Did you ever hear something like a hundred times and you became so familiar with it, you thought you understood it, but then you heard it for that hundred and first time and you thought, wait a minute, that's different. Oh, now I see. I'm Pastor Jason VanVemel from Forest Hill Presbyterian Church, and I kind of had that experience with today's passage that we're looking at on listening to Jesus. It's one of the most famous sayings of Jesus, one of the most famous Bible verses, one of the most famous sayings in history, period. It's the golden rule, Matthew 7, 12. So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this is the law and the prophets, Matthew 7, 12. I guess I first saw the golden rule maybe in fourth grade on a class bulletin board. I remember seeing it. And I thought of it as just that, a good rule for how to be a moral person. And I thought that way for years, until I realized that kind of misses the point. This isn't really a rule for how to be a good person. It really is the heart of why we have any rules from God. And that is the focus of love. You see, God is love, and God loves us, and God wants us to love others. And the golden rule, when Jesus says, this is the law and the prophets, he's saying, look, I know there's lots of rules, 10 commandments, hundreds of ways of applying those 10 commandments in different life situations. Let's simplify it. Love. God is love. God's so loved, you go in love. It's simple. It's refreshing. It's liberating. It's not another rule to keep. It's a love to give.
