Years ago J.B. Phillips wrote a bestseller entitled, Your God Is Too Small. His thesis? Most people, including Christians, suffer under the illusion that the God of the universe has limitations. These are the limitations imposed by what others have told us about Him or by what the circumstances of our lives seem to imply. These are also the limitations that we impose by projecting our deficiencies on God. Phillips’ point is that our lives are diminished and our faith remains tepid by every false notion of God. As we have seen over the decades, God is bigger, better, and more in control than any of us can possibly know this side of heaven.
In the same way, the Gospel of Jesus Christ has been diminished over the years by many including a lot of evangelical Christians. It seems crazy, but it’s true. The prevailing notion among most evangelical Christians is that the Gospel of salvation is all about getting to heaven. It’s not. In fact, it’s only been in the last century in America that the Gospel has been seen exclusively as a ticket to heaven. For 1900 years Christians have known that salvation by grace through faith as a gift far greater and more comprehensive than what happens to us after we die. Indeed, the wholeness that Jesus brings to a broken life is not only eternal redemption, it’s also temporal transformation. He begins a process of changing us into His own character.
Two weeks ago we began looking at the marks of a transformed heart. We began with love – loving your brother. Last week God used Jay Mitlo to show us how a transforming heart can love a son or daughter as God loves him/her. Jay nailed it. The focus of loving our children is a clear appreciation of God’s loving control over the ones we love. So much of what passes for loving our children these days is selfish control. And the Lord’s message through Jay was a terrific corrective.
This week we look at how a transformed heart is to love others. In Matthew 7 Jesus concludes His most famous discourse, the Sermon on the Mount, by offering what has become known as the Golden Rule. It’s a “rule” we teach to our children. It’s a rule that most hold as a noble ethic. But in the last few months I’ve come to see it as far more than that. What I once deemed to be an expression of ethical living, God has exploded.
Taking the injunction that a text without a context is a pretext seriously, check the surrounding verses. In the verses that immediately precede verse 12 Jesus reveals the depth of His Father’s love for His children. He says, “If you being evil know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more does your Father in heaven give good things to those who ask.” And for years I felt that the period that ends that sentence was the end of the thought. But recently I’ve come to appreciate the “so.” In other words, He links verse 12 to what’s come before. Moreover, He links what immediately follows with verse 12. So think of that. He leads with a description of His Father’s love for His own. He follows that with the Golden Rule. Then He continues the thought with a description of the broad way to destruction and the narrow way to life. What do you make of that? Have you ever examined the linkage between these three concepts? What do they mean to you? That’s what we’re going to talk about this Sunday as we explore what a transformed heart looks like in loving others.
In preparation for Sunday you may wish to consider the following:
1. What is the significance of the Sermon on the Mount in Jesus’ preaching
ministry?
2. Why do you suppose this “message” is so de-emphasized within the
evangelical church?
3. How is the life of Christ as important to the Gospel as His death and
resurrection?
4. How important is the Golden Rule to you?
5. When you were first taught the Golden Rule was it more about doing “good”
things for others or avoiding doing “bad” things to others?
6. What is the correlation between the description of the Heavenly Father in
verses 9-11 and the Golden Rule?
7. How do verses 13 and 14 relate to the Golden Rule? Or is Jesus onto a
separate topic?
8. What does Jesus mean by the words “destruction” and “life”?
9. How does Jesus’ life mirror the Golden Rule?
10. What is the relationship between this part of the Sermon on the Mount and
transformation from brokenness?
See you Sunday!
