This will be a four part series on the gospel and self-esteem, responding to common claims made about Christian self-esteem. The parts have all been written but are too long for one post so I’ll post one part a day for four days. The parts are:

Dangerous Claims
The Danger in Modern Thinking
Love for the Unlovable
Responding to the Love of God

Part 3: Love for the Unlovable

One of the best-known verses in the Bible is John 3:16: For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. The gospel of self-esteem says, “See how much God loves you? He loves you enough to send his Son. You must be pretty special!” But what does Jesus actually say about people? Just a few verses later Jesus adds, And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. God loves the world, but the world is full of wicked people who love darkness rather than light. No sooner do we read about God’s love than we also read that man is decidedly unlovable.

Ephesians 2 presents the same picture. Ephesians 2:1-3 describes us as festering corpses, dead from rebellion and sin. Filthy, revolting, unlovable. Then 2:4-5 says, But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ – by grace you have been saved… God’s love is shown right next to man’s depravity. Even when we were those festering corpses, God’s love toward us was great and he saved us from our sins, making us alive with Christ. There is nothing in us for God to love which is why his love is an act of grace.

One more. Throughout Isaiah the prophet ranges between chastising and exhorting a rebellious people to turn and be faithful to God. Isaiah rings loud and long with the faithfulness and goodness of God, but also proclaims the justice of God and declares there will be judgment against sin. But the call to Israel is always the same: Return to me, for I have redeemed you (Isaiah 44:22). God’s love for Israel is not proof that Israel is lovable, it is despite their being unlovable.

Isaiah 41:14 contains both chastising and exhorting and is also one of the greatest challenges to the gospel of self-esteem, the belief that God wants you to feel good about yourself: Fear not, you worm Jacob, you men of Israel! I am the one who helps you, declares the Lord; your Redeemer is the Holy One of Israel. Far from encouraging Israel or building the people’s sense of self-worth, God refers to them as a worm. But despite their being worms, God loves them and helps them and redeems them.

Many more examples could be given. Nowhere does the Bible speak to elevate man’s self-esteem but it frequently does the opposite. The good news of the gospel is that God took something as completely unlovable as me and loved me anyway and saved me despite my foul stench.

Earlier I said, “the claim is wrong, deceptive, and dangerous because it upends the focus of God’s work.” Now we see how it upends the focus. The good news of God’s love is meant to move us to Christ. If we preach the gospel in any way that makes a man think better of himself, we have not preached the gospel. The Bible means to drive a man to his knees in repentance over his sin and awe because of God’s mercy and grace. Our preaching and teaching and evangelism should do the same.

Always, always the focus is on God. That he loves us is an amazing mystery of grace. His love for us is real, and in the next section we will see how we ought to respond to his love, but it is a cruel deception of the gospel of self-esteem that says his love ought to lead us to feel better about ourselves.

Tomorrow, how should we respond to God’s love?