Walking in Love: Love for Self & Others

I.               Introduction

A.  Shaking the Box

B.  Review of Walk in Love Series

C.  Greatest Commandment

II.            Loving Self & Others

A.  Loving

1.    We will never truly learn to love or others until we understand God’s love for us and loving Him.

2.    Jesus quotes from the Shema of Deuteronomy 6:4-9 (The shema also includes Deut 11:12-31, Num 15:37-41).

3.    We are to love God with our whole being, not just one aspect.

a.    Heart- self

b.    Soul- self

c.    Mind- self

d.    Strength- self

4.    Loving God teaches us to value ourselves in ways.

5.    If we can’t learn this, love for self becomes very conditional and affects our ability to love our neighbor (hence the parable of the Good Samaritan). We begin to value ourselves on how much others appreciate us, praise us, notice us, etc.

6.    God’s love for us teaches us how to love ourselves and following His commandments helps us learn to love ourselves.

B.  Love for

1.    Loving self is about seeing my and through God’s eyes.

a.    In Luke 12:4-7 Jesus reminds us that we are valuable to God.

b.    If my value is wrapped up in my career, relationships, my income, or anything else, that value will be conditional.

c.    God loves you even when you have disappointed Him.

2.    Self Care

a.    lllustration: Self-Care is a real thing out there that we need to engage in, but maybe not the way we might think. [4]

b.    Biblical self-care is “the practice of drawing on divinely given resources to our whole lives for personal enrichment, the good of others, and the of God.”[5]

3.    As we learn to love ourselves with God’s love for us, we figure out how we can actually love others.

C.  Loving

1.    To truly love others, we must put ourselves in their .

2.    Jesus quotes Leviticus 19:18 for this portion, which concludes a section of the Law that provides instructions on how to care for one’s fellow man.

a.    The summation in verse 18 challenges us to put ourselves into each of these positions (vs 9-17) and think about how we would want to be treated if the roles were reversed.

b.    Jesus addresses this in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 7:12 So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets.

3.    When you walk a while in someone else’s shoes, you feel the challenge of being them.

III.         Conclusion

A.  Love

1.    As Paul draws the theological portion of the letter to a close, He makes an interesting observation about love in Ephesians 3:14-19.

a.    Love is foundational to our faith (Ephesians 3:17).

b.    Love is foundational to knowing the fullness of God (Ephesians 3:19).

2.    Illustration

a.    In verse 18, Paul paints a picture of a three-dimensional object containing something that God desires to give to us. Paul wants us to figure out what’s inside the box.

b.    Inside is His love. He intends for us to learn about it, understand it, and share it.[6]

B.  Invitation