Introduction:
A. I want to begin with two thought provoking questions:
1. Question #1: Do you love yourself?
2. Question #2: Should you love yourself?
B. Do you remember Whitney Houston’s number one hit song called “Greatest Love of All”?
1. The chorus went like this: Because the greatest love of all. Is happening to me.
I found the greatest love of all, Inside of me.
The greatest love of all, Is easy to achieve.
Learning to love yourself, It is the greatest love of all.”
2. I think we would all agree with some of the things in this song, but there are also some things we would disagree with strongly.
3. First of all, there is an absence of God - The message of this song is very humanistic.
4. Second, The truth of the matter is this - the greatest love of all is not self-love – rather, the greatest love of all is God’s love!
C. Nevertheless, the reason I wanted to mention this song is because I want us to understand that self-love is important and necessary.
1. I know that statement might surprises you.
2. We probably have never heard a sermon on the forgotten commandment: “LOVE YOURSELF!”, but that is what I want to speak with you about today.
D. Today we are returning to our sermon series – All You Need is Love.
1. So far we have learned that love is the most important thing – it is the key to everything.
2. A second thing we have learned is that God is love and is the source of love.
3. The third thing we have learned has to do with what love really is – what we learned is that love is a decision, a choice, a commitment, and it is a verb - action…behavior…demonstration.
E. What I want us to learn today is that the decision to love and the demonstration of love in action must first be applied to ourselves, before we can effectively apply it to others.
1. Let’s look again at Jesus’ answer to the question “which is the most important commandment?”
2. Jesus’ answer was: “ ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ ” (Matthew 22:37-39)
3. In that answer we see that Jesus has given us two great love commandments that summarize our prime responsibility to our Creator and to our fellow humans – Love God and love people.
4. Notice that each law was given with a qualifier to help us know how to love God and others.
a. We are to love God with all our heart, soul, and mind.
b. We are to love our neighbor as ourself.
5. What does it mean for us to “love your neighbor as yourself”?
a. Paul’s words in Ephesians 5:28 parallel Jesus’ command: “husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies.”
b. In other words, our love for others is to be patterned after our love for ourselves.
F. “Wait a minute!” someone might argue, “That’s not biblical, is it? We’re not supposed to love ourselves. Doesn’t the Bible command us to deny ourselves and take up our cross? Didn’t Jesus say that if I love my life, I will lose it? Didn’t someone come up with the JOY acrostic: Jesus first, Others second, and Yourself last?” Isn’t self-love right up there with pride and conceit? And shouldn’t we avoid those things?”
1. Those are all good questions.
2. Some of those ideas are right and some of them are wrong or are just misunderstood.
3. So let me try to explain why proper self-love is right and biblical.
I. Biblical Reasons to Love Yourself.
A. First of all, it is right to love ourselves because we are made in God’s image (Gen. 1:26).
1. We also are to love others for this very reason – they also are made in God’s image.
2. This is the Bible’s first defining word about us and about who we are.
3. When God took that dirt and fashioned it and breathed life into it, he created us in His image.
4. And I like the words of the old, popular tee-shirt, “God don’t make no junk.”
5. You and I are God’s image on this earth.
6. Loving ourselves begins when we get to know the God who made us, and realize that we are fearfully and wonderfully made in the image of God.
7. We have supreme worth and value simply because God made us in His image
B. Second, it is right to love ourselves because self-love is the basis for loving others.
1. Had Jesus said, “Love others instead of loving yourself,” we might conclude that any measure of self-love is wrong.
2. But Jesus didn’t do that, rather, He commanded us to love others (in the way) we love ourselves.
3. Self-love isn’t commanded, but it is assumed, implying that it is too basic to be included as a separate instruction.
4. It is as if Jesus said, “It is obvious that you should love yourself in the right way, now love others in that same way.”
5. The Christian’s most basic earthly love obligation is to care for himself or herself.
6. As we mentioned earlier, Paul understood that self-love was a given: “No one ever hated his own body, but he feeds and cares for it, just as Christ does the church” (Eph. 5:29).
a. It is normal and necessary for believers to care for themselves mentally, physically, spiritually and socially, and to protect themselves from harmful elements.
7. This loving regard for ourselves is the pattern for our love for others.
8. This past week I was on four different flights, and at the beginning of each flight, the flight attendants went through the safety presentation.
a. This is where they tell you to notice where the exits are and tell you that your seat cushion can be used as a flotation device in case of a water landing.
b. They also instructed us that in the event of the loss of cabin pressure, oxygen masks would fall from the overhead compartment.
c. They instructed us to put on our own oxygen mask before helping anyone else with their mask, even before putting a mask on your own child.
d. If we don’t put our mask on first, then we may pass out and not be in a position to help others.
9. In every area of loving and serving others, we cannot give what we do not have.
10 Only as we love and care for ourselves are we equipped to love and care for others as Christ has commanded us. Doesn’t that make sense?
C. Third, and most importantly, it is right to love ourselves because God loves us.
1. You probably could have guessed that this would be one of my points, right?
2. 1 John 4:10 says: This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.
3. This is certainly the primary point that God makes throughout the entire Bible – God loves us!
4. God loved Israel. God chose Israel. God redeemed Israel.
5. Then through Israel and under the Law God sent his own Son to fulfill the Law and to die so that we might live.
6. There is no greater demonstration of God’s love for us than that He would go to such an extent so that we could have a reconciled relationship with Him.
7. God loves us with a perfect, unending, unconditional love.
8. There is nothing we can do or say that will ever cause Him to stop loving us.
9. That love is real. That love is for every single one of us.
10. God loves you and God wants you to love yourself because of his love for you.
11. If we do not love ourselves, then we do not love what God loves, and it is never a good idea to oppose God, right?
D. So, can you agree with me that God wants us to love ourselves and that there are some very good reasons to love ourselves?
1. The real challenge now becomes personalizing these truths.
2. We might think: “I know I should love myself because God loves me, but how can I?”
II. Loving Yourself Properly
A. Earlier I mentioned some of the objections that Christians sometimes make about self-love.
1. Those objections focus on biblical teachings about self-denial, and warnings against selfishness.
2. But if we study these things, then we realize that these biblical instructions are not in opposition to properly loving ourselves, rather they are in opposition to over-loving and under-loving ourselves.
3. We are to deny the selfishness and self-deprecation that occasionally assert themselves, but we are not to deny the self from which they come.
4. It is our sin we should deny and despise, not the person who is sometimes plagued by it.
5. Do you understand the difference?
B. In 1 Corinthians 12, Paul emphasized the inappropriateness of over-loving and under-loving ourselves as he talked about the body of Christ and gave instructions about spiritual gifts.
1. The apostle informs us that everyone is gifted by the Spirit for ministry (vs. 7) and that God has equipped us just as He wants us to be (vs. 18).
2. Paul likens the body of Christ to a human body and each member to a body part: eye, ear, hand, foot, and so on.
3. The straightforward lesson of the passage is that each of us is to accept the spiritual abilities God has given us and that we should exercise them for the good of the body.
4. That’s proper self-love leading to the effective love of others – do you see that?
C. Paul illustrated the wrong attitude of under-loving ourselves: If the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason cease to be part of the body. And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason cease to be part of the body (1 Cor. 12:15-16).
1. People like this don’t love themselves enough.
2. They say, “I don’t have much responsibility and I shouldn’t be in the spotlight, because I’m not important.”
3. These people have difficulty following through on Christ’s command to love others because they are blocked from loving themselves by an inferiority complex or a false sense of self-denial.
4. For example, you probably love yourself too little if…
a. …someone praises you for a job well-done, but instead of saying thanks, you point out the flaws in your work.
b. …a store clerk gives you less change than they should have, but you fail to confront the clerk because you don’t want to make waves.
c. …you fail to give your opinion in an important discussion because you don’t think your opinion is worth anything.
d. …you are overcommitted at church or work because you feel guilty whenever you say no.
D. That attitude of self-deprecation is contrasted with an equally wrong attitude on the other side of center.
1. Some people love themselves too little, but other people love themselves too much.
2. These people overestimate their importance to God and to others.
3. Pride and self-absorption hinder them in their efforts to fulfill Christ’s command to love others.
4. Paul wrote of such people: The eye cannot say to the hand, “I don't need you!” And the head cannot say to the feet, “I don't need you!” (1 Cor. 12:21).
5. For example, you probably love yourself too much if…
a. …you can’t pull yourself away from the TV to help a distraught neighbor search for their missing dog.
b. …success at work or enjoyment of your hobbies is more important to you than your responsibilities as spouse or parent.
c. …you dominate discussions because you’re convinced no one else has the informed perspective you have on a topic.
d. …you break commitments at home, work or church when you become bored or receive a better offer.
E. Allow me to illustrate the over-loving self, the under-loving self and the proper loving self.
1. Think of yourself as a basketball.
2. Your whole purpose for existence is to represent the sport that bears your name and bring enjoyment to those you were created to serve.
3. What happens when the basketball is not properly inflated? (I want us to think of the proper inflation of the ball as the proper amount of self-love)
a. If the basketball is overinflated, it will bounce too high and shots will ricochet wildly off the backboard.
b. If the basketball is underinflated, it won’t bounce.
c. Either way, the game will suffer and the participants’ enjoyment will be hampered.
d. The right amount of inflation makes all the difference.
e. If the basketball had the ability to do so, it would do everything it could to keep itself properly inflated – not too much air, and not too little.
4. Similarly, if we undervalue or overvalue ourselves, we are less fit to love others as Christ has commanded us.
a. Failing to properly love ourselves leaves us with a very low reservoir of love to share.
b. At the other extreme, we will run dry of love for others if we lavish most of our love energy on ourselves.
c. It is a healthy balanced self-love that best equips us to love others as we love ourselves.
F. So with all of this in mind, how can we properly love ourselves?
G. First, I would suggest that we can begin to love ourselves by telling ourselves the truth.
1. Very likely, others have said things to you that are not true, but you have believed them and have been living them out in your life.
2. Or perhaps, you have decided some things about yourself that are not true, and they are controlling your life.
3. Romans 12:2 tells us that we are transformed by the renewing of our minds.
4. Our minds can be renewed as we reprogram our thinking with the truth of God.
H. What kinds of truthful things can we be thinking that will help us?
1. One important truth is that we are valuable and love-able because of God.
a. God gives us value and love. Therefore, we must tell ourselves repeatedly and regularly that we are precious and of value. We are loved by God.
b. As we program ourselves with these thoughts, we need to ask God to help us believe them and accept them for ourselves.
2. A second truth that we need to work with is the truth that we are sinners, but we are forgiven sinners.
a. All of us are sinners and we do continue to sin.
b. That fact is no excuse to continue to sin. God calls us to resist temptation and eliminate evil from our lives.
c. But in the process of all this, God wants us to live in a state of forgiveness.
d. If you are a Christian, then you are forgiven. All your past sins are erased. They are gone.
e. You are forgiven because God says so, therefore, there is no point in carrying the guilt and shame of those sins any longer (this is something Satan tries to beat us down with).
f. There’s no point in beating yourself up any longer. It’s over, because God in Christ says it’s over. And that’s the truth we need to be telling ourselves.
g. And as we tell ourselves that truth, we can more easily receive God’s love and then love ourselves.
h. So, first of all, we can begin to love ourselves by telling ourselves the truth.
I. Second, we can love ourselves by treating ourselves with love.
1. I’m not talking about pampering yourself with a trip to the day spa, or getting a massage or a pedicure – although those things might be helpful at some point.
2. What I’m talking about is being patient and kind to yourself.
3. We must not beat ourselves up. Rather we must forgive ourselves, as God has forgiven us.
4. We need to treat ourselves with respect and have proper boundaries.
5. We need to take care of our physical needs, getting enough rest, recreation and nutrition.
6. You might remember that when Elijah the prophet was in a bad way, in 1 Kings 19, God prescribed a couple of simple things: sleep and a good meal.
7. The body and the spirit are interconnected and we need to lovingly minister to both.
8. All of the actions of love that we will be learning about as we continue in our series will be actions that we will need to do both toward others, and also toward ourselves.
J. Finally, we can love ourselves by accepting ourselves and thanking God for the way He made us.
1. The most loving thing we can do for ourselves is to accept ourselves for who we are.
2. To wish that we were like someone else or to be ungrateful toward God for how He made us hinders our relationship with God and hinders our love for ourselves.
3. But when we learn to trust God and thank Him for how we are made, then we are in a position to love ourselves and to allow God to work in us and through us to accomplish His purposes.
Conclusion:
A. Lord willing, next week we will begin to look at the actions of love and how to really put love into practice in our lives.
1. But for today, I hope that we have learned that God wants us to love ourselves.
2. I hope we realize that we can’t effectively love others if we do not love ourselves.
3. Learning to love yourself isn’t the greatest love of all, but it is a very important love.
B. Here’s the most wonderful thing of all - all the love that we need to love ourselves and all we need to love our neighbors is available to us, right now.
1. God loves all of us and is ready to love us so powerfully that our love for ourselves and others will become natural and life-changing.
2. Have you really received the love of God so that you can love yourself and so that you can love others with God’s love?
3. I pray that you will love yourself, you are worth it…it is the right thing to do…God said so!
Resources:
Love is Always Right, by Josh McDowell and Norm Geisler, Chapter 8, “Loving the Person in the
Mirror”
“Love Your Neighbor as Yourself” (Pt. 1), Sermon by David Owens, 10/5/03
“Learning to Love Yourself” Sermon by Bruce Willis, SermonCentral.com
