Lesson: Mark 12.31b
Sermon
Title: Must We Love Ourselves?
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INTRODUCTION:
Good Advice[1]
A man approached a local person in
a village he was visiting.
"What's the quickest way to
York?"
The local scratched his head.
"Are you walking or
driving?" he asked the stranger.
"I'm driving."
"That's the quickest
way!"
I.
This doesn’t make much sense!
A.
Of course the man is driving.
B.
Why doesn’t the local acknowledge this?
1.
Perhaps the local is a yokel?
2.
A country bumpkin, not too intelligent or wise.
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MAIN
BODY
II.
We are to love ourselves.
A.
The biblical commentaries that I possess are not too
helpful when it come to offering insight and understanding into this
commandment.
B.
It appears that the professionals, with a few small
exceptions to not want to go out on a limb and really speak about what it means
to love ones self.
C.
They would rather, it appears, to take the tact that we
ought to crucify, or destroy our self.
D.
In
the study guide, Learning to Love Ourselves there is in the first lesson a
section For Your Consideration by Eugenia Price[2]
1.
She writes:
"How
much do you really respect yourself? Christians are often hammered at to
destroy self.”
2.
In my favorite Bible commentary JFB on this passage they
write:
Thou shall love thy neighbor as
thyself[3]Now,
as we are not to love ourselves supremely, this is virtually a command, in the
first place, not to love our neighbor with all our heart and soul and
mind and strength. And thus it is a condemnation of the idolatry of the
creature. Our supreme and uttermost affection is to be reserved for God. But as
sincerely as ourselves we are to love all mankind, and with the same
readiness to do and suffer for them as we should reasonably desire them to
show to us. The golden rule (Matthew 7:12) is here our best interpreter of the
nature and extent of these claims.
a.
This is what we call The Golden Rule.
"In
everything do to others as you would have them do to you; for this is the law
and the prophets,” (Matthew 7:12, NRSVA).
b.
What
happens if your concept is underdeveloped?
(1)
You may get less than you expect.
(2)
This is a source of unhappiness and disappointment.
c.
What happens if your concept is distorted?
(1)
You may receive negative results.
(2)
You may become churlish or angry.
d.
This may be somewhat helpful, but it is not the answer to
our need to love ourselves.
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E.
Lets get back to Jack Kuhatschek
1.
In introducing a series of Bible studies on Self-Esteem,
he writes”[4]
In Greek
mythology a beautiful youth named Narcissus refused all love, including that of
the mountain nymph Echo. As punishment, he was made to fall in love with his
own reflection in a pool. Day after day he gazed lovingly at himself, unaware
of his folly and unable to satisfy his longings.
Much of
the recent emphasis on self-esteem reminds me of the story of Narcissus. People
are encouraged to love themselves, to believe in themselves, to tell themselves
that they are beautiful, wonderful, intelligent and capable. But as they gaze
at their own reflections, they have to close one eye to the wrinkles and
blemishes that also stare back at them.
The
Bible does not emphasize self-love-although it does affirm our value as
individuals. Scripture tells us: "Do not think of yourself more highly
than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment” (Romans
12:3). What is "sober judgment”? It is a realistic appraisal of who we
are-both beauty and beast, wonderful and terrible, with strengths and
weaknesses. All of this should be part of our self-esteem.
2.
The
Bible does not emphasize self-love?
a.
What does it mean to love our neighbor as we love
ourselves?
b.
Is this an emphasis on self-love?
F.
Now we are encouraged to read Romans 12.3.
1.
Let read Romans 12.3-8
3For by
the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of yourself more
highly than you ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each
according to the measure of faith that God has assigned. 4For as in
one body we have many members, and not all the members have the same function, 5so
we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually we are members one
of another. 6We have gifts that differ according to the grace given
to us: prophecy, in proportion to faith; 7ministry, in ministering;
the teacher, in teaching; 8the exhorter, in exhortation; the giver,
in generosity; the leader, in diligence; the compassionate, in cheerfulness,
(Romans 12:3-8, NRSVA).
2.
How highly ought one to think of him or her self?
a.
What gifts do I have?
b.
What talents do I possess?
c.
What contribution may I make to the whole body of Christian
believers?
Recently
a traveler overheard a mother and daughter in their last moments together at
the airport. They had announced the departure. Standing near the security gate,
they hugged and the mother said, AI love you and I wish you enough.”
The
daughter replied, "Mom, our life together has been more than enough. Your
love is all I ever needed. I wish you enough, too, Mom.”
They
kissed and the daughter left. The mother walked over to the window where I was
seated. Standing there I could see she wanted and needed to cry. I tried not to
intrude on her privacy but she welcomed me in by asking, "Did you ever say
goodbye to someone knowing it would be forever?”
"Yes,
I have,” I replied. "Forgive me for asking, but why is this a forever
goodbye?”
"I
am old and she lives so far away. I have challenges ahead and the reality is C
the next trip back will be for my funeral,” the mother said.
"When
you were saying goodbye, I heard you say, >I wish you enough. May I ask what
that means?”
She
began to smile. "That's a wish that has been handed down from other
generations. My parents used to say it to everyone.” She paused a moment and
looked up as if trying to remember it in detail and she smiled even more.
"When we said, 'I wish you enough, we were wanting the other person to
have a life filled with just enough good things to sustain them.” Then turning
toward me, she shared the following as if she were reciting it from memory.
"I wish
you enough sun to keep your attitude bright no matter how gray the day may
appear.
"I
wish you enough rain to appreciate the sun even more.
"I
wish you enough happiness to keep your spirit alive and everlasting.
"I
wish you enough pain so that even the smallest of joys in life may appear
bigger.
"I
wish you enough gain to satisfy your wanting.
"I
wish you enough loss to appreciate all that you possess.
AI wish
you enough hellos to get you through the final goodbye.”
d.
This is the kind of contribution that we are being asked
to give.
3.
We are not to think too highly
4.
We are to think highly.
5.
If you want to have some idea of how highly read 1
Corinthians 13.4-8
Love is patient; love is kind; love
is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own
way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but
rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all
things, endures all things, (1 Corinthians 13:4-7, NRSVA).
6.
This is the high state of love into which we are invited
to enter.
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G.
There
is one exception in understanding self-love that is found in a series of
studies on Loving Your Self by Richard Pierce, published originally by
Zondervan Publishing House
"If we love ourselves
properly we accept our strengths for what they are. We neither deny we are
gifted (false humility) nor think of ourselves as superior because we may
happen to be (false-pride). Nor do we imagine ourselves to be something we are
not. We also accept our weaknesses. We don't despair because of them. With Gods
help, we try to overcome these weaknesses. We don't use them to get pity. In other
words, proper self-love begins with a knowledge and acceptance of who we are at
this moment. We also know that if we want to change for the better, we can.”
H.
I would like to quote the whole of For Your Consideration[5]
by Eugenia Price:
How much
do you really respect yourself? Christians, are often hammered at to
"destroy self.” This is not what Jesus said to do. He told us we were to
love our neighbors as much as we love ourselves. How can we love a self that we
have destroyed? Actually, it is not even possible to do away with ourselves and
still live. As long as we are, there will be our selves. True, we are to join
our selves to God (and who could know better how these selves should function?)
but we are not to despise our selves or try to commit self-suicide. We are to
be objective and clear-sighted about them and, after linking them to the very
Self of God, go on to develop his creation to the maximum. There is, of course,
a right kind of self-love and a wrong kind. If you pamper yourself, you do not
really love the essential you. Pampering always hampers. Jesus did not tell us
to pamper either ourselves or our neighbors. He spoke of love; and love is
creative and realistic and constructive. If we are cultivating our false
selves, the self-seeking, self-preserving, distorted self which motivates all
selfish behavior, we cannot expect anything else but imbalance and bumps. God
created human beings in his own image, and he created us to be a part of the
human family. Families are supposed to get along together. When they don't, it
is because false selves are being cultivated right and left. Each member of the
human family has a definite particular contribution to make to the whole. I
have mine and you have yours. When we learn to respect this fact in ourselves,
we are then ready to begin to learn to respect it in the people we know.
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CONCLUSION:
III.
Love, according to the definition given to us by M. Scott
Peck in "The Road Less Traveled” is the willingness to extend ones self
for the purpose of nurturing ones own or another's spiritual growth.
A.
You shall love yourself.
B.
You shall nurture your own spiritual growth.
C.
You nurture your own spiritual growth because it is the
path to nurturing others spiritual growth.
IV.
You do this by staying constantly connected to Jesus
Christ.
Don Aycock of Franklinton,
Louisiana, tells a story:[6]
A fellow who had been reared in
the city bought a farm and several milk cows. In the feed store one day he complained
his best cow had gone dry.
“Aren’t you feeding her right?”
asked the store owner.
“I’m feeding her what you’ve been
selling me,” said the man.
“Are you milking her every day?”
“Just about. If I need six or
eight ounces of milk for breakfast, I go out and get it. If I don’t need any, I
don’t get it - I just let her save it up.”
The feed store owner had to
explain it doesn’t work that way.
A.
With cow’s milk, you take all that’s there, or you
eventually have nothing.
B.
With God you learn to take all that is available other wise we dry up
and our selfishness overcomes our desire to love and be loved.
1.
You have to constantly weed the garden.
2.
You cannot do it once in a while.
3.
You know, the weeds take over and you have little produce!
Amen!
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[1]The Good, Clean Funnies List [gcfl‑info@gcfl.net]
[2]Adapted from, "Find Out for Yourself" by
Eugenia Price.
[3]JFB Commentary Database 8 2000 iExalt, Inc. iExalt Electronic Publishing Used with Permission
[4]From Self-Esteem: Seeing Ourselves as God Sees Us
by Jack Kuhatschek 8 1990 by Jack Kuhatschek published by InterVarsity
Press. All rights reserved.
[5]Adapted from, "Find Out for Yourself" by
Eugenia Price.
[6]Don Aycock, Franklinton, Louisiana, Leadership, Vol.
6, no. 3. e-steeple.com/search.html. Retrieved November 26, 2007.