His commands but you try to live the Christian life on your own. You think: I’ve read “The Manual” and I’ll take it from here. I’ve “grown” in my faith, I know what God’s doing, I know what He wants, “I” just have to do it! That’s obedience right?! Then frustration comes when we fall flat and Miss God’s standard of perfection at work in our lives! “But God, we don’t understand… Didn’t you die to set us free? To let those captured by sin go? Why then do we fail?” We fail not because we know we are broken and worthless and in need of Him and our helpless estate makes us come to Jesus. We fail because we don’t know how to Go with Him… We forget that we need Him and the heavenly provisions of His Kingdom just as much in following Him as in coming to Him. We need Jesus in order to do His work and be His servant! Jesus died to set us free from sin but not to send us away from His presence. He set us free in order that we may enter into His presence- and that is a privilege and a gracious gift! The only way we will ever meet God’s standard of perfection is if we “Follow Jesus” by having a relationship in which we have Him by our side providing for us as the Good Shepherd as we go. Matthew 28:20 tells us He is with us to the end of the age- do we seek His ever intimate presence in our lives daily? It’s the only way we will ever succeed AS His servants.
So many times as believers we think the method of becoming His servant is so much different from carrying out His commands AS His servant. It’s like we’ve been saved to the Kingdom (by grace of course through faith) then we have our “on the job” “Job 1” training in discipleship and THEN we are let loose on the world. Saved, educated and trained we become “the Graduate” the independent and resilient “professional” and “mature” Christian conquering and moving mountains for the Kingdom. No! We still need Jesus! We can do nothing alone! He must be with us! We aren’t professionals, but the sheep of His pasture and sheep can’t do anything without the shepherd but get into trouble! That’s why we can’t live the simple Golden Rule on our own.
Perhaps that’s why the church in America has been so spiritually unsuccessful in the late 20th Century and early 21st Century. We can make disciples of all nations all day and all year long but if we don’t fully depend upon the presence of Jesus (of God WITH us) through prayer then it’s useless. If we don’t “ask, seek, and knock” if we don’t follow Jesus with our Golden Request of His presence, and provision for success through prayer we will always fail! Could our “old normal” of doing church been crippled by the Pandemic because we have forgotten the presence of Christ and the importance of prayer?
I met many Christians before the pandemic who refused to pray, or who saw it as “boring” and “pointless”… No, they would never say that aloud… But as a minister you suspected it because they would DO anything else in the church but sit still and pray. They would be in any other activity than “Prayer Meeting” and their silence in the room (not always a virtue) before God was deafening and undermining their work and paralyzing their lives and the church for the Kingdom… May it be O LORD when we meet again together again that your servants are interrupting and falling over their words LOUDLY with each other in prayer! May there be such an outcry because we finally have realized our need of you and your Kingdom for the sustenance of our lives, the healing of our relationships, and the sanctity of our nation!
Listen, prayer is vital for the Christian and for the church because it ushers us into the very presence of Almighty God and relationship with Him! How can we claim to know God and His will if we never talk with Him? How can we expect anything from Him if we are too busy to pray- too busy living on our own? Without prayer we can do NOTHING, our efforts are worthless, powerless, and dare I say even dishonoring to God’s glory as we claim His name but don’t depend upon His power and the glory it brings Him.
What do you think? Do we need the Golden Rule to be active in our lives and our community today? Do we as believers need to Fear the LORD? Do we need to honor the Golden Request and PRAY? Our cities are burning, our hands are against our brothers stained by injustice, we are divided, and our churches and all of our religious activities BUT PRAYER have been scattered. Do you think God wants us to seek His Face once more? Do you think He wants us to meet Him in prayer? Do you think He wants to open the floodgates of His blessing and Supernatural Power to us?! How long will we resist? How long will we settle for revolt, our own efforts, our own agendas, and our own way over dependence upon Him in prayer and for revival? We’ve spent 3 months plus at home. Things are opening up again, are we going to return back to what we used to do and run hog wild with “activity” once more with the insanity of trying to solve everything and accomplishing nothing OR will we “be still.” Will we lift our eyes unto the hills from whence comes our help as our forefathers did; will we bow before God- asking, seeking, knocking. Knowing He is our Good, Good Father- and Jesus is our Good Shepherd wanting, waiting, willing to heal us, our relationships, our strife, and our land by the power of His hand and His eternal treasures! Will you pray today? How about tomorrow? How about this year? How about now and never ceasing? We need prayer now more than ever!
Please know I am praying for you! Praying God will do a mighty work in our midst as we wait upon Him. Trust Him today, and continue to place your hope in Him for tomorrow. He is at our side, acknowledge Him and He will make your paths straight. I love you and let us cling to Him together in prayer as the night passes and as scripture tells us “the Morning Star rises in our hearts! I can be reached at dray@wyliebaptist.org if you want to pray together. We will be together again soon! Dawn is coming; I’m looking forward to the day!
Love in Christ, Darrin.