The Christian and Self Esteem

A Sermon by Dr. Neil Chadwick


Jesus said, "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light." (Matthew 11:28-30)

Within the modern area, during the most recent few years, there's a not too subtle struggle taking place, the striving for "self-esteem." It seems that one of the highest goals of daily experience is to feel good about one's self, to realize a positive self image.

    A group called "PsychoHeresy Awareness Ministries" (4137 Primavera Road, Santa Barbara, CA 93110) has pointed out that ". . . incantations for self-worth, self-love, and self-acceptance ooze out of the TV tube, drift across radio waves, and entice through advertising. From the cradle to the grave, self-promoters promise to cure all of society's ills through doses of self-esteem, self-worth, self-acceptance, and self-love. And everyone, or nearly everyone echoes the refrain: 'You just need to love and accept yourself the way you are.'"

The religious rationale for this movement is usually taken from a statement made by Jesus, "Thou shalt love your neighbor as yourself." (Mark 12:31) The gurus of self-love confidently interpret this to mean that before you can love others you have to love yourself. And to help us love ourselves, they advise, we should look in the mirror and say, "I love me so much; I love my face, I love my nose, I love my nostrils. . . ."

We were reminded last Sunday that Jesus also said, "Love one another; as I have loved you." (John 13:34) Just in case the Disciples didn't get it the first time, Jesus repeated Himself in John 15:12, "This is my commandment, That ye love one another, as I have loved you."

When this is put together with the "second" commandment, "love your neighbor as yourself," it's clear that what Jesus had in mind was merely another way of expressing the Golden Rule - love others as you would like to be loved. Do you like the way Jesus loves you? Then love others in that same way, which of course is the way of self-sacrifice, a far opposite to self-love.

There are many problems with this emphasis on self-esteem. Among other things, the call for self esteem will likely:

    lead to false praise;

    produce an unwillingness to give or accept criticism;

    result in the making of self-serving demands;

    condition us to adopt an attitude of entitlement;

    bring about personal comparisons (thinking well of myself is facilitated by thinking less of others);

    focus on external measurements of worth; and

    contribute to the misunderstanding that it's important for us to feel good all the time.

Let's turn aside for a moment to take a quick review of some well known Bible people as they relate to self-esteem. If we asked each of these men the question, "How do you feel about yourself?" what might they answer?

    Obviously Adam lacked self-esteem when God called for him in the Garden of Eden. He said, "I heard your voice in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; and I hid myself." (Genesis 3:10)

    On the other hand, Samson had a healthy dose of self-esteem - he felt good about what he could do. The only problem was, he was mistaken! (". . . he awoke out of his sleep, and said I will go out as at other times. . . . And he wist not that the LORD was departed from him." - Judges 16:20)

    Isaiah clearly didn't feel very good about himself when he said, "Woe is me! for I am undone because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips." (Isaiah 6:5) By the way, the word "undone" means "to be dumb or silent; hence, to fail or perish."

    Artaxerxes' right hand man, Haman, possessed self-esteem. When the king asked, "'What shall be done unto the man whom the king delighteth to honour?' Haman thought in his heart, 'To whom would the king delight to do honour more than to myself?'" (Esther 6:6)

    Jeremiah was short on self-esteem when he lamented, "Ah, Lord God! behold, I cannot speak for I am a child." (Jeremiah 1:6)

    Of anyone, Daniel should have felt pretty good about himself when the angel said, "O man greatly beloved, fear not: peace be unto thee, be strong yea, be strong." (Daniel 10:19) Evidently the angel perceived that, in fact, Daniel wasn't feeling very positive about himself, and that's why he spoke to him this way.

    Job clearly lacked self-esteem. He cried out, "Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes." (Job 42:6)

    David understood that it would not be good to have self-love. "LORD, my heart is not haughty nor mine eyes lofty neither do I exercise myself in great matters, or in things too high for me." (Ps 131:1)

    John the Baptist made a rather dramatic statement which sounds more like a self put-down than a self-affirmation. Speaking of Jesus, he said, "He must increase but I must decrease. " (John 3:30)

    Jesus understood that his own self-worth came from the Father. "If I honour myself, my honour is nothing: it is my Father that honoureth me" (John 8:54); "I can of mine own self do nothing: as I hear I judge and my judgment is just; because I seek not mine own will, but the will of the Father which hath sent me." (John 5:30)

    The Disciples were told that if anyone wanted to follow Jesus, "...let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me." Denying oneself doesn't sound like a promotion of self-esteem to me.

    Paul told the Christians of his day, we are not "...sufficient of ourselves to think any thing as of ourselves; but our sufficiency is of God." (II Corinthians 3:5)

    To the Romans, when he wrote "Be kindly affectioned one to another with brotherly love; in honour preferring one another" (Romans 12:10), Paul was suggesting that "other-esteem" would be more Christian than "self-esteem".

    Earlier in that same chapter Paul had written that no one should ". . . think of himself more highly than he ought to think but to think soberly according as God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith." (Romans 12:3)

1) There are three ways to think about this matter of self esteem. First, there's the obvious superficial worldly way of striving to feel good just for the sake of feeling good.

2) At a deeper level, others, still very much of this world, look for self esteem as the evidence of proven competence. They point out that self-esteem comes with the awareness of one's own gifts and abilities, and is built on truth and reality, revelation, experience, and fruitfulness. These people are not content to merely brag about what they accomplish, they feel best when they are actually doing well. We all recognize the value of positive evaluation when it is truly deserved.

    But we must also recognize that whether our self-esteem is based on praising ourselves or receiving praise from others, these are still built on the humanistic philosophy that says, "at the core, you are good, only waiting to be recognized as such." But don't you remember Jesus' response to a questioner who called Him good? "Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, that is, God." (Mark 10:18)

3) Over against these humanistic ideas is the religious idea that self-esteem comes by recognizing one's position in Christ - we are, after all, king's kids, redeemed by love's blood, destined to rule with Christ.

Listen to one explanation of the "Christian Basis for Self-Esteem":

    "You are a special creation of a good and all powerful God. You are the climax of his creation, the magnum opus of the greatest artist in the universe. You are created in His image, with capacities to think, feel, and worship that set you above all other life forms. God has masterminded the exact combination of DNA and chromosomes that constitute your genetic code, making you as different from all others as every snowflake differs from the rest. (By the way, how do we know that every snow flake is different. Has anybody ever checked? Besides, who among us likes being positively compared to a minute glob of cold, colorless moisture?)

    "As a Christian, you are clothed with the righteousness of Christ. He has given you special gifts and abilities to serve him in a particular and unique way. Your destiny is to live forever in a magnificent kingdom, to reign with Christ over the universe. You will forever enjoy the wonders of his presence and the marvels of his creations. You will spend eternity in intimate and joyful fellowship with your beloved Lord and your precious spiritual family.

    "Now, kids . . . how does that make you feel about yourselves?"

    (Two Sources of Self-Esteem: Secular & Christian, by Randy Alcorn)

My, doesn't this sound good? But with all three of these ways of viewing self-esteem, we still have missed the point, we're barking up the wrong tree. Or, in the image provided by Steven Covey, we've placed the ladder against the wrong wall.

A few years ago California created a "Task Force to Promote Self-Esteem and Personal and Social Responsibility." The legislature put up a total of $735,000 for a group of professors to "Seek to determine whether self-esteem, and personal and social responsibility are the keys to unlocking the secrets of healthy human development so that we can get to the roots of and develop effective solutions for major social problems and to develop and provide for every Californian the latest knowledge and practices regarding the significance of self-esteem, and personal and social responsibility." (California Task Force to Promote Self-Esteem and Personal and Social Responsibility. "1987 Annual Report to the Governor and the Legislature," p. V.)

The Task Force assumed that esteeming oneself and growing in self-esteem would reduce "dramatically the epidemic levels of social problems we currently face." (Andrew M. Mecca, "Chairman's Report." Esteem, Vol. 2, No. 1, February 1988, p. 1.)

Eight professors from the University of California were hired to look at the research on self-esteem as it related to six areas:

    1. Crime, violence and recidivism.
    2. Alcohol and drug abuse.
    3. Welfare dependency.
    4. Teenage pregnancy.
    5. Child and spousal abuse.
    6. Children failing to learn in school.

These professors researched, summarized the results, and published a book titled "The Social Importance of Self-Esteem." (Andrew M. Mecca, Neil J. Smelser, and John Vasconcellos, eds. The Social Importance of Self-Esteem. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989.) Did they establish a relationship between self-esteem and social problems? David L. Kirk, syndicated writer for the San Francisco Examiner, said it bluntly: "Save yourself the 40 bucks the book costs and head straight for the conclusion: There is precious little evidence that self-esteem is the cause of our social ills." (David L. Kirk, "Lack of Self Esteem is Not the Root of All Ills." Santa Barbara News-Press, 15 January 1990.)

While this scholarly study found no cause and effect link between low self-esteem and problematic behavior, more recent studies have indicated the very opposite; there's a definite relationship between violent behavior and high self-esteem.

Now let's go back to the first verse: "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest." The message as it relates to our subject is simply this, "Let's stop striving to feel good about ourselves." The quest for self-esteem only places on us one more burden too heavy to bear. Give it up and come to Jesus. It's not my relationship with myself that is of utmost importance, it's my relationship with God that counts. What I think about myself will always be prone to self-deception. What God thinks about me is all important truth. Is it good to encourage one another by providing words of affirmation? Of course - edification is one of the primary goals of our gatherings. It is good to praise our children when they have done well? Of course - as long as we are also willing to correct them when they have done wrong. But when it comes to ourselves, we praise not ourselves the creatures, but we praise Him the Creator.

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