The Idol of Self
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If I had to identify the most prominent idol in our culture this would be it. We live in a culture that is completely obsessed with itself.
Our struggle with our own self image stems from what we talked about last week with the idol of others.
We care far too much about what others think about us and allow the views of others to affect the worth and value that we place on ourselves.
Although our society as a whole has diagnosed the problem as low self image as Nicolas Ellen says:
“A persons self image is not high or low but right or wrong.”
What we really need is not a higher view of ourselves but a right view of ourselves determined by what God has to say about who we are in His Word.
We see the severity of this problem by such statements as:
“You just need to love yourself”
“Be Yourself”
“You can’t love anyone else until you know how to love yourself”
“Love yourself first and everything else will fall into place”
What do all these statements have in common? Me First!
Even among “popular pastors” you here such unbiblical statements like:
“You cannot love your neighbor and you cannot love God unless you first love yourself”
Matthew 22:34-40
What we have here is not 3 commands, it is only 2!
To read anything else into this passage other than to love God and love our neighbor is to twist Scripture to fit what we want rather than conforming our lives to what Scripture says.
To say that our love for God is preconditioned and dependent upon our love for ourselves is a radical misrepresentation of the entire teaching of the Bible.
The love of ourselves is presupposed in this passage
It is assumed that we already love ourselves and instead need to focus on loving others and God.
Nowhere in all of Scripture will we find a command to love ourself!
Instead we find:
3 For by the grace given to me, I tell everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he should think. Instead, think sensibly, as God has distributed a measure of faith to each one.
15 And he died for all so that those who live should no longer live for themselves, but for the one who died for them and was raised.
3 Do nothing out of selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility consider others as more important than yourselves. 4 Everyone should look not to his own interests, but rather to the interests of others.
10 Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor.
25 The one who loves his life will lose it, and the one who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life.
There are 59 one another commands in the new testament.
The Bible clearly places the emphasis on loving others, not on loving ourselves.
So how did we get to this point where self love has become so widely accepted and justified?
Around the 1980’s or even before the problem plaguing our culture was diagnosed as low self-esteem. It was seen as the root behind such horrific problems as abortion and suicide.
We just needed to somehow get people to feel better about themselves, if we could do that then these problems would resolve themselves.
A task force to promote self-esteem was even developed in California to help us solve this problem.
Have things gotten better since all of this emphasis has been placed on ourselves?
Not at all! Our problems have compounded!
From 1999 to 2018, the suicide rate in the US increased 35% according to the CDC.
Today we see this playing out in new and even more troubling ways.
The transgender/sexual identity craze is sweeping the nation and influencing the next generation in profound ways.
According to one statistic 3% of youth age 13-17 identify as transgender or gender non-conforming. That’s around 150,000 American teens.
Half of these youth have either a history of suicidal thoughts or have attempted suicide at some point in their lives.
Our culture would like us to think that the high rate of depression and suicide is due to their feeling unaccepted and bullied however, that doesn’t seem to be the case either.
In Sweden, where the culture is strongly supportive of transgender, statistics show that 10-15 years after surgical reassignment the suicide rate of those who had undergone surgery rose 20 times higher than that of comparable peers.
Far from being some insignificant problem, our unhealthy focus on ourselves has led to destructive life issues.
I would like to propose that we have radically misdiagnosed the problem and therefore misdiagnosed the solution as well.
Because we misdiagnosed the problem as low self esteem and a low self image we also misdiagnosed the solution.
The solution is not self-love but actually self-denial.
Luke 14:25-33
The teaching in this passage is crystal clear:
A choice must be made, either we love Christ and deny ourselves or we love ourselves and deny Christ. He has left no other option for us to choose.
Our worth and value is actually found in thinking of ourselves less and thinking of Christ more.
Our lives exist for the glory of God and not for the glory of ourselves.
So what does a right self image look like?
It looks like this:
Who am I that this amazing, holy, perfect, just, all powerful, and all knowing Creator of the universe would choose me, love me, and suffer and die for me!?!? That even though He has no need for me He still wants me.
The truth is, apart from Christ I am nobody. My value and worth is directly tied to God, so much so that if I am separated from Him I am separated from the only thing that brings true and lasting value and worth to my life.
If we are looking for self worth and a correct self image we must not look to ourselves or to others but to God who created us and made us in His image.