Golden Rule and the Use of Your Ears

The point: Deny yourself and give others a genuinely sympathetic and attentive hearing, especially when they are sharing joys or burdens.

Martin describes the feeling of having a heart full of joy or a crushing burden, wanting to share it, but encountering someone who will not deny themselves to listen, leading to feelings of rejection and demeanment.

you great delight, or a matter that has crushed your spirit, or a matter that has caused you great excitement, or you may have a mind and heart just filled with a desire to do good in the world that you are not Toする health and health care for your life you seek to remain debt-free, modify how your life is będ vomit, turn to good be good recovery and contribute to a prosperous life for your family members. Be determined to believe that God is really giving you full näch Neither merely anhak odelineet d Eighth graduation activity solac thermouchEEEE all together. The world, all of your connectio...

10:21 - 11:46 Read in full sermon

The point: Deny yourself and give others a genuinely sympathetic and attentive hearing, especially when they are sharing joys or burdens.

He illustrates the experience of speaking to someone who appears to be listening but has a 'glassy look,' indicating they are not truly engaged, which kills the joy of sharing and makes the speaker feel unheard.

How do you feel? How do you feel when someone will not deny himself or herself, not relinquish duty, but deny themselves some legitimate liberty or self-interest simply to give you enough time to listen to you. How do you feel? You feel demeaned? You feel rejected? You feel like you're junk and dirt, don't you? You're all excited and you say, oh, I've got this wonderful person. Or how do you feel when they stand there and you're all excited? I mean, this thing is oozing out your pores. And you begin to communicate to them and they've got that glassy look that you feel they're looking at an obj...

11:46 - 12:47 Read in full sermon

The point: Husbands, feel the pain you inflict when you refuse to deny yourself to enter into your wife's world and listen to her.

Martin contrasts physical violence against a wife with the spiritual damage inflicted by a husband who refuses to listen to her, suggesting the latter can be more devastating to the spirit.

has tremendous implications for you. Oh, yes, you're the hot-shot provider. You're out there in the world of big bucks and big shots and big issues, and your wife is home in the world of her diapers and her dishes and all the little details of what the little ones did and said. She's had no mature adult with whom to communicate at a deep level all day long, and she hasn't just met you at the door with it. She has chosen an appropriate time when you've had an opportunity to relax and have your supper and read your sport page. And now the time has come when your wife legitimately can expect some...

14:19 - 15:39 Read in full sermon

The point: Pray for God to adjust your 'hair trigger' response mechanism, so you take more verbal pressure before your tongue starts wagging.

He uses the analogy of a hair trigger on a gun to describe people who react instantly with their tongue to the slightest verbal pressure on their ear, suggesting the Golden Rule will adjust this 'trigger' tension.

is if any of you have ever done any shooting at all with revolvers? A hair trigger is a trigger that is so adjusted that it takes the slightest amount of pound pressure on the trigger to cause the hammer to release and send that bullet shooting out the barrel. And you have to be very, very careful if you're handling any firearms that have a hair trigger because you just may be sighting in the gun, beginning to squeeze and before you know it it goes off. Well you know there are some people that have a hair trigger that goes right from their ear to their tongue and the slightest bit of verbal pr...

27:41 - 28:14 Read in full sermon

The point: Stop groveling in carnal hypersensitivity; you are not important enough for everyone to be constantly thinking mean things about you.

Martin describes individuals who are hyper-defensive, sensitive, and insecure, constantly putting the worst construction on others' words, comparing them to a sore toe easily aggravated by any touch.

Now I'm going to open this up with a little more fullness than some of the others because I think there's some of you here who desperately need it. There are some of you and there are many of God's people who are hyper defensive, hyper sensitive and hyper insecure. And they're the ones who are constantly putting the worst construction on the words and the motives behind the words of others. They are like one huge sore toe and any word that touches them, they're sure someone formed into a big lead ball and threw it at their toe.

33:51 - 34:29 Read in full sermon

The point: Stop assuming your well-intentioned words are being construed as destructive; if you can't stop, cry to Christ until you can.

He compares interacting with hyper-sensitive, insecure people to sailing through a bay full of floating mines, where one is afraid to make any move for fear of triggering an explosion.

And you will see that I can do all things through Him who strengthens me. There are a few kind of people that I find it most difficult to pray that God will give me grace to be around than that kind of people. I can be around the people who haven't yet learned some of the basic elements of social acceptability. They can have body odor and have clothing that's all strudely and doesn't match and speak bad grammar.

38:41 - 39:10 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: The third application involves making an honest effort to put the best construction on the meaning and motive of what is heard, drawing on 1 Corinthians 13:5 ('thinks no evil')…

Martin uses the metaphor of 'firing pins' on mines to represent the triggers of hypersensitivity, praying that God will remove them so people can interact freely and lovingly, like doves.

Not that all the little boats will sit there with their anchors sunk in the bay and not go anywhere, but that you learn how to get defused. And God the Holy Ghost will come and break off some of your tiring pins so that people can bounce off you. And you can laugh and they can laugh and say, oh, I hit another old dove. Good.

40:04 - 40:23 Read in full sermon

The point: Cultivate a known willingness to hear and receive legitimate reproof, rebuke, and admonishment.

He describes the physical and emotional reaction of someone who bristles, justifies themselves, and shows anger when approached with legitimate biblical correction, illustrating the difficulty of receiving reproof.

friend, fellow church member, classmate whatever that personal relationship is and constrained by a number of biblical passages you believe it's your God-given responsibility either in the language of Matthew you believe great or let the Holy Lord tell you what makes you alive to judge someone or manipulate him or take any fried-up template to judge andACKLE or try to turn his love into something important but normally it's especially important to present a besonders rather than before doubt-君 a sinner who is set against you and they control you spirit of meekness, seeking to restore, or in th...

43:21 - 44:50 Read in full sermon

The point: Start applying the Golden Rule in areas where you can, cultivating spiritual reflexes through prayer and practice.

Martin prompts listeners to recall their own teenage years, the confusion and insecurity, to understand how they would have wanted to be treated by their parents, applying this to how parents should listen to their children.

ascertained that, that's the way I am determined that I shall speak but you say pastor I can't do that in every situation, there are times when much of my conversation just has to flow and it's reflexive, yes that's true, but there are many times you can do this, and listen carefully the more you do this when you can the more you will with renewed and cultivated spiritual reflexes, speak within that framework even when you don't have time to think about it you cultivate by the spirit's grace and power a discipline of perspective and a framework and you'll be amazed at what God will do, so star...

58:43 - 60:11 Read in full sermon