Romans 13:8–10Scripture
I'm aware that our assignment today is Romans 13, and it is Romans 13:8–10, but I would like to start out this morning in Luke chapter 10, because although in this verse in Romans 13:8–10 it talks about us loving our neighbor, the debt that never runs out, and no matter how much love you pay to your neighbor there is always an impending debt of more love to pay, I love that. But before we get there, let us recap by looking at Luke chapter 10, verses 25–29. There is a preface, if you will, kind of like a preface in a book, something that's laid before what is about to be said, that the Apostle Paul has really worked hard and in a laborious way to bring us to: the idea that we have much to be thankful for, grateful for, and much love is owed God and Christ and the Holy Spirit, all of which
Point 1All love is due to God
Are one and our God. Verses 1 through 2 really help us understand that all love is due to God. Do this with me, and you don't have to do it, because it would be a recommendation, but I think it would be good, maybe to help get it down in your heart. Maybe you don't have to do it verbally, so this is not a command, it's not even a request, but would you do this with me if you want to. You could do it under your breath if you're a rebellious sort and you don't like to be told what to do, because I am that guy. But say that with me: all love is due him. With all your heart, love him with all your mind, with all your soul, and with all your strength.
Not part, not three-fourths, not 99.9 percent, but all love is due the Lord.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 2:04
It begins there. Let us not too quickly jump into "love your neighbor as yourself" until we have truly grasped the concept of what Paul is trying to help us understand in Romans 1–12, which is love God with everything you have. That's first, that's priority number one. And so that we're reminded, and I think this is the verse that will help us, a lawyer who is good at pleading a case and tearing apart a case comes to Jesus in Luke 10:25–29, and he says this: "And behold, a lawyer stood up to put him to the test, saying, 'Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?'" In other words, there is a path to eternal life, and I want to make sure I'm on it, so what is the thing that I need to do? "And he said to him, 'What is written in the law?'" This is what Jesus says, basically: you read your Bible lately? It says it in there. Some of us want a word outside
The word, but this is Jesus' way of saying the word is sufficient. The word is sufficient, not just for life, but for eternal life.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 3:42
"What is written in the law? How do you read it?" And the lawyer answered, the lawyer said, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself." Notice which one comes first, and we've talked extensively about this over the last five years. How can one love their neighbor until they first love God? They cannot. They simply cannot. "And he said to him," Jesus said to the lawyer, "You have answered correctly; do this, and you will live." He's already living, so what is he talking about here? Do this and you'll have eternal life. It is not that we've loved God, but it is that God loved us. In other words, you can't even love God with all unless he first loved you with all that is requisite. This is not an act of contrition, it is not an act of the will, it is simply an act of God's providence and his sovereign gift to you.
Because he loved you can love him.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 5:24
He and his love is the gateway to your love for him. I have three things that I want to talk about. I want to start in point one, I want to pull or extrapolate out of Luke, and then as we move into point two, okay, or whatever you want to call it, like, as the second thing I want to talk about, then I want to hit on Romans. But the first one is this, number one:
Point 2God commands love, then empowers it
Why are we commanded to love God with all? The lawyer asked what are the laws, and Jesus says, "How do you read it?" The lawyer answered, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself." Notice here it's a command. Why would God command something that you simply could not do? That would be sadistic. Now we know we cannot do this on our own strength, amen, but if God commands it, he then empowers you to do it. This is a divine act, it is not an act of the will. If we know anything of our will, we know that it is weak. If we know anything of our flesh, we know that it is weak. Yet he commands us. Later in Scripture, Jesus says the two are the greatest commandments. They embody the entirety of the law. First, you shall love the Lord your God, secondly, you shall love the neighbor, your neighbor as much as you love yourself. Now we know that the Ten Commandments is but a small portion of the many commandments that are given. The Ten Commandments are broken up into two tablets. Can you imagine chiseling that bad boy out once you broke it, right? Because God wrote it with his finger, divinely, the first time. Moses broke it, and then he had to chisel it out the second time, right? That's a bummer. And so as he chiseled it out, he got a really good idea of what was written on the first tablet. The first tablet was love God with all, the second tablet was love your neighbor as yourself. So you will hear many theologians talking about the two tablets. Basically it is the law summarized into two things. Now, love God and love your neighbor does not abolish what is written on the tablets, nor any of the extra things that are on the tablets, as but a summary. Any of the extra little things that are told that are a part of his law too, he is simply saying that these two acts, loving God and loving your neighbor, fulfill the law. How many of you know that the only person who ever fully fulfilled the law is Christ? Right, so in essence he is calling us into a type of Christ-righteous type of living, which only he can empower us to do. By the way, later on in the next section, which we will preach about next week, this is why at the beginning of your day he tells you to put on Christ, the only one who fulfills the law. The reason we put on Christ is because Christ is the fulfillment of the law, and if we put on Christ, we love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, and we love our neighbor as ourself. Why? Because that's who Christ is, that's what Christ did. And if you live according to what you do, you won't fulfill the law. And so we put on Christ, we trust in Christ, we hope in Christ, we dwell on Christ, we depend on Christ.
Christ has to be everything. If he's not everything, he's nothing.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 9:38
He has to be everything. Is your job important? Not as important as Christ. Are your children important? Not as important as Christ. Are you starting to get the gift, the gist, I mean, I can say gift if I want. Are you starting to get peanut butter, you know what I mean?
Like, if your children are your priority, then the decisions you make as a parent will be influenced by your priority. I'm not saying basketball is not important, and I'm not saying that your child having a scholarship so you don't have to pay $100,000 for their college education is not important. I'm just saying it's not most important. And if your child is your priority, you will sacrifice your child's eternal destiny on the altar of a few dollars. Is it worth it? I mean, because if your kid's going to be great at basketball, they're going to have to miss church, and so to save a few bucks, I'll sacrifice my child's eternity so they can get a scholarship. Are you with me today? Your child's wants, if they rule the house, you got problems. All the teens are like, can we move on to another subject, because I have some things that I want to do. It's all right, I understand. I remember being a young man, and I remember whenever Christmas came, I would actually pray this crazy prayer. I was young, we won't say how young because that would be embarrassing, but I was young enough for this to be semi okay, but I remember praying to the Lord, "Lord, please don't come back yet until I get my presents tomorrow morning." It's crazy. It's crazy. But
I would rather get a gift in a box that would become trash tomorrow than be in the presence of God.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 12:32
What is wrong with us? What is wrong with us? Why do we not see him as all glorious, all magnificent, all-encompassing? How have we lost, how do we not get it? Later in the Scripture Jesus says these two are the greatest commandments: first, you shall love God, secondly, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. Wait a minute, you mean with all in the old Testament, with all the ceremonial washings, with all the cleansings, with all the commands that you gave of the Feast of Weeks and the Feast of Unleavened bread, of all the commands of what can be worn and what shouldn't be worn, where one can go and how far they can travel on the Sabbath day, of what a person can build and the things they can use to build it, of what they can eat and what they shouldn't eat, of what someone can buy, of what someone can do or can't do, of all the descriptions and all the criteria that bring about righteousness in the life of an individual,
The first and most important thing to God is not all that, little restrictions and commands and issues, but it is simply that you love him above all things.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 13:58
That's it. Whether you washed your hands or not, whether you mixed fabrics or not, guys, look at the list, it's intense, or whether you bowed prostrate or not in your worship, above all things, love me. Man, that simplifies the test. I mean, if some of you had to go and list all the things you shouldn't do, if you had to list that today without any study, you'd fail. But to know that if you have a 250-question test of what you can and can't do, and you answer on every one of them "love God with all," and you would get a hundred, how much easier would that be? It is the driving force, the engine, if you will, of the car that gets you down the road. It is the thing that sustains it. It is the answer to all questions. It is the answer to the heart of God in all things, whether it be fabrics or feasts, it is to love him above all things. I did not know that love was that important, and I did not know that love could be legislated, that God could command me to love him. Wouldn't that be wonderful if in my relationship with my wife I could just command her to love me when she was mad at me? That'd be great. I mean, that would eliminate a lot of marriage problems, right?
You guys get in a fight and be like, "Love me, I command it." I didn't know you could do that. Isn't that strange that God gets permission to do stuff that would be silly for us to do? I mean, how many of you, can we just talk about the silliness? I almost just fell over, right? Just plum over, just right on my face, and I just caught myself, and I did it gracefully too. Unless I would have, now I said it, so now you know. Anyway, but he's commanding. It's a command. It's legislation from on above, from above, from on high. He's telling us to love him. In a world of "shall nots," that's King James, he says, "Thou shalt." I love that he doesn't start with the negative. I think Brian mentioned this in small group not too long ago. He talked about the positive. You and I kind of like to just say "thou shalt not or you'll burn in hell." Brian is the angel on the shoulder.
I'm not saying I'm the devil, I'm just saying I'm something else, who will focus and say, "Yeah, but let's look at the positive." I'm like, "Yeah, but there's only a drop in the glass, it's not even a half-full glass," and I like to go to the negative. But here Brian wins, because it says "Thou shalt love." It doesn't say you shouldn't hate me. He's giving an emphasis on what we should do. God commands us in the "shall," God desires that we stop entering his presence as if he were a police officer. How many of you have ever driven down the street, you're really not even speeding or anything, you're not doing anything wrong, and you see a policeman parked, like entrapment kind of parked, like hiding behind another car, and you see them and you're like, and immediately, no matter how fast you're going, it could be 50 miles an hour on the street sign and you're going 20, but you'll hit your brake immediately you're like, and you hit your brake because you see a policeman. You pump the brakes because you see a policeman. Why do we do that? Why do we enter his presence pumping our brakes, scared that we've done something wrong? God wants us to stop pumping our brakes when we see him so that we appear to be following the law.
God wants us to pump our brakes when we see him because we could not imagine passing him by, because we love him so dearly.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 18:48
See the difference? Can you see the difference? We can't imagine, we pump our brakes not to appear to not be doing something wrong, we pump our brakes because we cannot imagine not stopping and spending time with the one we love, even if just for a moment. And pumping our brakes to not pass him by, we naturally slow down and no longer break the law. It is in the pumping of our brakes to spend time with him that we are immediately in obedience to the law. Are you with me today? I don't know how else to say it. It is in our desire to love him and spend time with him that rightly positions us in obedience to the law. There are two pictures here, and they are immensely different. In other words, if God were a wife, it's the best I can do, he might say this: "I don't want you to focus on not cheating on me. I want you to focus on loving me. I want you to focus on loving me with all your heart, with all your mind, and with all your soul." Why would she say that? Why would she want her husband to focus on loving her instead of not cheating on her? Because she knows that if you master loving her with all your heart, mind, and soul, then she don't have to wonder at night that you're off running, you're running out the door cheating on her. One remedies the other.
Love with all remedies promiscuity.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 20:53
One eliminates the other. So God gives the "shall" rather than the "shall not": love the Lord your God with all. The power of loving completely. Some of you talk about how you will give God everything. I've actually heard some conversations with people talking about, "Well, if I was ever faced in a position where I had to either choose God or die, I would give all and choose God." We make bold declarations of our commitment for him, we profess much and we deliver little. Our all is no much greater than the profession of our mouth, because our life lies on what we profess. Say people say, "I'll give God all," and then offering comes and they give God a little. Listen, not this church, because I don't even look, I don't know what you give, I really don't care, other than the fact that I think it's a heart issue. I'm not concerned about God taking care of the church, right? I'm not concerned about that. We can meet out in the street and that's free, right? Not concerned about it. What I am concerned about is people's heart, because there are people who spend 10 times the amount on eating out, and the offering plates empty when it comes to the things of God. Tithe, zero. Eating-out budget, $2,500 this month.
God ain't worth a ham sandwich to some of you.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 22:43
Are you with me? Love God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength, and in case you didn't know, that includes your pocketbook. All right, we'll probably have a visitor, and they're going to go on Google and they're going to give us two stars because I talked about money. I hardly ever talk about money, but I think that just in case you didn't know, I'll throw this little prep in, because if you want, go on the Google reviews, you can see people who've complained about that, because everybody always comes who's going to have a problem with us on the day that I talk about money, which is once a year. All right, so that's going to happen.
But I want you to understand something: God talked about money more than he talked about anything, because nothing has your heart more than that, and if we're to love God with all our heart, are you with me? Some of you are sitting there going, "Well, Shawn, am I supposed to give 10 percent?" No, you're supposed to, it's all his. Be generous, that's the point. And maybe we should, instead of just making professions, maybe we should evaluate our profession before we say it out loud. Maybe we should, instead of professing much so that people will be very taken aback and astounded by our godliness, maybe we should reflect on what we're about to say and whether or not what we're about to say is actually true, and if it's not, just stay quiet, and if it is, still stay quiet too, because we don't need to glorify you, and
Sometimes us talking about how awesome we are steals glory from God,
Pastor Shawn Gray · 24:29
and it shows that you don't love him with all your heart, it shows you love you with all your heart. This is why we can't stay in a conversation without hijacking a conversation and making it about us. It's the simple thing, guys. So in case you thought I tithe more than anybody here, can you sit around the table and not talk about you? You with me? And God is saying, "I want all of you. I want all of your love." Now, so we move into Romans 13, now that we know that God has called us to love him with all. Romans 13:8–10 says, "Owe no one anything," and then it says, "except," don't you hate it? I love you, but I really like you, but I really loved it when you, "but owe no one anything, except to love one another, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. For the commandments, 'You shall not commit adultery, you shall not murder, you shall not steal, you shall not covet,' and any other commandment, are summed up in this word: 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.'" Oh, all kinds of things begin to pop into your mind, like, well, how am I supposed to love my neighbor if I don't love myself? Well, first of all, that's probably one of the most misused scriptures in the entire Bible. We're going to talk about it in just a moment. In case you didn't know it's been, hyper-psychology has taken it, our culture's taken it and turned it into something it's not. We're going to bring clarification on that, but first of all, "you shall love your neighbor as yourself. Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law." Two things I want to talk about
Point 3Love is a debt we can never pay off
Specifically here. There's many things we could discuss in this, but I want to talk about the love debt. So number two, second point: how is love a debt? How is this possible? How is it that love, how is it that we could be indebted and the payment is love? How can we be in debt? The meaning here is not merely that some debts, like the debts we read about earlier, like taxes or a mortgage or a borrowed book, that you can pay off, at least in periodic stages, like once a year with taxes, I can pay that off and then I'm not due to pay taxes again for a little while.
But love, you're forever in debt. For love can never be paid off.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 27:23
That's the first thing. You owe it just as much after you make a payment as before you made the payment. You never really work down your love debt. No matter how many payments you make, it isn't like I owe $100, I pay $1,000, I pay $1 every time that I love someone and I'm paying down my love debt. You never pay down your love debt. It's infinity and beyond. You forever are in debt, and love is forever the payment. This is very different than taxes. Love then actually becomes the motivator for all things that are paid. All right, so you owe as much before you make a payment of love as after you make a payment, that's true, but there's more to it. What Paul is saying not only that, but let every debt you pay, every check written to the IRS, every mortgage payment paid, every returned book, every act of duty to anyone or any authority or any government official or any city official, let all of them be acts of love. If you love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and you know God places government officials in place, then when you give, when you fulfill that duty, when you honor them or respect them, when you do that, you're paying it with love, because you love God and he's placed them, you love them.
Love is the check to the things we're commanded to pay.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 29:11
Don't put love in a category different from all the other acts of your life. I do all of these things, the act of the will, and then I love. Love is the foundation of all acts. In other words, First Corinthians tells us, "Let everything be done in love." That's paying taxes, that's respecting, that's honoring, that's everything. Well, that's just the Christians, right, Shawn?
Wrong. He's moved the conversation. He has certainly in 13, at the end of 12, talked about Christians and how we should behave with one another, but he has shifted the conversation now, and now he is talking about all people. He's not talking about all people in the church, he's talking about all people. How do you know, Shawn, that he's talking about all people? Why should we love all people? Because he says even your enemies, not your brothers and sisters in Christ, but your enemies. He's talking about everyone. Now, how do we get into this debt of love? That's the question, right? Because if somebody's in debt, I'm kind of curious how they got there. If you're in debt over your head, the first question would be, how do we get here? Why is that important to know? Because how you get there, and the answer to it, teaches us how not to get there again. All right, or so it would, in earthly terms, how did my love to you become a debt, or even more pressing, how did my love to my enemies become a debt that I owe every day? This is important for two reasons. Here are the two reasons. Reason number one: we usually think of being in debt to someone because they've given us something, but lots of people haven't given us anything, can I get an amen? We don't even know them yet. For instance, the Good Samaritan in Luke 10 didn't know the Jewish man on the side of the road, nor did the Jewish man ever give him anything that would put him in debt ever. That wounded man had never done anything for the Samaritan, so how did the Samaritan become a debtor to the wounded man? How did you become a debtor to the needy people in this room and the people in the world that have not only not given you anything, not done anything for you, not been kind to you, they've actually taken things from you, been unkind to you, and not given you a cent, not even given you a smile? This is a very weird way of becoming a debtor, amen. The second reason it's important to ask about how we become debtors to others is that this seems to contradict the very nature of love in our culture. Even thinking of love as a debt seems wrong. If I invite you out for lunch just because you invited me out for lunch the last week, most people would not call that love. It may be a debt payment, but people wouldn't call it love. Love is free. If I'm just treating you nice because you treat me nice. Jesus actually speaks about this plainly, and he says this in Matthew 5:46: "For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same?" So what does Paul mean that we owe love to each other? How did we get into this debt? Why am I in your debt this morning if you've never given me anything? There's a few clues in some verses in Romans. Let's go back to Romans 1:14. If we go back to Romans 1:14, and I'll read it for you so you don't have to turn there real quickly in a frantic state, there Paul describes his debt to the world. He uses the same language here, the same debt language here, and he says this in Romans 1:14: "I am under obligation," literally, I'm a debtor, "both to Greeks and to barbarians, both to the wise and to the foolish."
Then we see Paul's payment of this debt that he's under in Romans 1:15, the next verse, which says, "So I am eager to preach the gospel to you also who are in Rome."
So we see here Paul's debt to the world. He pays by preaching the gospel of Christ, or the good news. That's Paul's payment of love to the Greeks and to the barbarians. All right, Romans 1:5 shows how he got into this debt, and this is the key for us today, this is how we got into this debt, this is how we have a debt of love: "Through whom," Jesus Christ, "we have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith for the sake of his name among all the nations." Now, we're not apostles, but we received grace through Christ. Paul had received something, but he did not receive it from the Greeks, and he did not receive it from the barbarians. Who did he receive it from? Somebody got it. One person got it.
Who do you receive it from? Christ. He had received grace. He'd received grace, free grace.
The debt of love that we have to unbelievers and believers is not because they have done anything to us, the debt is because Christ has done everything for us when we did not deserve it,
Pastor Shawn Gray · 35:27
any more than the world deserves our love. Are you seeing the connection here? When Christ loves us freely, when he gives his life for us, when he takes away all of our sin and guilt and condemnation and guarantees for us eternal, everlasting joy in him, and all of this when we were enemies of his, then we too become debtors to all men. You might think this, and this is the question that I think, so maybe you might think it as well, I wrote it in my journal, here's what it is: we become debtors to him? Question mark. But here is what makes love really love, here is what makes his love really free and our love for each other really free, and don't miss this, because some of us think that if Christ did all these things, then we're indebted to him. Okay, that's what many of us think. Catch me now, catch me. Why are we in debt? Because of what Christ did, but we're not in debt to Christ for what Christ did. Why are we in debt, but we don't owe a debt to Christ? Why is it that we have been given grace as a gift, we're in debt, but not to him? What's going on here? And I would propose to you today, Christ cannot and dare not be paid back for what he did, because then it wouldn't be grace. If he does something and now you're in debt and you pay him back, see, the debt is not to him. The debt spits in the face of his act of grace. If you try to pay it back, it's works, it's not a gift, that no man should boast. So we dare not make any payment back to him, because then grace would no longer be grace. If you could pay back grace, it would be a business transaction and no longer a gift.
Grace is free, or it is not grace.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 38:00
If you have debt to Christ, you have a problem. And this is also what makes our love free to others. Very similarly, are you starting to see the connection? Since our love to others is flowing out of what Christ gave us and not from what others gave us, it is free, and this is why we are able to love people who don't deserve it freely. We've received from Christ.
Matthew 10:8, "Freely you have received; freely give." In other words, our debt to others is utterly unique. It is a kind of debt they do not deserve but we must pay. It is a kind of debt created by something we received but which must be paid not to the one who gave it but to the others who, like us, don't deserve it. It is a debt, therefore, that is paid freely. The pressure to pay it does not come from the merit of the one who, the one we pay, but from the mercy we have received from Christ. And I'll close with this point with this, John 13:34: "A new commandment I give to you,
Point 4Love your neighbor by giving preference
That you love one another: just as I have loved you." Point number three and the final point: how is the debt of love we owe to others related to self-love? In Romans 13:9, at the end, Paul quotes Leviticus 19:18, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." What does "as yourself"
Mean? Oh, we get this so wrong. Oh, just listen in small groups, oh, we mess this up so bad. So I want to help you today. I still hear modern psychological interpretations of this text. I hear it way less than I used to several years ago, but just in case this kind of idea God is hooking you, let me try to get the hook out. All right, for many years people would say that what this command is teaching is that the reason people are not able to love others is that they don't love themselves, and therefore the task of counseling and education and parenting and preaching is to help people love themselves so that they will have the resources then to love others the way the Bible commands. There's a massive problem to this. It's poor exegetical work, number one. Two, it's improper contextualization. And number three, you just don't even actually read it like it says. It almost always, self-love in this scheme actually means, and we quote this, self-esteem. To love yourself meant to have high self-esteem. That's how we interpret it. People need to have high self-esteem to love others. We've got to esteem ourselves more so that we can love others more. Wrong. Ultimately we've got to esteem him more. That's just a side point, you know.
We don't, listen, this is not about self-esteem. Love your neighbor as yourself, this is not about getting a better self-esteem so you can love people better. And not to love yourself meant you had low self-esteem. That's what people think when they think of loving yourself, they think, "Well, I don't really think well of myself, I have low self-esteem, so how can I love others, because I don't even love myself?" The Bible doesn't even consider that. When it commands, it doesn't even mention it. That scheme misses the point of the text in two ways. First, here's the way it misses it, this idea, this concept, which is wrong biblically, it misses the point in two different ways. Here's the first way: the biblical commandment assumes that all of us, 100 percent, every single person on the earth, loves herself already. It assumes it counts on it. It doesn't first tell us to have a better self-esteem so that we can love others better. It says love your neighbor, period, as you do yourself, period. That's everyone.
Everyone loves themselves, so love your neighbor like you love yourself.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 42:52
"Shawn, that must mean that if I have low self-esteem, I can love my neighbor to the same esteem that I have for myself." Doesn't say that. It doesn't say that. There is no call here to help people love themselves at all. There's no call for that. And secondly, in this text, the love for ourself that we all have, without exception, is not self-esteem, but the commitment to do what will make us happy. You want to know what it actually means to love yourself? You want to know what the actual original language says? To give preference to yourself. That's the literal translation: to give preference to yourself. Guess what? 100 percent of the people on the earth do that, even if they have low self-esteem. Come on. That we would love, we would give preference to others as we do ourself, we would love others as we do ourselves. You can do that with low self-esteem, but you still give preference to yourself, even though you think low of yourself. When Paul says love your neighbor as yourself, he's not talking about first learning to esteem yourself so you can love others, he's talking about your built-in desire for happiness becoming the measure of your desire for the happiness of others. Ephesians 5:29 says it this way: "for no one ever hated his own flesh." It doesn't say most people don't hate their own flesh, and there's a few people who commit suicide who do that. That's trigger-inducing, right? Because all of you were thinking it. It said this type of love: no one ever hated his flesh. In what way? Self-esteem? No, it's not talking about self-esteem. He's talking about giving preference to the flesh. "No one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church." No one ever hated his own flesh and nourished and cherished it. That is what Paul means by self-love here. Everyone. So I want to say this clearly, everyone, everybody say everyone without exception loves himself, whatever his self-esteem is. Everyone wants food to eat and will do almost anything to get it rather than starve. Everyone wants drink when they're thirsty and will do almost anything to get it, like drink seawater and go crazy and kill themselves because they're so thirsty. Everyone wants to avoid serious injury and death and will do almost anything to avoid it. And if you're here today, and many of you are, and you point to masochists or suicide victims as exceptions to this rule, since they don't seem to want to avoid injury or death, let me help you understand something: they're not exceptions.
The masochist hurts himself because he finds some strange pleasure or release in it. Young ladies, cuts, because in some way, shape, or form, it is a release to themselves. It prefers themselves. The masochist hurts himself because he finds some strange pleasure in it, or in the case and the care that he gets out, and I'll be honest with you, there are some young ladies who cut and want people to find out they cut themselves because of the attention they get when they find out that they cut themselves. Are you with me today? I'm just, I'm in case you don't think that no one in our church deals with this, you're wrong. This is a reality. We give preference to ourselves. The person who commits suicide is at least trying to minimize pain that he can no longer stand any longer. That person gives preference to themselves over everyone else who will hurt when their life is taken. That's not loving your neighbor, that's loving you. That's not considering your neighbor, that's considering you. How do you magnify the Lord? You love the Lord with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind. How do you make yourself less and God more? As it says in Scripture, he becomes more and you become less. How do you love your neighbor?
You give preference to your neighbor the same way you give preference to yourself.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 48:31
Oh man, that'll change a marriage overnight. Come on now, right? Am I right? Some of you are going to want to go try to change your marriage. Men are going to start vacuuming like they've never vacuumed before. Men are going to be waking up tomorrow morning, "I got this," and you're going to make eggs Benedict for your wife. We know you can't make hollandaise sauce, you make horrible sauce, right? It ain't hollandaise, it's "hauling, please stop" sauce. But you're going to go down, try to whip yourself up some hollandaise sauce, I don't even know, butter and egg yolk or something like that, and you make sure it doesn't break, and you have this magnificent breakfast, you take it to your wife, and you're like, "I gave preference to you. I'm not even eating. I'm godly." If you just do that, then you made your wife God, and you failed the first part, which is love God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind. It's giving preference to your wife over preference to God, because some of you would rather vacuum than open your Bible. Come on now, are you with me? There is an order to these things. When we love God with all our heart, all our mind, all our soul, our strength, when we realize who he is, when we stand in the magnificence of his glory, when we realize the goodness that he's paid to us in spite of who we are, we then, out of the overflow of this union, of this pleasure, become Christ to the world. It is not an act of the will, but it is an act of love. So today, you see why I went back, because we should love our neighbor as ourself, but we should not forsake loving God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength. All right, vacuuming will not give you eternal life, and as much as I love eggs Benedict, that will not give you eternal life. Boy, it'll get you brownie points if you bring me eggs Benedict in the morning, baby, just saying, get your brownie points. But it will not get you eternal life, right? It will not get Brook eternal life if she makes me breakfast every morning for the rest of our marriage. That will not get her eternal life. But treating God as somebody that she wants to pump the brakes for so she doesn't pass by, rather than a policeman that she's scared of offending, that'll get her eternal life, and out of the overflow of that union she learns and is chastised and is trained how to love her husband like Christ loved the church. Are you with me today?
Get first things first, and the rest will follow.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 51:39
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