You Don’t Need More Self-Love
00:00:00.000 | After one quarter of a century at Bethlehem Baptist Church, John Piper looked back and
00:00:09.680 | reflected on one of the most troubling trends that he followed in Christianity.
00:00:14.520 | It was the trend of self-esteem and self-love.
00:00:18.440 | Big in the 1970s and 1980s, self-esteem was said to be the key to Christian love.
00:00:23.840 | Love yourself more, then you'll be able to love others more effectively.
00:00:28.080 | But such a model was a distortion.
00:00:30.200 | Actually, what the Bible demands from Christians is far more radical than self-esteem.
00:00:35.200 | It's more radical because the Bible does not call us to love ourselves more, but to
00:00:39.960 | love others with the same earnestness and zeal that we already love ourselves with.
00:00:47.800 | This more radical calling to love is such a high and demanding calling.
00:00:51.200 | Pastor John will come out and call this revelation utterly devastating.
00:00:56.920 | Because it really renders Christianity to be "an impossible religion."
00:01:03.120 | Here's Pastor John to explain in one of his 2005 sermons.
00:01:09.120 | How is the debt of love we owe to others related to self-love?
00:01:15.120 | Verse 9 is a quotation, Romans 13 9, is a quotation of Leviticus 19 18.
00:01:22.920 | It's quoted by Jesus, it's quoted by James, it's quoted by Paul.
00:01:26.920 | This is the royal law of love.
00:01:29.320 | You shall love your neighbor as you love yourself.
00:01:34.160 | And my question is, what does "as you love yourself" mean?
00:01:37.360 | As yourself?
00:01:38.360 | I've been here 25 years now.
00:01:40.880 | We just celebrated that on Wednesday night.
00:01:42.840 | And I can remember in the six years before I got here being over at Bethel.
00:01:47.640 | And I would say among the dominant concerns of my life from 1974 to 1986, 7, 8, 9 was
00:01:59.560 | this issue.
00:02:01.480 | What does "as yourself" mean?
00:02:03.480 | And I point out that little historical fact just because either I've got my head in the
00:02:07.680 | sand or things have changed a little bit.
00:02:12.080 | I don't hear as much now as I did 30 and 20 years ago the psychological scheme that was
00:02:22.220 | built on this verse that was so wrong.
00:02:24.560 | But I'm going to tell you what it is just in case my head is in the sand and just in
00:02:29.800 | case it's got a hook in you in a second or third generation.
00:02:33.080 | I'm going to try to get the hook out right now.
00:02:37.680 | For many years, people, Christians, would write articles and books in which they said
00:02:47.280 | that this command meant that the reason people don't love others is because they haven't
00:02:56.000 | learned to love themselves enough.
00:03:00.480 | And therefore, the task of counseling and the task of education and parenting and preaching
00:03:07.000 | is to help people love themselves more so that they would have resources to love other
00:03:14.160 | people.
00:03:16.400 | And in that little scheme, self-love always meant self-esteem.
00:03:23.360 | So the universal gospel that fixes all problems of children and marriages and business conflict
00:03:30.760 | is lack of self-esteem.
00:03:32.640 | And therefore, the task of all counselors, all preachers, all parents, all educators
00:03:37.320 | is get more self-esteem into these little kids' lives and into these employees' lives,
00:03:42.160 | and then things will go better because as they love themselves, they will spill over
00:03:46.320 | on love to other people.
00:03:48.740 | That was the scheme, and it colossally missed the point in several ways.
00:03:56.520 | First, this biblical commandment assumes that all of us love each other and don't need to
00:04:02.200 | be taught at all to love each other.
00:04:04.880 | It is an assumption.
00:04:06.280 | Every person in this room, without exception, has a massive love affair with yourself.
00:04:12.560 | You don't need to be taught at all, and it has, secondly, nothing to do with self-esteem.
00:04:20.280 | Your love for yourself is very simply your desire to be happy and to do whatever it takes
00:04:27.840 | to make your life the way you want it.
00:04:33.040 | He's not talking about first you learn to esteem yourself, and then out of that rich
00:04:41.360 | appreciation for your qualities, you now are free to love other people, which presumably
00:04:47.160 | then would mean to help them appreciate how wonderful they are.
00:04:52.480 | That's just not the way Paul is thinking.
00:04:55.760 | The words are not a command to love yourself.
00:04:59.560 | They are an assumption.
00:05:01.160 | Love your neighbor as you already love yourself, no questions asked about it.
00:05:06.960 | Here's an example.
00:05:07.960 | Ephesians 5, I'll just read it to you.
00:05:11.200 | What Paul is doing in Ephesians 5 is husbands and wives, right?
00:05:14.080 | And in husbands and wives, he's taking the command to love your neighbor and applying
00:05:17.140 | it to husbands and wives.
00:05:18.600 | Isn't it great?
00:05:20.400 | So how does a husband love a wife in these terms?
00:05:23.000 | And it goes like this, verse 28 of Ephesians 5, "Husbands should love their wives as their
00:05:28.000 | own bodies.
00:05:30.960 | He who loves his wife loves himself."
00:05:33.760 | And then he adds this amazingly crucial statement in verse 29, "For no one ever hated his own
00:05:41.560 | flesh but nourishes and cherishes it just as Christ does."
00:05:49.520 | The church.
00:05:52.160 | Nobody ever hated himself, but nourishes and cherishes himself.
00:06:00.760 | Everybody without exception loves himself, whatever his self-esteem is, high or low.
00:06:09.840 | Everybody wants food to eat and will do almost anything to get it if we get hungry enough.
00:06:19.140 | Everybody wants to drink and not die of thirst, and we will do almost anything to serve ourselves
00:06:25.600 | with drink if we get thirsty enough.
00:06:29.720 | Everybody wants to avoid injury and death, and we will do whatever it takes not to walk
00:06:37.200 | in front of a train or a truck or drink poison or get ourselves killed in some other way.
00:06:45.520 | We love life and our health big time.
00:06:50.520 | And if somebody raises the objection, "Well, what about masochists and suicide victims?
00:06:58.240 | Are they exceptions?
00:06:59.240 | I mean, they don't treat themselves well, do they?"
00:07:05.440 | The answer is that masochists and suicide victims are not exceptions to this rule.
00:07:09.920 | A masochist is a person who, for very sad and sick reasons, finds pleasure in hurting
00:07:16.640 | himself or pleasure in the tending of the doctors.
00:07:21.560 | I've talked to these people who cut themselves.
00:07:25.560 | And I asked one young woman we were working with, "Why do you cut yourself?"
00:07:31.560 | Big lacerations on her stomach.
00:07:35.280 | And she said, "It's the only time anybody ever touches me."
00:07:40.060 | She wanted to be touched.
00:07:41.060 | She loved herself massively.
00:07:43.060 | "Touch me.
00:07:45.480 | Touch me, doctors."
00:07:49.520 | Same thing with suicide.
00:07:51.700 | The only reason people commit suicide is because life has gotten so painful they can't stand
00:07:55.540 | it anymore, and they want to escape.
00:07:57.360 | They just want out of the pain, which is self-love.
00:08:02.880 | I don't want the pain anymore.
00:08:07.560 | Everybody likes to be praised.
00:08:09.960 | And apart from grace, we all subtly say things and do things to be liked, to be praised.
00:08:22.080 | Takes a massive work of divine grace to free you from that idol.
00:08:26.280 | We love the praise of men.
00:08:31.980 | Everyone has self-love.
00:08:33.400 | Jesus does not command it.
00:08:35.980 | He assumes it.
00:08:38.280 | Now, lots of people think it would be very radical if Jesus said, "So stop loving yourself
00:08:46.360 | like that and start doing the duty of love to other people.
00:08:52.600 | Stop having those strong cravings for your own happiness and your own welfare.
00:08:58.600 | Stop that.
00:08:59.600 | Kill that.
00:09:00.600 | Crucify that.
00:09:01.600 | And start doing something that doesn't flow from desires for your happiness and just do
00:09:08.360 | dutiful loving things."
00:09:11.000 | Some people would say that's really radical.
00:09:13.920 | And it would be, I suppose, but it's not as radical as what Jesus says and Paul says and
00:09:19.120 | James says and Leviticus says.
00:09:21.680 | They say, "Love your neighbor that way, that way, like you massively love yourself.
00:09:36.600 | Make your desire to be alive.
00:09:40.400 | Make your desire for happiness the measure of your desire for other people's happiness."
00:09:47.960 | You talk about radical.
00:09:49.920 | You talk about life-changing, heart-exploding, impossible demands.
00:09:58.000 | Love your neighbor as you love yourself.
00:10:01.520 | If you are energetic in pursuing your own happiness, be energetic in pursuing the happiness
00:10:06.420 | of your neighbor.
00:10:07.880 | If you are creative in pursuing your own happiness, be creative in pursuing the happiness of your
00:10:13.600 | neighbor.
00:10:14.600 | If you are persevering and enduring in pursuing your own happiness, be persevering and enduring.
00:10:19.880 | Be enduring in pursuing the happiness of your neighbor.
00:10:24.280 | Paul is not mainly saying, "Seek for your neighbor the same things that you want."
00:10:33.600 | He's saying, "Seek their good in the same way that you seek your own good."
00:10:40.960 | Make the degree of your own self-seeking, which is very high, the measure of your seeking
00:10:49.440 | their good.
00:10:51.680 | This is devastating.
00:10:52.680 | You're sitting at home.
00:10:54.440 | You're just enjoying an evening.
00:10:56.920 | Feels good.
00:10:57.920 | Watching television, watching a video, eating a good meal, talking, and you hear Jesus say,
00:11:05.840 | "Love your neighbor as you want this evening."
00:11:11.400 | It's just devastating.
00:11:13.960 | Measure your pursuit of the happiness of others by the pursuit of your own.
00:11:20.600 | How do you pursue your well-being?
00:11:23.480 | Pursue their well-being that way.
00:11:25.760 | Are you hungry?
00:11:27.440 | Find a hungry neighbor and feed him.
00:11:29.740 | Are you thirsty?
00:11:32.040 | Give your thirsty neighbor a drink.
00:11:34.840 | Are you lonely?
00:11:37.200 | Find someone who's lonely and befriend them.
00:11:40.220 | Are you frightened?
00:11:41.920 | Send someone to comfort.
00:11:44.080 | You want to make a good grade on the next exam.
00:11:46.920 | So do others.
00:11:47.920 | Help them.
00:11:49.600 | That is radical.
00:11:50.600 | It's far more radical than saying, "Stop desiring and start doing duty."
00:11:56.820 | It's far more radical because it says, "Now, all these massive desires that I have for
00:12:04.400 | my happiness are not sent away.
00:12:08.540 | They are transposed into another kind of music."
00:12:13.480 | The same energy, the same longings, the same desires are now desires for you and your salvation
00:12:21.280 | and your happiness and your good, your stomach being full, your mind being educated, and
00:12:28.280 | your life having significance.
00:12:30.560 | All the things I want, I now, with that same energy, want for you.
00:12:38.460 | Christianity is an impossible religion.
00:12:44.500 | This is a standard that is overwhelming, and it just makes me long to have a miracle done
00:12:53.060 | to me.
00:12:54.060 | Amen.
00:12:55.060 | I had to listen to this clip twice to fully understand Pastor John's point, and I'm glad
00:12:57.940 | I did.
00:12:58.940 | The very high calling, the impossibly high calling of Christian love.
00:13:03.540 | Incredible.
00:13:04.540 | This was pulled from his sermon on Romans 13, verses 8 to 10, titled "Love is a Fulfilling
00:13:08.940 | of the Law, Part 2," preached on July 31st, 2005.
00:13:13.480 | You can get the entire audio recording at DesiringGod.org right now.
00:13:16.980 | Well, if you have a great Piper sermon clip, email me.
00:13:20.340 | Give me your name, hometown, the sermon title, the timestamp of where the clip happens in
00:13:23.820 | the audio, and tell me how it impacted you.
00:13:25.820 | Put the word "clip" in the subject line of an email and send it to me at AskPastorJohn@DesiringGod.org.
00:13:31.980 | That's our email address, AskPastorJohn@DesiringGod.org.
00:13:35.980 | I'm your host Tony Ranke.
00:13:36.980 | We are Rejoined in Studio with Pastor John on Friday.
00:13:39.740 | We'll see you then.
00:13:40.740 | Thanks for listening.
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