Self-esteem

“Self-esteem”         

Steve Corley

Given in Kingsport on Sabbath, July 13, 2024

Given in Roanoke on Sabbath, August 10, 2024

Given in Knoxville on Sabbath, August 17, 2024

One concept which is highly trumpeted in the world is self-esteem. The self-esteem movement (or at least a major part of it) promotes the idea that the capability to do great things is inherent within each of us -- if we would only realize it.  It stresses the need for us always to feel good about ourselves.  We see this particularly promoted in the schools.  Is high self-esteem always a good thing?  I would like to show that it certainly is not and that it is something of which we should generally beware.  We can title this sermon simply “Self-esteem.”

One premise of the self-esteem movement is "If you feel good about yourself you will do better."  If this were so, people who score high on tests of self-esteem should have a record of better accomplishment in their lives.  In the last few decades schools have cut out some classwork to make time for classes which teach students to "feel good about themselves."  Has this yielded students who perform better?  In academic tests, certainly not in comparison with students in various East Asian countries who score lower on "self-esteem" tests.

In some (though not all) studies young criminals and juvenile delinquents have also been found to have typically higher-than-normal levels of self esteem.  In one study of self-perception of driving skill, most people responded that they were "better than average" drivers.  Interestingly, in that study, 100 percent of those with a record of frequent traffic tickets considered themselves "better than average."

What does the Bible say about self-esteem?  We may note that the Bible devotes tremendously more words to the problem of excessive self-esteem than to the problem of insufficient self-esteem. What is really the difference between self-esteem and pride?  I don't know. Who are some of the Biblical examples of excessive self-esteem and what happened to them?  One which would come to mind would be the Assyrian king Sennacherib who (as quoted by his military leader, the Rabshakeh) boasted that God would not be able to deliver Jerusalem from him and his forces (2 Kings 18:19-25).  He even had the audacity to say that God had sent him to destroy the land of Judah (verse 25).  Result was that Sennacherib lost 185 000 troops in one night due to a plague sent by an angel, and was subsequently murdered by his sons after his return to Nineveh (2 Kings 19:35-37).  Later the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar boasted that there was no god who could deliver Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego out of his hands – and as a result he saw God perform a miracle to save them from the flames (Daniel 3).  Subsequently Nebuchadnezzar, forgetting Daniel’s warning in Dan. 4:25-27, bragged that he had built Babylon by his own might and for his glory (Dan. 4:30).  During the next seven years he learned what it was like to eat grass.

We have seen the examples of boastful Gentile kings who grew up in paganism. However, pride (high self-esteem?) is also shown as a problem which tends to pop up repeatedly in the lives of those who are trying to serve God.  In 2 Chron. 26 Uzziah was a good king who tried to obey God and was blessed for so doing and things initially went well with him.  However, he apparently let these blessings go to his head – did he think that he was God’s special favorite and that God would overlook a clear violation of God’s Law that Uzziah was preparing to commit?  In Uzziah’s high self-esteem he thought he should be able to burn incense in the temple.  We know what happened as a result.  He had the rest of his life to "feel not so good" about himself after being made a leper and having to live apart from everyone else. 

Whether we realize we are showing it or not, we must beware of the attitude of “I am the exception”– I am not subject to the law because I am “great” or because of all the good works I do (Matt. 7:21-23).  Was this what Uzziah felt when he attempted to burn incense in the temple when God specifically reserved this function for the priests?  The people with whom God is working with will be judged more strictly than others.  (This principle especially applies to those who serve in a teaching mode – James 3:1).  How many Gentile kings got away with something similar to what David did to Bathsheba and Uriah without seeming to suffer any consequences (cf. Psalm 73:1-9)?  They “got away” because God was not working with them at that time.  They will receive their comeuppance later – maybe in this life (verses 18-20) or maybe in the second resurrection when God begins to work with them (Psalm 37:1).

Hezekiah and Josiah were the two best kings of Judah in terms of their obedience to God (2 Kings 18:5, 23:25).  Nevertheless, both still had problems with pride – high self-esteem.  Hezekiah proudly showed off to the visiting Babylonian envoys how well Judah had recovered from the attack by the Assyrian king Sennacherib (whom we discussed earlier). The prophet Isaiah then warned him about what Babylon would do to Judah in the future (2 Kings 20:12-18).  Likewise, when Pharaoh Necho of Egypt wanted to take his army through Judah to make war at Carchemish, Josiah refused to let him do so (2 Chron. 35:20-24).  He probably thought “who does the Pharaoh think he is, trying to walk over me like this?” So Josiah went to war with him and in fact disguised himself in order to do so.  He should have listened to “the words of Necho from the mouth of God” (verse 22).  Furthermore, as an example, there was a Biblical passage from the time of the Exodus strongly critical of the Edomites because they would not let Israel pass through their land (Numbers 20:14-21) – and Josiah probably should have been familiar with this historical account (cf. Deut. 17:18-19 – kings were commanded to write their own copy of God’s Law from the one kept by the priests).  Josiah died in that battle – and as we know his death started the end of Judah as a nation.  A good king went to war – and died – because he was stubborn and was apparently too proud to listen to good advice coming from God through the mouth of a Pharaoh.

Two attitudes toward God’s Law which He hates are the attitude of defiance (outright open hostility toward God’s Law, violating it proudly and openly without caring) and the attitude of hypocrisy (giving lip service to God’s Law openly but violating it privately with no intent to stop the violation).  Both of these attitudes can be rooted in excessive self-esteem.  The defiant person (like Sennacherib and Nebuchadnezzar whom we discussed earlier, and also the men of Sodom as referred to in Isaiah 3:9) thinks that he is supreme and that God either does not exist at all or else has little power.  Paul pointed out that this proud, defiant attitude was common in the Greco-Roman world of his day (Romans 1:18-25). The hypocrite is different. In his heightened self-esteem, the hypocrite thinks he is special and can get away with violating a law even though he praises God with his lips and admits that that law is valid.  In the following chapter of Romans (chapter 2), Paul pointed out how hypocrisy was a major stumbling block for the Jews of his day just as a defiant attitude was for the Gentiles.   And hypocrisy, more than defiance, is the attitude which Christ predominantly called out in the New Testament.

Jesus Christ was very forgiving toward sinners who realized their sin and who repented of it.  But we need to remember that there was one group of sinners toward whom He was very harsh, toward whom He never had an encouraging word.  These were the proud – the Pharisees and their type, who had high self-esteem, felt that they were more righteous than other people, and saw no need of repentance.  And the attitude of hypocrisy can reach into the Church – as Paul pointed out to the Corinthians.  We can see that in 1 Cor. 5:2 and in several other passages in the same book Paul noted that the Corinthians were "puffed up" (a particularly good analogy in a Passover-related epistle). They felt good about themselves even though they were practicing a number of major sins which Paul refers to and condemns.  (Remember that the church at Laodicea had a similar problem as pointed out in Rev. 3:17!)

In fact, it is hard to find any text in the Bible which is targeted toward insufficient self-esteem (as least as the world would define self-esteem). The passages which might seem to support this idea all actually promote the concept that we should have confidence in God working through us -- not in our own strength or ability.  We are to look to God for help in meeting challenges – not to our “inner strengths” as pop psychology would tell us.  In 1 Samuel 15 King Saul claimed that he had not destroyed the livestock of the Amalekites (as God had commanded him to do) because he feared the people (verse 24).  Similarly, in 1 Kings 12:26-30 Jeroboam established pagan worship of calf idols as the state religion of the northern kingdom because he was afraid that if the people continued to go to the temple in Jerusalem they would again desire Rehoboam as their king and Jeroboam would lose his kingdom and his life – despite God’s assurance through the prophet Ahijah that such would not happen (1 Kings 11:38).  Both Saul and Jeroboam were fearful and would not carry out the assignments God gave them because they thought they could not.  Does this mean their problem was insufficient self-esteem?  No.  It was true that they lacked the ability themselves.  But they had been given specific assignments by God and they did not trust God to supply the ability for them to carry out these assignments – and the failure to trust God led to their downfall.  Ten of the spies in Numbers 13 had the same problem – and they convinced the people to believe them.  The Israelites were correct in realizing that they themselves could not defeat the people of Canaan.  They had low self-esteem but that was not their spiritual problem.  Their self-esteem was exactly as low as it should have been.  But they did not trust God to supply them the power to carry out the assignment He had given them.  The principle they did not follow is expressed in 1 Cor. 10:13.  Saul and Jeroboam similarly were under “temptation” because they feared the people.  However, in both cases they would have had a “way of escape” by obeying God.  But both kings did not utilize the “way of escape” which God provided.  They used their own human reasoning, walking by sight and not by faith in what God had promised (2 Cor. 5:7) – and the result was their downfall (and in Jeroboam’s case, the ultimate downfall of the northern kingdom of Israel).  In the case of the Israelites who believed the ten disloyal spies and refused to invade Canaan, the result was that they would spend the rest of their lives wandering in the wilderness.

Two Scriptural warnings about the dangers of high self-esteem are in Prov. 16:18 – “Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall” and in 1 Cor. 10:12 – "Let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall."  Paul also gives us in Romans 12:3 the general principle that we must not think of ourselves more highly than we should – we need to keep down our human self-esteem.  We must not only realize that we are tremendously inferior to God but we also must take the further step of esteeming other humans above ourselves (Phil. 2:3).

In total contrast to Paul’s command in Phil. 2:3, remember that Simon the Samaritan sorcerer (Acts 8:9-11) misused whatever blessings and power he might have had – in his inflated self-esteem he claimed that he himself was someone great and deceived the people to believe that he was actually working through the power of God.  He even offered the apostles money in an attempt to get more power – apparently to further enhance his status in the eyes of the people and feed his self-esteem even more.  Note how Peter saw his attitude and rebuked him (verses 20-23).

If any human being ever had the right to have high self-esteem it would of course have been Jesus Christ – He was God in the flesh.  But what did He say about the subject?  The answer is in John 5:30 – “I can of Myself do nothing.” His great works were done through the power of the Holy Spirit which was without measure in Him – coming from God the Father.

We have seen that Scripture contains many warnings against excessive self-esteem in the human sense.  But there is a right type of “self-esteem” that we should have, which is really not “self-esteem” at all but rather an appreciation of what God enables us to do. Paul expresses this in Phil. 4:13 – “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.”  God gives us many gifts and blessings – both physical blessings such as the power to get wealth (Deut. 8:17) and also spiritual gifts (1 Cor. 12:21).

The rich young ruler (Luke 18:18-23) had high self-esteem which was related to a misappreciation of one of the blessings God had given him – his wealth. The ruler was proud of what he considered as his record of obedience to God’s commandments – he did not appreciate that he too was a sinner. As Christ noted in subsequent verses (24-25), riches are often a major barrier to conversion – people tend to have pride in their wealth, believing that they got it on their own, through their own skill. They fail to note that it was God who gave them the power to get wealth (as noted in Deut. 8:17).  We should indeed be happy with the blessings which God has given us and thankful to Him for these gifts and blessings.  But they should never be a source of pride to us – they did not come upon us as a result of our own diligence or our own goodness. We should esteem God and not ourselves!

We have seen that the Bible is totally at odds with what the modern “self-esteem” movement promotes – that we need to think highly of ourselves and be proud of what we can do.  We have seen that the Bible devotes almost no space to the issue of insufficient “self-esteem” in the human sense – but many Scriptures deal with the problem of excessive human self-esteem.  On the other hand, we should esteem Christ who strengthens us – and through Him we can do all things (according to God’s will).  God gives us many blessings and we should be thankful for them – but never proud of them.  We should remember the parable of the prayers of the Pharisee and the tax collector (Luke 18:10).  We must never feel the excessive self-esteem of the Pharisee.  Rather, the attitude we should all have is that of the prayer of the tax collector -- "God be merciful to me a sinner.”  Let us all think likewise!