Whenever I hear or sing that hymn, there's a lump in my throat.
Do you feel the same way?
And it's not allergies.
There's a lot of emotion in that hymn, and especially with brass accompaniment.
Thank you for singing that today.
We're going to turn in our Bibles this morning to Genesis, that popularized psychology and
self-improvement.
Self-esteem is a popular theme on talk shows, radio and television.
In fact, it is a theme that may be described as overshadowing most social and psychological
thinking in America in the 90s.
Self-esteem is a fad.
It is a fashionable notion that we hear much about in the world.
It fits nicely with the spirituality of contemporary Americans, because self-esteem, at least as
the world thinks of it, exalts the chief god in the pantheon of American pop religion,
which is ego and self.
Anyone who understands much about the Bible or about Satan, our spiritual enemy, will
recognize the origin of this worldly idea of self-esteem.
Because of what Christians know about true reality and the biblical worldview, and what
we also believe about selfless living, which our Lord taught us, we tend to overreact to
the concept of self-esteem and proclaim that any notion of self-esteem surely is sinful,
and that is simply not so.
There is, in fact, a biblical and proper sense of self-worth, which is necessary for healthy
living and for spiritual vitality.
And so this morning I want us to think about this idea that a proper sense of self-worth
is essential to personal health and spiritual growth.
In other words, what I'm saying is that if one doesn't have a proper sense of self-esteem,
self-worth, spiritual growth is not going to happen like it should.
Now let me explain to you why that is.
Self-worth does not come from within us, like the world likes to say, or from our accomplishments
or our abilities.
We do not find proper self-worth by looking inside.
We discover proper self-worth by looking into the Word of God and seeing in it the truth
about who we are, our origin, our purpose, our potential, and our destiny.
Genesis 1, 27 is a key verse regarding biblical self-worth.
It says, And God created man in his own image.
In the image of God he created him, male and female, he created them.
First thing I want us to think about as we ponder self-worth is that our personal worth
is based on our creation.
Our personal worth is based upon the fact that we are the creatures of an almighty,
all-wise God.
Man is a creature of God-given dignity.
Never forget that.
Even in his fallenness there is something in man of the image of God that remains.
Now this key verse along with other texts that we could look at this morning that parallel
it tells us that first of all we are made by God.
We are not the result of evolutionary accident or of a theistic evolutionary plan.
Evolution has nothing to do with the Word of God.
The Bible says that our parents Adam and Eve were created by God and we are the result
of that creation.
Our original parents were formed by God, Adam out of dust and Eve out of Adam's rib and
they were given the breath of life, the Scripture says.
The same idea is found regarding creatures, animals and fish.
Chapter 1 verse 24 verse 21 as well.
We are not the only living creatures that are upon the earth obviously.
There are many other creatures but we like them have been made by God.
We are not accidents.
Now that may sound very simple and even simplistic to some of you but that is a profound idea
that challenges the very world view that dominates America.
That we are the creatures of God and we as human beings possess it says in this verse
the image of God.
Animals share the breath of life with us in that they are living but they do not share
the image of God that is uniquely in human beings.
The image of God here refers to man's personhood, man's personality that we have intellect,
emotion and will.
And it refers to our moral abilities that we may choose right and wrong and we are held
accountable for it.
None of that can be said of the animals.
That is true that they can be trained.
They have a certain kind of intellect.
They have certain basic feelings.
They can choose to obey our command or disobey our command but it's all out of instinct.
It's not out of the morality that is uniquely human.
And animals are not held accountable to God for sin as humans are held accountable.
That is because we alone of the living creatures on the earth are made in the image of God.
The fact that we are the creatures of God made in his image gives us personal worth.
But he goes on to say in this verse and in many other places that as God's special creatures
we humans are given the right, indeed the privilege, to rule over the creation.
We are commanded by God to subdue it, to develop it, to be good stewards of it.
There is no greater argument for biblical environmentalism which is quite different
than the pagan environmentalism which is in our world today.
But there is no greater argument for biblical environmentalism than Genesis 1.27 and 1.28
where God tells us to be fruitful, to fill the earth and to subdue it and to use it in
a proper way.
Man's dignity comes from his relationship to the Creator.
Whether one is a Christian or a non-Christian, he has dignity as the creature of God.
Whether one is redeemed or not redeemed, there is value to that life.
And whether one is born or yet unborn, there is value to that life because we are the creatures
of God and therein is the foundation for our personal worth.
The second idea I want to talk about is this, that personal worth provides a basis for biblical
self-esteem.
Our culture has sought to base self-esteem on man himself.
The idea is that we have to go through a process of self-realization.
We have to look inside ourselves and out of that we are to find self-esteem.
The result of that worldly process is really the destruction of human dignity because human
dignity does not come from inside ourselves, it comes from God.
On the back of the outline that you have in your bulletin today, there are two models
of self-esteem.
The top one is the model of biblical self-esteem.
The bottom one, the model of the world's view of self-esteem.
I want to begin with the top one.
We've already written in there the key foundational idea of personal worth, who we are as the
creatures of God and the dignity that is inherent in the fact that we bear the image of God
in ourselves.
That gives us personal worth.
The next level up on that triangle you may want to label this way, a sense of well-being.
Because you see our sense of well-being rests upon an understanding that we are specially
the creatures of God.
It's our personal worth.
Our sense of well-being comes out of our relationships with God, with self, and with others.
You notice on the right side of that triangle there are three spaces.
Down on the bottom with personal worth write in the word unimproveable.
You can't improve upon our personal worth.
That cannot change.
It is unchangeable.
But when it comes to our sense of well-being, that is improvable.
Our relationships with God, with self, with others can be improved.
And so that can develop.
And then at the very top of this model is a third triangle in there the word productivity
belongs.
Out of our personal worth and therefore our sense of well-being we obey, we manufacture,
we develop, we have experiences, we're productive individuals.
And once again this is improvable.
We can all do things to improve our productability, can't we?
That's the biblical idea of self-esteem.
It's based on personal worth that cannot change.
But take a look at the world's view and you'll see how significantly different what I just
said is from what our world believes.
In fact the three labels that we've used in the top are the same that we'll use in the
bottom except they are reversed.
Self-esteem in the world's view is based upon one's productivity.
What can he do?
What can she contribute?
That is the basis of self-esteem in our world.
And so what do we do when someone can't contribute?
When someone is not productive any longer.
I'll tell you where it's leading.
It's leading to euthanasia.
It all comes back to this idea of where our self-esteem rests.
If one is not productive he's not worthy of life.
He wastes our precious resources if he can't produce.
And so people produce.
And out of that sense of what they do there is a sense of well-being.
People feel good about themselves.
They have self-esteem as long as they perform according to their own standards or what others
around them want of them.
There's a sense of well-being.
And out of that sense of well-being if I feel good about myself then I must have worth.
But if I don't have a sense of well-being then I don't have a sense of personal worth
which is the top triangle in the world's view of self-esteem.
And all of this is changeable.
And so man in his idea of self-esteem is in a constant state of flux.
He is on a roller coaster ride one day feeling worthy, the next day feeling in the pits,
and he never has a stable idea of himself and his value.
Do you see how contrasting these two views are?
Personal worth as we've defined it from Genesis 1 provides a basis for biblical self-esteem.
Now the third idea I want to talk about is that personal worth is a common target for
spiritual attack.
Satan resents man's place.
He resents man's place in creation.
And he seeks to spoil man's God-derived dignity by marring or even obliterating the uniqueness
of the image of God in him.
I'm talking about every person, not just the Christians, the lost as well.
Even those people who are deceived into serving him.
He hates them.
And he does everything that he can to spoil their God-derived dignity, to mar the image
of God in them.
So what does he do?
Well he attacks the physical body.
He encourages addictions or behavior that destroys the body.
That's satanic.
He seeks to destroy the physical bodies of people because that's part of what it means
to be human, and he hates humans.
Do not wonder that there are people in our world today who carry on self-destructive
behavior without thinking about it.
They are under the control of the influence of Satan who hates human beings, and he wants
to destroy their bodies.
But he especially attacks the mind.
He especially attacks the mind.
In fact, he begins there.
He devises thought patterns based upon lies that corrupt the soul.
When we listen long enough to those thought patterns, they become beliefs.
We didn't used to believe that, but we've had these thoughts so long that now having
listened to them over this period of time, these thoughts have become our basic beliefs.
And our false beliefs lead then to false behavior.
Neil Anderson says, no person can consistently behave in a way that's inconsistent with
the way he perceives himself.
In other words, the way that we perceive ourselves determines how we behave.
At the very heart, at the very root of all of the violence, the animal-like behavior
in America today is the belief, I am an animal.
I am an evolved animal.
I am an accident in this world, and life really has no significance beyond this life.
And that false belief produces the ungodly behavior that so alarms all of us.
It goes back to one's philosophy of life.
Robert McGee in his fine book, The Search for Excellence, talks about some of the false
beliefs that we believers, as well as people in the world, can fall into.
Here's one false idea that has become a belief in some people.
I must meet certain standards in order to feel good about myself.
Maybe those standards arise from within me.
I have a perfectionist kind of a spirit.
Or maybe there are others around me who are establishing standards.
But I must meet these standards to feel good about myself.
Now what's the result of that?
What's the consequence of false belief?
In this case, it's the fear of failure, it's being driven to succeed.
It's manipulating others in order to achieve success at any cost.
False beliefs lead to false behaviors.
Another false belief.
I must have the approval of certain others to feel good about myself.
Maybe it's my husband, maybe it's my wife, maybe it's my parents, my girlfriend, my boyfriend,
my fellow students, but I have to have their approval in order to feel good about myself.
So what's the result of this?
False belief.
Well, it includes the fear of rejection.
Do you know how many people are controlled by the fear of being rejected?
That's the greatest fear teenagers have.
Most teenagers.
The fear of being rejected by their peers.
Attempting to please others at any cost is another consequence of this false belief.
Or being overly sensitive to criticism.
Or withdrawing from others to avoid their disapproval.
People's worlds just get smaller and smaller and smaller because they're so afraid that
they won't be approved by others.
Another belief that's false is those who fail, including myself, are unworthy of love
and deserve to be punished.
You know there are people who believe that?
They have failed and because of their failure they deserve all the problems and all the
punishment that comes to them in life.
The consequences of this false belief including the fear of punishment, propensity to punish
others, be overly harsh, to blame oneself and others for personal failure, withdrawing
from God and from fellow believers and being driven to avoid punishment.
All out of that false belief.
A fourth false belief is this, and I'm just going to use this, this is the final one.
I am what I am.
It's the old Popeye statement.
I am what I am.
I cannot change.
I am what I am.
I am hopeless.
Rising out of that false idea comes shame, hopelessness, inferiority, passivity, a loss
of creativity and isolation by withdrawing from others.
That's what I'm talking about when I say that Satan attacks our minds, devising thought
patterns based upon lies that corrupt our souls.
These thought patterns then become belief systems out of which come our behavior.
What is the answer when we are attacked by these kinds of lies?
When they have wormed their way into our beliefs?
When they have contaminated our lives?
What is the answer?
The answer is the truth.
The truth of God.
Let me just quickly explain and illustrate this.
For the idea that we have to meet certain standards in order to feel good about ourselves,
what is the biblical truth?
Therefore, being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.
What is the truth there?
Justification.
That I am completely forgiven by God and fully pleasing to God.
I don't have to fear failure.
God has declared me right with Himself.
I am pleasing to God.
I am justified.
You and I need to put that into our minds and allow our minds to be transformed so that
we don't believe the lie anymore.
What about I must have the approval of certain others to feel good about myself?
Here we have the biblical truth of reconciliation, which says that I am reconciled to God.
I am fully accepted by God.
I don't have to fear being rejected.
God has already accepted me.
I am restored to God.
God embraces me in Jesus Christ, and I don't have to be afraid that I won't gain the approval
of others.
I've already got God's approval.
What about those who think that if they fail, they're unworthy of love and deserve punishment?
What biblical truth do we have here?
It is that God loves us and sent His Son as the sacrifice for our sins.
It's the idea of propitiation, you know, that key word in 1 John that means that God is
satisfied, His justice is satisfied, my sins are no longer held against me.
I don't have to fear punishment.
I don't have to punish others.
I am deeply loved by God.
What about the one that says, well, I am what I am.
I can't change.
I'm hopeless.
There's no use.
The biblical truth is that in Jesus Christ we have been regenerated.
We have a new life.
If any man be in Christ, he is a new creation.
The old things have what?
Passed away.
The new things have become new.
I am a brand new and complete person in Jesus Christ.
I don't need to experience any longer the pain of shame.
I'm not hopeless.
I have life in Jesus Christ.
Do you see the point?
Personal worth is a common target for spiritual attack.
Some of us are sitting here today and we have been attacked by Satan in our thinking.
There are false ideas that we have accepted and we've accepted them long enough that they've
become a part of our belief system even though we're Christians.
We have believed lies about ourselves and about God.
And the result of that is that we're unhappy.
And we have fears that control us.
We're not experiencing the joy that God wants us to have because we have believed lies.
So our need is to isolate the lies, to focus on the lies that we have accepted and to bring
the truth of the Word of God into our minds to destroy the lies.
The truth is always stronger than the lie.
All you have to do is apply it.
You have to find the truth of the Word of God and bring it into your mind.
Romans 12 2 says, be not conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewing of
your mind.
You know what our tendency is in evangelical churches, especially in the last 10, 15 years?
We say I want practical teaching.
Don't give me all the doctrine.
I just want the practical stuff.
Give me a seminar with the 10 steps as to how to be a better parent.
Give me the seminar with the 15 steps how to have good feelings about myself.
Give me the practical stuff.
You know the problem with that?
There's nothing wrong with being practical.
The problem is we want to skip over the doctrine to get there.
Inevitably the Apostle Paul always talked about doctrine to get people's thinking right
before he applied that to their lives.
We have this worldly tendency to want a quick fix.
What God wants us to do is first get our thinking straightened out.
To understand doctrine, to personalize, to internalize doctrine, what is true so that
our thinking is transformed.
Once our thinking is transformed, then our lives will begin to follow in step.
Personal worth is a common target for spiritual attack.
And yet there's somebody here saying how can I be sure that I'm a valuable person?
How can I be sure that I, me, that I am a valuable person?
That's fine what you've said for others, but what about me?
Well let me give you some evidence that you are a valuable person.
Number one, God created you.
I don't care who you are.
I don't care what you like or dislike about yourself.
God made you the way you are.
The fact is there's something that all of us dislike about ourselves.
We need to learn to accept who we are as God's creation.
Psalm 139 assures us that while we were still being formed within the wombs of our mothers,
that God knew us and he put our chromosomes together.
He's the one who fashioned us just the way that we are so that there's no one who's
just like you.
No one.
God's universe would be different without you.
You have been designed by the creative wisdom of God.
You.
You're valuable.
Secondly, Christ died for you.
God proved his love for us.
He demonstrates his love for us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
Are you valuable?
Yes, you are.
Christ died for you.
I don't care who you are.
This morning Christ died for you for your sins.
God sent his son to the world for you.
And if you were the only one in the whole world who needed salvation, the son of God
would have come and died on the cross.
That's how valuable you are to God.
Now the next two things I'm going to say refer to only believers, only to those who've
trusted the Savior.
The third idea is that the Holy Spirit dwells in you.
That's why you're valuable.
The Spirit of God dwells in you, says Paul, 1 Corinthians 6.19 and many other places.
The Holy Spirit comes to you and he joins you with Christ and he gives you a new identity
in Christ.
You're a new person in Christ.
The Holy Spirit dwells in you.
You're valuable.
And fourth, you have a noble destiny.
Are you valuable?
Yes, you have a noble destiny as a child of God.
You will reign with Jesus Christ.
You are part of the royal, eternal family of God.
You are valuable.
So when you're tempted to believe a lie about yourself, reject it.
Throw it off.
Let the truth of God transform your thinking.
When Satan comes to attack your sense of personal worth, understand who you are and that personal
worth of yours cannot change.
It's permanent.
It's fixed.
It's stable.
It's forever.
And nothing you do, nothing you say, no failure you have in your life can ever change your
worth to God.
I can almost hear somebody out there saying, boy, I would like to believe that.
Then why don't you?
It's a choice you can make.
You have a will.
You can choose to believe the truth and reject the lie.
Do that today.
Let's pray.
What is the lie that you have believed that eats away at your soul, that corrodes your
relationship with God, that corrupts the joy that God wants you to know in life?
In this spiritual warfare, this invisible war, Satan will do anything he can to rob
you of your inheritance as a creature of God.
He hates you because of the image of God in you.
Isolate the lies.
Find the truth of God's Word that will transform your thinking so that you will no longer believe
the lie and live it out.
I pray that God will help you to begin that process today.
If you need someone to sit down with you, that's why we're here.
We and the pastoral staff and other counselors can sit down with you and talk and discover
with you what God has to say about your worth in His sight.
Father, I pray that we may be the ones who live in the joy of true self-esteem in our
world.
The culture out there is so messed up in this whole idea, and yet it craves it.
It craves it.
Help us to understand the biblical truth about self-worth and to share that good news with
others.
But I pray also that we may live in it ourselves and understand who we are in Jesus Christ,
who we are as your created beings, what our destiny is, and live in the joy and the sense
of well-being that comes from that personal worth we have.
Amen.