My wife, Di, and I were sitting in the family room watching TV with our daughter, Janet, the other night when suddenly, Janet noticed the new watch Di had got for Christmas. She said with a mixture of awe and new-found respect, "Mum, you’ve got a Fossil watch. That’s so cool!" Well, we’d bought it because it looked good and was in the right price range, but Janet knew that it was "in". For those in the know, this watch had a certain value that had nothing to do with its timekeeping ability or its aesthetics. It was the right brand!
That isn’t an isolated incident is it? So much of what people do and especially what they buy today is determined by their ability to impress; or by what our peer group thinks. We know that peer pressure is one of the greatest motivating factors for young people as they grow up, but sadly it doesn’t go away with age, even if it may get weaker. Just think how hard it is for men in our culture to show their emotions in front of other men. Think how much time some people take deciding what to wear, what goes with what, what will look right for this occasion, what people might think if I wear that. Ask yourself, "what is it that makes me act like that?" "Why am I so worried about what other people will think? Sometimes it’s for good reasons. You may dress up a bit when you go for a job interview. You might tidy yourself up a bit before you have dinner with the in-laws. You might dress appropriately for a wedding or a funeral to show respect to the host, or the deceased. But why do some people buy only Nike or Armani or choose to drive around in BMWs or Mercedes when a Commodore or a Hyundai will get you there just as quickly? Isn’t it because there’s a certain prestige involved in having the ’right’ brands. Like a Fossil watch.
It’s something to do with the desire to impress isn’t it? We love to impress people don’t we? We love to think that people have noticed us and think well of us. And the way we do that is by concentrating on externals. But you know, that desire to impress, that desire to be thought well of, is really just an expression of pride. Pride in what we do or what we’ve achieved, or simply how we look. And that’s a problem for us because pride is one of the most deadly of sins. It’s deadly because by its nature it keeps us from God. Gerald Hughes once described pride like this: "Pride is when we want all creation to reverence and honour us rather than God." According to Isaiah, the proud will be judged because they exalt themselves (Is 2:12)
The trouble is, this is such a subtle temptation. There’s such a fine line between being accomplished or efficient or professional, things which are good in themselves, and deriving our personal value from that achievement. One sign that we derive personal value from these things is the way we tend to exaggerate them to make ourselves look better. Do you know what I mean? "Oh I’ve been trying to ring you all week, but you were never there." (Well, I rang you on Monday and again on Friday). "We recycle everything these days". (At least I do if I’m going in the direction of the recycle bin). "If I’d been there I would have given him a piece of my mind." (Actually, I probably would have sat there, seething in silence, smiling sweetly, just like you did). It’s so hard to be honest in our self-assessment let alone in how we present ourselves to each other.
Now before we go any further, let me say that there’s nothing wrong with feeling good about myself or about a job well done. It’s right to be congratulated when you’ve achieved something significant. The trouble comes when we begin to rely on those achievements for our sense of self-worth.
In fact this is a problem not only for the high achievers but, strangely enough, for those whose temptation is to feel bad about themselves, to think how unworthy they are, despite what they’ve achieved or because they feel like they haven’t achieved anything worthwhile at all. What happens then is that they try to heap up trophies to prove how worthwhile they are. This takes a number of guises. It might be surrounding ourselves with things, it might be having the perfect body, it might be in achieving professional success, it might be in gaining more and more academic qualifications. It might be in having the perfect home if you’re a woman. It might be in having the latest car or the best computer if you’re a man. If you’re a parent with bright children, it might be in having high achieving children.
I wonder do you have friends who send you those Christmas letters, listing the achievements of each of their children. Have you ever noticed how it seems to be the ones who’s children have just got their PhD or a Rhodes scholarship or have been picked in the Australian Rugby Union team who write these letters. You don’t often get a Christmas letter that says how Johnny has just dropped out of school and got a job as a trolley boy at Safeway do you? And of course this is a self-perpetuating temptation isn’t it, because we raise our children to excel. We warn them what will happen to them if they don’t do well at school. We tell them horror stories about how terrible working as a trolley boy at Safeway would be. We praise them when they get an A and frown at them when they get a C. So they grow up comparing themselves to some imaginary standard of competence or worth.
Or think about the last time someone asked you "What do you do?" For some, that can be a daunting question can’t it? Particularly if your job isn’t looked up to by the community. It can be a particularly difficult question for mothers who have left paid employment to raise their children. There’s not a lot of kudos given in our society to mothers who stay home with their kids. So then the temptation is to be the best mother possible. To give your child that super-enriched upbringing that will result in them reaching their full potential. So you give them all your time. You teach them to read before they’re 3, you enrol them in ballet and choir, you take them to music lessons, to sporting clubs, you teach them to cook, and so forth. And all the time you’re feeling like there’s something missing. The child next door can speak fluent Mandarin and you’re child can’t even speak proper English yet. The girl down the road is always beautifully groomed while your daughter gets around in torn jeans, faded T-shirts and Blundstone boots. And so you begin to feel guilty. Why? Because you know that mothers are always the first to be blamed. What’s worse, because they’re always the first to blame themselves. Why is that? According to Harriet Lerner, a writer on women’s issues, ("The Dance of Intimacy: A Woman’s Guide to Courageous Acts of Change in Key Relationships") it’s because our society assigns to mothers the primary responsibility for all family problems, excuses men from real fathering and provides remarkably little support for the actual needs of children and families. A mother is encouraged to believe that she is her child’s environment and that if only she is a ’good enough’ mother, her children will flourish." Well, let’s face it, you’ll probably never be good enough to satisfy yourself or our society. And in fact. I’m not even sure that Jesus puts being a wonderful mother as one of the highest priorities. Think about what he said when someone told him his mother and brothers were outside looking for him? He said, "Whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother" (Mt 12:50).
So what are we going to do to fight this temptation to use externals to make us feel good. We have to do something, because otherwise it’ll eat us up. Looking to externals to fill the gap of significance in our lives will never work, because the gap just continues to grow larger. It’s like one of those book return chutes in the library. Do you know the ones I mean? They’re spring loaded so that when the first book is put in it doesn’t have to drop far, so it won’t be damaged. But as more and more books are put in the level drops, so there’s always a bit of space left for another book. Well, that’s what the search for significance in externals is like. It never quite satisfies. You can never get enough things. You’ll never have enough university degrees. Your kids won’t give you the sense of significance you need. All they’ll do is complain about the way you pushed them to succeed instead of valuing them for who they are. No, there’s only one thing that can fill that gap. That’s a knowledge of God and of his son Jesus Christ. Only knowing how God looks at you will help.
In our first reading this morning we saw a classic example of how people look to externals to make them feel good. Samuel looked at Jesse’s oldest Son, Eliab, and immediately thought to himself. "This has got to be him." He was tall and handsome. He was everything you’d want for a king. The sort of man everyone will look up to. But, no, he wasn’t the right one. God wasn’t interested in how he looked. He didn’t care whether he had the perfect body. He wasn’t worried about how full his trophy case was. What God cared about was what was in his heart. Was he a person who loved God? Who would be faithful to God when the going got tough? And the important question for Samuel wasn’t how does he look, but has God chosen him?
James tells us that God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble. God looks for those who’ll depend on him for their significance, rather than on their own achievements. Who’ll deal with the pride in their lives and come to God depending on him alone.
So let’s think about how we might do that, how we might overcome the temptation to trust externals for our self worth.
I guess one place to start is to examine carefully the external successes we depend on. What are the things I rely on to impress people? What are the things I look to, to make me feel good about myself? What are the areas where I make excuses for my failures, excuses that really mask a dissatisfaction with my achievements? Where do I look for a sense of security? When do I find myself exaggerating what I’ve done or the sort of person I am? When do I find myself thinking that my gifts are my own doing rather than God’s? It helps to identify those areas, because they’re the ones that will be my particular downfall. And when you’ve identified them, start working on refusing to derive personal value both positive and negative, from those areas.
But having done that, we need to look at what we’ve done with God’s eyes. Look at the places where God has been at work, giving us the gifts and opportunities we needed. Ask him to show us where we’ve done well. Ask him to help us be honest with ourselves. To not be any harder on ourselves than we need to be. If you’re the sort of person who overestimates your worth ask him for a humble mind and an ability to see where your own ability falls short and he’s stepped in. If you’re someone with low self-esteem, ask him to help you accept your worthiness before him. Ask him to let you see how you’ve been using the gifts he’s given you.
Next, think about how God sees us. You may remember what we discovered when we read 1 John 3 earlier this year. "See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God; and that is what we are." (1 John 3:1 NRSV). God sees us, not as unworthy sinners, but as his beloved children. Colossians 3 tells us that we "have stripped off the old self with its practices 10 and have clothed ourselves with the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge according to the image of its creator." Far from being worthless, we’re clothed with a new self that’s being renewed according to the image of the creator. In other words, when God looks at us he sees in us the makings of humanity as he first intended it: conforming to the image of God.
Ephesians 1 tells us that: "he chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless before him in love. 5He destined us for adoption as his children through Jesus Christ, according to the good pleasure of his will, 6to the praise of his glorious grace that he freely bestowed on us in the Beloved." (Eph 1:4-6 NRSV) He chose you according to the good pleasure of his will. Think about that for a moment. It was God’s good pleasure and will to choose you before the foundation of the world. He did it because he wanted you. Not because you’d done something special. Not because you had a PhD, or a daughter with a PhD. Not because you run the most efficient company in Australia or because your house has appeared in Home Beautiful, or because you can run a marathon. He chose you because it pleased him to do it. He did it for the praise of his glorious grace. If you want to feel good about yourself, forget externals, they’ll fail you every time. Rather think about who you are in God’s eyes. Think about the joy he derives from making you new. Think about who you are in Christ. God’s son or daughter, being renewed according to the image of your creator. You’re a new creation. Think about the gifts God has given you. A new heart, a new awareness of him, the presence of his Holy Spirit dwelling within you. These are worth more than silver or gold, worth more than all the trophies you can ever collect.
Finally, ask God to fill you with that fruit of the Spirit that he longs to see in your life: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. It seems to me that if we’re asking God for those sorts of characteristics, our value systems will change. We’ll begin to value those things over externals, and then as we begin to see them appearing in our lives, we might actually begin to recognise our value in God’s eyes, we might begin to feel good about ourselves for the right reason.
