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Pastor Gabriel Hughes preaches from Romans 13:8 on the simple command to love your neighbor as yourself, and understanding how love is the fulfilling of the law. Visit providencecasagrande.com.
You're listening to the preaching ministry of Gabriel Hughes, pastor of Providence Reformed Baptist Church in Casa Grande, Arizona. Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday on this podcast, we feature teaching through a New Testament book, an Old Testament book on Thursday, and our Q &A on Friday.
Each Sunday we are pleased to present our sermon series. Here is Pastor Gabe.
Let's all stand together as I read from Romans chapter 13, verses 8 to the end of the chapter, verse 14. In honor of the word of the King, Romans 13, 8 to 14, hear the word of the Lord. Oh, no one anything except to love each other, 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.
Love does no wrong to a neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfilling of the law. Besides this, you know the time that the hour has come for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed.
The night is far gone, the day is at hand. So then, let us cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light. Let us walk properly as in the daytime, not in orgies and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and sensuality, not in quarreling and jealousy, but put on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the flesh to gratify its desires.
This is the word of God. You may be seated as we pray. Heavenly Father, we come into this passage today. We read now of this instruction to love one another. This is something we have heard time and time again as believers.
The one commandment that appears to come up more when it comes to how we are to conduct ourselves among people in this world. Of course, we know the instruction to love God, but when it comes to how we interact with other people, we hear this command again and again, love one another.
But how much are we weak in our flesh to fulfill it? How much in the weakness of our flesh do we not want to love somebody else, but we would rather not show kindness, hold on to our bitterness, seek our own way and our own benefit, rather than doing as Paul had instructed in Philippians chapter 2, putting others' needs ahead of our own.
Lord, help us to be humble in mind and spirit, in our own bodies, in heart, in the way that we conduct ourselves with one another in this world, considering others' needs ahead of our own. And as we have opportunity, showing charity to everyone, for this is what you have instructed us to do, that we would love our neighbor as ourselves.
What does this mean? Who is our neighbor, as the question has been asked, as Alan had even read from that passage this morning in Luke chapter 10. But then knowing who our neighbor is, how do we show love to them?
Guide us in your word as we consider these things. In the name of Jesus we pray, amen. It is in Matthew chapter 22 that we read of Jesus being asked, what is the first and greatest commandment in the law?
Now when Alan had read this passage from Luke chapter 10, Jesus was asked that question there. This is a different context in which he is asked this question. He is teaching in the temple. This is in that week before he is to go to the cross and rise again from the dead.
And it's while he is teaching in the temple that the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees and they gathered together and one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?
This appears to be a pretty common test that has come against Jesus to ask this question of him. And he said to him, you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.
This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it. You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the law and the prophets. In our theology textbooks, we refer to this as the first and second tables of the law.
The first table of the law instructs us to love God. And in fact, as the law is summarized in the 10 commandments, those first four commands are vertical commandments. They deal with how we are to love God.
You will have no other gods before me. You will not raise up a graven image. You will not take the Lord's name in vain and you will honor the Lord's day and keep it holy. Those are the first four commandments right there.
The first table of the law. Remember that when Moses came down from Mount Sinai, he had two tablets. So we would understand that on the one tablet were these laws, these instructions regarding our relationship with God.
On the next tablet, on the next table of the law, are these commandments and these instructions on how we deal with one another, the love that we are to have with each other. And in the table of the second commandment, or sorry, the second table of these commandments, the command that summarizes all of those commandments is this.
You will love your neighbor as yourself. And Jesus saying on these two commandments, love God, love others on these two commands, depend all the law and the prophets, everything, every commandment that we read is directing us in these two places to love God and love each other.
And in this place, in Romans chapter 13, Paul is focusing on that love that we are to have for one another. Now we've read previously about love that we should have for one another in the church. This is a love that we should have for everyone.
And whoever loves one another has fulfilled the law. And so over these next two weeks, this Sunday and next week, as we consider this passage Romans 13, eight through 10, we want to come to understand more fully, more deeply what it means to love our neighbor and how this fulfills the law of God.
Now for our purposes this morning, as we examine this imperative, this commandment, we're going to consider, first of all, love as we have read about love in the book of Romans. So the first point being love in Romans, that sounds like a romantic comedy for Christians, love in Romans.
Now that's the first thing we're going to be looking at. And then secondly, focusing more specifically on chapter 13 verses eight through 10. So love in Romans 13, eight through 10. And there's a reason, as you will see, that we look at the context of love in Romans first and then see why this instruction falls where it does in chapter 13 and why Paul states it the way that he does.
So first of all, love in Romans. In the book of Romans, the word love comes up 15 times. Remember that from the beginning when we divided up the book of Romans, we understood that the first 11 chapters of Romans were heavy on doctrine.
And then from chapter 12 to the end, we read about what is our duty in light of that doctrine because we've been justified by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. How then are we supposed to live? So you might even consider that chapter one was more, or the first part rather, chapters one through 11 were more about our relationship with God.
And then chapters 12 to 16 are going to be more about our relationship with one another. Now as you have your Bible open in front of you, look back at chapter 12 because we're going to walk through some things here in this section of Romans that we've been in over the last few months.
Prior to chapter 12, every time the word love came up in Romans, it was about God's love for us and our love for God. Every time. There was no expression or instruction toward loving one another in the first 11 chapters of Romans.
It was all about love between God and us. It might have been God's love for us or our love for God, but we were looking at a vertical love there through the first 11 chapters of Romans. Some of the most notable examples include Romans 5 -8.
God demonstrates His love for us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Or in Romans 8 -28, here is where we read about our love for God. God works all things together for good for those who love God and are called according to His purpose.
We certainly see His love for us in that passage as well. Every occasion the word love comes up in those first 11 chapters, it's always translated from some variation of the Greek word agape, which means benevolence or deep affection.
Now I know there are some teachers out there who have looked at the different Greek words of love and they've tried to say that like there's different levels of love. Not necessarily. Each word just focuses on a different aspect of love.
But agape is the one that is most commonly used to talk about that benevolent affection. And this is the word that has been used for love in the first 11 chapters. Then we get to chapter 12 and this is the first time, chapter 12 is the first time where there is an instruction about loving one another.
And that was specifically in verse 9 where we read, let love be genuine. And in the context of that instruction, we could see that was about our love for each other. So let the love that we have for each other be genuine.
There the word is also agape, again instructing us to have a deep love, though we weren't yet given in verse 9, we were not yet given an object of that love. So a deep affectionate love, there hasn't been an object yet.
That's in verse 10. So verse 9 is, let love be genuine, abhor what is evil, hold fast to what is good. This is set up for loving that which is good, specifically in the context of within the body of Christ, hating that which is sinful and would bring disunity into the body of Christ.
But then that next verse, verse 10, we read, love one another with brotherly affection. This was the first time where the word love was something different than that Greek word agape. Now the Greek word is Philadelphia.
Yeah, it's the name of a city in the United States, where as I understand it, if you're a sports fan, you will not find a lot of love in Philadelphia. But this is the Greek word for love, for a brotherly love, as we find it used here in Romans 12 .10.
And the very definition of this word even provides the object. Agape is a deep affectionate love, but Philadelphia is specifically a brotherly love. It's not just love in the abstract. It's not just having this deep affection.
It's expressing kindness for someone else. Remember in this context, it was specifically within the brethren, loving one another in the body of Christ with a brotherly affection. So again, every mention of love in the first 11 chapters, that was between God and us.
Every mention of love in the rest of Romans, with the exception of one mention that's going to come up in chapter 15, more toward the closing, where it talks about love in the spirit. But otherwise, every other mention of love in chapters 12 to the end is mentioning love between one another.
Just like Jesus summarized the law as love God, love others, so we see it in the book of Romans as well. Where we get doctrine, the doctrine heavy portion, that is God's love for us or our love for God.
And when we apply that doctrine, we are reading of our love for one another. Now with chapter 12 still open in front of you, let me show you something else. So remember that in chapter 12, we read mostly about the love that we're supposed to have for one another within the body of Christ.
Verse 10 again, love one another, love one another in the body. That's the context. With a brotherly affection. Verse 13, contribute to the needs of the saints and seek to show hospitality. It's very clear the expression of love here is among Christians.
Contribute to the needs of the saints. That changes in verse 14, bless those who persecute you, bless, and do not curse them. The instruction broadens then to love people outside the body of Christ, but it feels like, it's like we've jumped right past loving our neighbors to loving our enemies.
So there's loving one another, the saints in the body of Christ, and then there's loving our enemies. Verse 19 says, beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God. Verse 20, if your enemy is hungry, feed him.
If he is thirsty, give him something to drink. Verse 21, do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. And then what happens feels like an excursus where we've been over the last four weeks.
It feels like we've jumped to a different topic where Paul has decided to go down a rabbit trail. We've gone from loving each other to loving our enemies, and then we jump into submission to governing authorities.
And then right after that, which we finished up last week, we get back into the instruction to love one another. But this time the instruction is to love our neighbor as ourself. Now here's the reason why I bring that up.
We have a tendency to section out the Bible and read it in pieces. There's nothing wrong with that. The Bible as we have it, it has been translated for us in English and has been printed in most editions that you will buy.
It's divided up into chapters and verses. The editors have even added section headings. So at the beginning of chapter 13, you may be reading a Bible that has an editor's note. This isn't in the divinely inspired text, but in your printed English Bible, it probably says something like, submission to the authorities.
And now we've started another section at the beginning of verse eight, fulfilling the law through love, or there might be some other heading there like love your neighbor or something to that effect. So this is the way that we tend to read the Bible.
We section it out and we have like these individual parts and pieces. So sometimes we will lose the sense of context or the flow as it has been given to us. This is not Paul jumping from one topic to the next as it might feel like to us.
This is all connected. It's all the same thought. And that thought is, again, here is how we live as Christians in this world in light of God's love for us. He has loved us. How do we demonstrate the love of God?
Remember the very last line of chapter 12, if you still have chapter 12 open in front of you, do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. And one of the good ways that we overcome evil is, believe it or not, let every person be subject to the governing authorities.
That actually is one of the ways that we overcome evil with good. We do not overcome evil by rebelling against our governing authorities, but rather being in submission to them. We overcome evil with good by being good citizens of the culture in which we live.
That was not easy for the Romans. It was not easy for these Christians there in Rome to hear that. I kind of brought that out a little bit when we were going through chapter 13. The Roman government was very oppressive.
We've read about various ways that the Roman government oppressed. One time Pilate was bored and he decided to send some soldiers into the temple and kill some Galileans who were sacrificing. We read about that in Luke chapter 13.
Pilate just wanted to show his authority. I'm not afraid of you. I'm not afraid of your God. And the Roman government persecuted the Christians who were sacrificing in the temple. Well, Christians, the Jews, but God-fearing men who were sacrificing there in the temple.
Even these Christians who were living in Rome, we've already talked about how the Roman government thought that the Jews were proselytizing and telling people to follow this Jewish Messiah, so they drove all the Jews out of the capital city of Rome.
They got the wrong people. The Gentile Christians were still there worshiping this Jewish carpenter who is God, and yet they are continuing to share the gospel with other people. Then when Nero becomes the governor, or the emperor rather, he lets the people come back in.
He lets the Jews back into Rome. The Jews come into the church and they find, well, this place is a lot different than when we last left it. Now there's more Gentiles than there were before. But this is all to say that this was a very oppressive government.
It was not easy for these Christians there in Rome to hear submit to the governing authorities. And yet Paul is saying that this is how we overcome evil with good. This is the good person that you are supposed to be in light of Christ's love for you as you live in this world.
You are even to be subject to the governing authorities and even pay your taxes to those authorities. Now the last thing that we read in verse 7 of that section, what we looked at last week, pay to all what is owed to them.
Taxes to whom taxes are owed. Revenue to whom revenue is owed. Respect to whom respect is owed. Honor to whom honor is owed. Yes, you show honor even to the emperor. You pay taxes to those who would even otherwise oppress you.
You're going to fund their work that they do to oppress you. But you must pay your taxes because they are actually appointed by God and ministers of God to punish those who do wicked and to reward those who do good.
In the context of overcoming evil and good with being a good citizen of the nation in which we live, we also read this instruction to be a good neighbor to the people that we live among. The most patriotic ethic that you could have as a Christian American citizen is to love your neighbor as yourself, desiring to do good to your neighbor.
And that's the context of this instruction in verse 8. The highest concentration of the word love in the book of Romans is right here in these three verses that we're going to be looking at between today and next week.
The word love comes up five times and all five times it is again some variation of the Greek word agape, but an object has been given to us and that object is our neighbor. So the love that we are supposed to have as Christians living in the world is to fulfill the commandment that was given by God.
You shall love your neighbor as yourself. Now that's our review of love in Romans. Let's focus on verse 8 specifically. Look at it with me again. In Romans 13, 8, Paul says, Oh, no one, anything except to love each other for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law.
Consider the way that Paul starts this, Oh, no one, anything except to love each other. How did we, how did we conclude the instruction to submit to governing authorities in the previous section, pay to all governing authorities what is owed to them?
And we understood that last week is paying revenue and paying reverence. So this is what we are to pay to governing authorities. Now there may be somebody that is asking, okay, that's what we pay to governing authorities.
What do we pay to everybody else? What do I owe to somebody? When it came to defining the word justice, it was Aristotle who defined this word this way. And it's the same definition that has been used regarding justice throughout various forms of government since Aristotle.
But Aristotle said that justice is giving to all their due. So if a person comes in court with a court case, what is owed to that person? Whatever they are due. In what way have they been treated unjustly?
That's what the courts are going to decide. And then make sure that the person who's been treated unjustly has justice served on their behalf. Pay to each one their due. That's justice. It helps us also with that instruction in Micah 5, 8, which says, what does the Lord require of you, O man, but that you do justice and you love mercy and you walk humbly with your God.
So how do we do justice? Very simply, love your neighbor. And this is doing justly with your neighbor. So Paul says here in verse 8, owe no one anything except to love each other. For the one who loves another has fulfilled the law.
Now I've heard some teachers periodically over the years, they've used this instruction in verse 8 to say that Christians should never enter into any debt at all. You should never have a car payment, you should never have a mortgage or any of those other things.
I mean, there's probably some wisdom to that, but that is not what Paul means here. He's not giving an imperative that Christians can't ever have to owe anyone any money or something like that. You have to pay your credit card bill, you shouldn't even have a credit card bill.
And Paul is not entering into that in any way. But rather this is in the context of that obligation that he was making with regards to submitting to governing authorities. You are obligated to submit to governing authorities.
You are obligated then to love each other. This is what you owe. This is what you owe to your fellow citizens, it's what you owe to your neighbor. For the one who loves has fulfilled the law. You are doing everything that the law requires of you if you love one another.
But notice that the command is not just to love one another. Love each other in verse 8 is qualified with the commandment, you shall love your neighbor as yourself in verse 9. And that's actually an important distinction.
Why? Well, I think you understand why. We have to have a standard that is more than just love each other. Because what are we going to do if the instruction is just love each other? You're going to define love your way and the way that my neighbor needs to be loved is the way that I say love is supposed to be.
We get that from the culture constantly. Everyone loves love. The culture loves love. The culture defines itself with love. Like you would probably find some movement or something and that movement will define itself by the way that they love.
You hear this instruction all the time in a completely secular context. Love one another. There are hit pop songs that have been under that name. Where is the love? Love not hate. Love yourself. Love it for sight.
Love conquers all. You're the love of my life. Love makes the world go round. Head over heels in love. Love is love. On and on it goes. There are all kinds of cultures and all kinds of slogans and things like that within the culture in which the word love is used.
We can hear it in a completely secular context and the culture is going to have its own definition of love. But if you ask any two people to give you a definition of love, you're probably going to get two different answers.
What is love? How do you love in a way that another person would receive that as love? There are a lot of people in the culture that will say that you have to affirm all of the things that I love. And that's how you love.
But of course, they're imposing their own definition of love on other people. That is a corrupted definition of love. And as a sinful definition of love, that you have to affirm everything that I love in order to properly love me.
The standard the Bible gives us of how to love one another is to love your neighbor as yourself. It is God's definition of love. It is who he tells you to love. And there's even something that is attached to that instruction that gives us a standard on the way that we show love to others.
Now before going on to explain this love your neighbor as yourself, this is not a command to love yourself. That is a strangely common misapplication of this instruction. I hear it in churches all the time.
You are commanded to love yourself. Now that's not the command. The command is love your neighbor as yourself. It's not love yourself. You will never find a commandment in the Bible that says love yourself.
You might even say some, you might hear some teacher say to love yourself first, you got to do that first in order to show love for others. Because you can't have any love for anybody else unless you love yourself first.
Well if you don't have any love until you love yourself first then how do you have love to love yourself? Does that make sense? I've heard Joyce Meyer teach this exactly in her women's conferences and she's giving all those fluffy thoughts to women there.
You need to love yourself first before you can love anybody else. So what does this mean then to love your neighbor as yourself? Well as we consider this command from the Lord, even though I'm dividing this section into talking about it for two weeks, that still won't be a sufficient enough time to comprehend all that this means.
David said in Psalm 100 in 1996, I have seen a limit to all perfection but your commandment is exceedingly broad. Billions upon billions of words have already been written contemplating the depth of this instruction to love your neighbor as yourself.
But what is suitable for us this morning, that we may best put this into action this afternoon as we go from this place today, we can consider it in the most basic of terms. John Millward was an English Puritan who lived in the 17th century and two sermons that he preached have been published for the ages in the cripple gate and have been preserved for us to this day.
The second of those two sermons was titled, How Ought We to Love Our Neighbors as Ourselves? And I thought that he answered this question so well that for the remainder of my sermon I'm going to be borrowing from his.
So he said to answer this question we must do three things. We must understand first of all who our neighbor is. We must understand secondly the lawfulness of a man loving himself. So there is something to that.
There's a lawful way to do that. How do you do that? That then therefore number three translates into loving our neighbor as ourselves. So first of all understanding who our neighbor is. Secondly how a man may lawfully love himself.
And then thirdly so that he may love his neighbor as himself. So first of all we understand who our neighbor is. If you have your Bible open in front of you turn with me again to Luke chapter 10. This was where Alan read for us this morning the parable of the Good Samaritan and he's already read it word for word so I'm not going to go through this again.
But just like we had that challenge against Jesus in Matthew chapter 22 we have the same challenge here in Luke chapter 10. A lawyer comes up to Jesus and says to him teacher what must I do to inherit eternal life?
And he says what is written in the law? How do you read it? And the lawyer answers the question. You will love the Lord your God with all your heart soul mind and strength and you will love your neighbor as yourself.
And Jesus even says to him you have answered correctly go and do this so you shall live. Follow up statement from the lawyer in verse 29. He desires to justify himself. Meaning what? Well there are certain people that this lawyer doesn't want to love.
And so I don't have to love those people. I'll challenge you with this question. Who is my neighbor? And then Jesus tells this parable and the interesting thing about the parable of the Good Samaritan is that Jesus is really not answering the question who is your neighbor?
Because there's a very easy answer to that question. What is the answer to the question who is my neighbor? It's everyone. That's right. That's the easy answer to the question. Everyone. Even when we had those instructions in Romans chapter 12 to love our enemies.
We were reading about loving our neighbor. Your enemy is your neighbor. Your neighbor may be your enemy. But you still have to love them. We show love for everybody. Jesus doesn't say that though. He doesn't just give the blunt answer dude everybody's your neighbor.
Instead he gives him this parable. A man is beaten by robbers left on the road for dead. There's a priest that passes by doesn't do anything. A Levite passes by doesn't do anything. In fact they pass by on the other side of the road so they don't have anything to do with this beaten man who's laying there half dead in the middle of the road.
But then a Samaritan comes along who is an enemy of the Jews. And it's not just that Jews hated Samaritans. Samaritans also hated Jews. Samaritans didn't like worshiping in Jerusalem. That's where the Jews worship.
We're not going to go down there and worship in Jerusalem. We got a place up here we can worship. So the segregation was not just the Jews dislike of Samaritans. It was also the Samaritans dislike of the Jews.
Oftentimes this story will be taken to say we need to love the least of these. The Bible does say that. That's not in the context of this parable. We need to love those who are a different ethnicity than us.
Yeah sure the Bible says that. That's not the point of this parable. The Jews don't like Samaritans. The Samaritans don't like Jews. And yet the Samaritan is the one that helps the Jew. Cares for him.
Binds up his wounds. Gives him a place to stay. Pays for him to be able to stay there. And then what is Jesus answer or what is Jesus follow up then to this parable as he has given it? It is an answer but he gives his answer as a question.
Verse 36. Which of these three, the priest, the Levite, the Samaritan, do you think proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell among the robbers? What an interesting question. Because he would be a neighbor as opposed to a what?
An enemy. Who acted like an enemy to this beaten man? The Levite and the priest. They acted like enemies. Because that's who the Samaritans and the Jews were. They were enemies. But Jesus' question is who proved to be a neighbor?
Who acted like you might expect your neighbor to act to you? And the lawyer. Now I'm inserting my own Gabe translation into this when I read the tone of the lawyer here but he goes, I'm the one who showed mercy.
Even the lawyer knew this is the guy who proved to be the neighbor. Not an enemy but a neighbor to the beaten man. And so Jesus said to him, you go and do likewise. Not you have to love everybody. But you're supposed to love your neighbor so what does that mean you should do?
You should love even your enemies. And show yourself to be a neighbor. To even those that your culture may otherwise express dislike toward. Now this comes straight out of the law. That's how the lawyer knew how to answer the question.
The law says, Leviticus 19 says, a couple of times in Leviticus 19, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. But the way that the Jews interpreted that most of the time was just my neighbor is a fellow Jew because Leviticus 19 .18 says you shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against the sons of your own people but you shall love your neighbor as yourself.
So the Jews would translate neighbor as my own people. It's Jews, right? It's the fellow Jews. My fellow Israelites, they're my neighbors. But you got to read down a little bit farther in Leviticus 19 where it says, when a stranger sojourns with you in your land and you shall not do him any wrong.
You shall treat the stranger who sojourns with you as the native among you and you shall love your neighbor as yourself. For you were strangers in the land of Egypt. So it was almost like the Jews were only reading so far.
It says my neighbor is the sons of my own people. It also says your neighbor is the stranger who sojourns among you and we are to love one another. And so said Milward, we see then whom we are to account our neighbor.
It is any man whosoever friend or enemy that lives near us or to a greater distance from us. In other words, love your neighbor means love everyone. So this is the answer to the question, who is my neighbor?
Remember the next question or the next matter that Milward said we must tackle. We must consider the lawfulness of a man loving himself. Now I said before that this is not a command to love yourself, but that doesn't mean you cannot love yourself.
In fact, you do love yourself. Everybody loves themselves. That is not something that I have to teach you how to do. You know how to do that just fine. That is one thing that you don't need a lesson on because everybody already knows how to love themselves.
Part of your problem is that you love yourself too much. And as Milward says, quote, unbelief and self-love are the immediate parents of all the mischiefs and abominations that are in the world, unquote.
Remember that when Paul warned Timothy about times of difficulty, the first thing he said to look out for is that people will be lovers of self, 2 Timothy 3, 2. And Milward said, this is that idol which every man must endeavor to take down.
For until that be done, we shall find little peace within ourselves or quietness among men that we may fulfill this obligation to love our neighbor as ourselves. But that said, Milward goes on to establish that there is a lawfulness by which a man loves himself.
We may lawfully love soul and body because your soul and your body are works of God. Therefore, they are good. And so first, a man may love his own body and is bound to preserve the life of it. In Ephesians 5, 25 to 33, this is where the Apostle Paul says, husbands love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.
Do you remember the standards that Paul set for how a husband is supposed to love his wife? First of all, the husband looks to Christ. Love your wife as Christ loved the church. The church is Christ's body.
And so the second standard that Paul gives, as Christ loves his own body, so a husband must love his wife as his own body. In verses 28 to 29, he said, in the same way, husbands should love their wives as their own bodies.
He who loves, he who loves his wife, loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it just as Christ does the church because we are members of his body. Husband, how do you love your wife?
Would you want your wife to love you with the same standard that you love your wife? Do you think it would be harsh for your wife to treat you the way that you treat her? Then you should probably stop treating her that way, shouldn't you?
Did you know, husband, that 1 Corinthians 7 .4 says that your wife has authority over your body? Wife has authority over my body? Yeah, we forget about that one, don't we, husbands? Your wife has authority over your body.
Now that doesn't mean that you don't have headship. But it does mean that you are not your own. You belong to your wife and she belongs to you. Now we can flip the script on this, of course. I can ask the same question of wives.
Since a husband and wife are one flesh, so likewise to the wives, the wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does. That's also 1 Corinthians 7 .4. Wives, how are you treating your husband?
Would you want your husband to treat you the way you treat him? And if that question is a conviction to you, then perhaps you need to change the way that you love your spouse. Now let's flip the script again and let's start applying it to everyone.
Would you want to be treated the way that you treat others? Are you often short with other people? Is it pleasant when people are short or impatient with you? You don't enjoy that, do you? So why are you short or impatient with other people?
Do you like being yelled at or called names? Yeah, then don't do that to others. Do you like it when someone thinks less of you or they think that they're better than you? Then why would you treat others as if you're better than them?
This really is a wonderful standard to be told to love your neighbor as yourself, right? It's like your own personal gut check. The Bible doesn't need to lay out every conceivable scenario when you can take this standard and apply it to any scenario.
Jesus also gave this command as the golden rule, 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. Now I'm going to come back to that one next week.
After the body, Millward goes on to say, a man may and ought chiefly to love his own soul. So we love our own body. We also love our own soul. Every man should care that it would be well with his own soul and not just for the now, but especially for the hereafter, right?
I mean, how beautiful a hymn is it for you when we sing, it is well with my soul. Does anybody not like that hymn? What is wrong with you if you don't like that hymn? I mean, to sing of the things that we sing about in that song, anybody else along with me?
Are you choking back tears when you get to, it is well, it is well with my soul. Why is it well with my soul? Because Christ has my soul. That's why it's well with my soul. So whatever may happen, this side of glory, I am kept by Christ.
Whatever trial, whatever tribulation, I do not despair because I am redeemed by him. He has my soul. It is well. It is good for us that we would desire that it would be well with our souls. And so we must also endeavor that it would be well with the soul of our neighbor, praying for neighbors, encouraging one another, reminding them of the gospel when they get weak, warning them of sin when they fall into sin, bringing them back to the path of righteousness.
All of this is being done for the wellness of our neighbor's soul. And the best thing that you can do for the wellness of your neighbor's soul is to share the gospel of Jesus Christ to them. Likewise, we ourselves, when we are tending to our souls, when we love our souls and we are growing in our spirits, we obey those commands in Scripture to flee from sin and draw near to God.
Hebrews 12, 1, let us lay aside every weight and sin which clings so closely. You know why? Because sin is not good for your soul. James 4, 7, submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you.
Draw near to God and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. This is good for your soul. 1 Corinthians 6, 17 to 18, he who is joined to the Lord becomes one spirit with him.
So flee sexual immorality. Ephesians 5, 18, do not get drunk or intoxicated for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit. All of these things you do in care for your soul, turning away from sin, turning to Christ.
In Acts 20, 28, the Apostle Paul said to the pastors at Ephesus, pay careful attention to yourselves and also to the flock. So it is good for us that we love and care for our bodies and our souls. There is no need for an express command from God to love yourself because you already love yourself.
The sinful man loves himself unlawfully, but the righteous man who has been made righteous by Christ loves himself in a way that is lawful, loving body and soul, that we may have a righteous standard by which we love others.
So now that we have considered who is our neighbor, and number two, the lawfulness of loving yourself, we have also, as we have done this, applied what it means to love our neighbor as ourselves, but let's continue this.
We'll finish up with this. Milward says, it is not possible to enumerate all the particular instances wherein we show love to ourselves and would therefore show love to our neighbor, but we can summarize the application with these four categories.
Let me give them to you. Number one, our thoughts and the judgment that we pass upon ourselves. Number two, our speech concerning ourselves. Number three, our desires after that, which is good for ourselves.
And then number four, our actual endeavors that it may be well with us. So first of all, number one, our thoughts of, and the judgment that we pass on ourselves. Let me give this application. We are required to judge ourselves.
We're about to come to the Lord's table. What is that instruction that we have in first Corinthians 11? Before we come to the Lord's table, what does it tell us to do? Judge yourselves. And if we judged ourselves truly, then we ourselves would not be judged.
So these are good, healthy examinations. Next letter that Paul wrote to the Corinthians, second Corinthians chapter 13, where he says, examine yourselves to see that you were in the faith. So these kinds of examinations are good and wise.
Yet you would not judge yourself without cause. Would you? Do you think that you would wrongly accuse yourself of something that you didn't do? Or you would wrongly assume something about yourself that wouldn't be true?
I mean, the thought seems absurd, right? How can I assume something about myself that wouldn't be true? But just in this way that we don't judge ourselves like this, so we should not be quick to judge our neighbor without cause or pass judgment or unfairly or unjustly.
Make sense? Okay. Now, number two, our speech concerning ourselves. How do you speak about yourself? Now some people are walking resumes. They love to talk about themselves. They love to talk about all their accomplishments and everything like that.
I'm not talking about being a braggart, boastfully proclaiming yourself and just annoying everybody around you. But would you speak of yourself in a disparaging way? Would you curse yourself? Would you say things about yourself to others that would be untrue or would present you to other people in a negative light?
So then don't speak of others that way. Titus 3 .2 says, speak evil of no man. If you would not speak evil of yourself, don't do it about others. Okay. A third category, our desires after that, which is good for ourselves.
So these next two are desire and then endeavor. So first of all, desire every man wishes. Let me say this in the, in the old English way that Millward said it, okay? Every man wisheth, I can't even do it.
Can't even get my head in that style of English. Okay. Every man wisheth himself welleth. That is about as King James as it gets right there. So likewise, we should wish that it would go well with others.
Maybe you think, I just wish somebody would call me and say that they're thinking about me and praying for me. Well, have you done that for anybody? I mean, there's nothing wrong with wanting that, that somebody would remember you and call you and check up on you.
That's good. Have you done that for anyone? Maybe you think, I just wish somebody would encourage me today. Have you given encouragement to somebody else? Like the reminder of what you feel like you need.
Let it be something that would also prompt you or spur you on to do that for somebody else. Maybe there's someone that you need to apologize to or extend forgiveness to. And these are things that we would desire others would do for us.
So let us desire to do those things for other people as well. And then finally, number four. So we've read here about our thoughts of, and the judgment that we pass on ourselves, our speech concerning ourselves, our desires, that which would be good for ourselves.
And then we're applying that and doing it for our neighbors. So here's the fourth one. It would be our actual endeavors that it may be well with us. So just as we want somebody to wish well of us, expound upon that and consider what you wish someone would do for you, and then you do it for somebody else.
If you wish that someone would do something charitable for you, have you done something charitable for somebody else? Maybe you think to yourself, man, I wish somebody would take me out to lunch. Well why don't you call somebody up and take them out to lunch?
I'm free this week, by the way, if you want to. I do have a couple of appointments, but would love to go out to lunch with you. I wish someone would do some yard work for me. Well, hey, find somebody who needs some work done and go do it.
And again, I'm not saying to you, and I want to reiterate again, it's not wrong for you to wish that people would do those things for you. Maybe there is an emptiness there that you feel like isn't being fulfilled and you wish that there was love from some other people that would come in and just reaffirm for me that there are brothers and sisters in the Lord who are out there and who care.
That's good. That is fine. And I'm not rebuking that in any way. All I'm trying to encourage in you here is this discipline, that when you feel that longing, when you wish that somebody would do this for you, is it translating into, you know, I could be doing this for somebody else.
As I wish somebody would do for me, Lord, give me that opportunity and that motivation to do it for somebody else. And this is how we fulfill. Love your neighbor as yourself. And as I said, I mean, we can go on this for forever.
We can make an entire church devoted to just preaching sermons on loving your neighbor as yourself. We can never come to the end of this and all the different applications and ways that we could be showing love to one another.
But my friends, most certainly the greatest demonstration of love that we have ever received is the love that God has shown to us through Jesus Christ, our Savior. He who gave up his place in heaven to come down here and put on this flesh that bugs us so much.
And Jesus willingly did that, condescended himself for us on our behalf, came and played in the dirt with us, cared for us, showed compassion to us, and his greatest act of sacrifice gave his life for us, dying on the cross as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.
Because our biggest problem was we were separated from God and doomed to destruction. But Jesus gave himself for us, quoting again Romans 5 .8, God demonstrates his love for us in that while we were yet sinners, we were enemies of God, we were deserving of his wrath, while we were in that state, yet Christ died for us.
And what sacrificial love is there that is greater than this? Jesus even saying to his own disciples, no greater love has a man than this, that he would give up his life for his friends. And oh, what an example.
That is not only for our forgiveness and for our good to be reconciled to God, but an example that we would follow, that we would demonstrate this sacrificial love for each other. Amen? And as said here again in Romans 13 .8, the one who loves another has fulfilled the law.
And that is a point that we will elaborate on further next week.
Been listening to the preaching of Pastor Gabriel Hughes, a presentation of Providence Reformed Baptist Church in Casa Grande, Arizona. For more information about our church, visit our website at ProvidenceCasagrande .com.
On behalf of our church family, my name is Becky, thanking you for listening. Join us again Monday for more Bible study, when we understand the text.