Me, Myself and I
TCF Sermon
July 20, 2008
Think for a moment about some of those things that really annoy you. You’re in a line of cars where the road narrows down to a lane. You’ve been inching forward, but there are others, perhaps several others, who zip by you in the outside lane and move right to the front. Now, if that happened in a grocery store line, there’d be a fistfight. But, even though that might upset you in traffic, there’s not much you can do about it in your car, except steam. Or maybe honk your horn.
Or, how about when you see that perfectly healthy person who parks in the handicapped spot next to the WalMart, where you always seem to have to park a half mile away?
Or how about something a bit more personal. There’s perhaps one serving left of your favorite ice cream, or your favorite breakfast food. The family knows it’s your favorite, and they kind of like it, but not as much as you love it. You look forward to having this food, next breakfast or next dessert, but when you go for it, it’s gone. Someone else has taken it. I’m sorry if I sound bitter.
These are just a few examples of behavior that upsets us when we see it. Now, in at least two of these cases, someone’s clearly right, and the one who acted selfishly is wrong. But why does it upset us? Because it seems unfair? Because it’s wrong, or maybe even illegal?
Perhaps so, but it’s not so much our sense of justice. At least one reason it upsets us is because it’s basically selfish. When we witness, or personally experience, selfish behavior it seems to upset us.
And that’s so ironic, because, though such behavior upsets us when we see it, or are on the receiving end of it, we’re all prone to selfish behavior in some ways. And selfish behavior, it could be argued, is at the root of much of the conflict in all kinds of relationships, in families, in churches, in cities, in states, and even among nations.
In some cases, one side is clearly selfish, and the other perhaps less so, or even not at all. In other words, both people, or groups, think they’re right and the other’s wrong, but only one person is correct in this assumption. Nevertheless, it’s the selfish behavior that is the cause of the conflict.
The apostle James knew this, and his epistle addresses these issues.
James 4:1-4 (NIV) 1 What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you? 2 You want something but don’t get it. You kill and covet, but you cannot have what you want. You quarrel and fight. You do not have, because you do not ask God. 3 When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures. 4 You adulterous people, don’t you know that friendship with the world is hatred toward God? Anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God.
So James hits the nail on the head. The root of so much conflict, in many different situations, is when we want something and don’t get it. Or, when we take or do something, despite the fact that we haven’t earned it, it isn’t the right time, or it isn’t ours to take, or we don’t deserve it.
We’re basically pretty selfish. It comes naturally to us. Often, we want something badly enough that we’re willing to, in some way, shape, or form, fight for it, or simply take it, regardless of the consequences in relationships. In some contexts, we might spiritualize this conflict by putting the fight into other terms, and make it seem like a battle for the truth, or righteousness, but it’s still a fight.
It’s the complete opposite of loving behavior, but we often justify selfishness, not thinking of it as the opposite of love.
Of course, our culture feeds this selfishness. Here in our culture of self, we see perfectly capable people taking a handicapped parking spot, or creating a spot near the store’s door that’s not really there, because somehow, they’re so special, that they shouldn’t have to walk an extra 10 parking spaces. We see people exercising and demanding rights that never existed 25-50 years ago, they didn’t exists as rights then, because an accepted understanding of rights was this: My right to swing my fist ends at your nose.
In other words, there are some rights I have, but in a less selfish society, when they infringe on your rights, my rights are at least that much abridged or restricted. But we’re in a culture that worships personal rights, when they’re mine. Except when they’re yours….then, we’re not so concerned.
Last week, Jim Grinnell noted several Rumors of Another World. The third rumor was this: The possibility of being, or doing things, selflessly…the way he put it was, “the possibility of putting others first.”
The Word of God encourages us to be selfless, even as it recognizes our clear propensity towards selfishness. The opposite of the kinds of quarrels and arguments James writes about, is found in a simple section of what we call “the love chapter.” We often refer to this chapter of scripture that way because it’s the clearest description of real, genuine, Biblical, agape love in the Word of God.
1 Corinthians 13 tells us what love looks like, and what love doesn’t look like. In 1 Corinthians 13:5, Paul tells us that love is not self-seeking. That is, a truly Biblical understanding of what genuine, agape love looks like, does not, cannot, include selfishness.
We all know selfishness when we see it in other people. What we’re less certain of sometimes is when it’s evident in us.
Now, let me note that there is such a thing as appropriate selfishness. We wouldn’t call it selfish. We might call it self-preservation, or self-care. And it’s not wrong. It’s common sense, or even Biblical.
The Sabbath, for example, might be called appropriate self-care. God knows our frailty, and that we need our rest and recreation. So He commands that we keep the Sabbath holy – that is, set apart from work, and dedicated to Him.
So is it selfish to refrain from work on the Sabbath? No, it’s appropriate, as long as we don’t make it like the Pharisees did, and become self-righteous and legalistic about it. But, if Sunday’s the only day we can help our elderly neighbor with his yard, and we refuse to do it because it’s the Sabbath, then that may be selfish, and we may be using the Sabbath as an excuse for our selfishness.
Here’s another example of appropriate selfishness: How many of you can remember one of the things flight attendants routinely tells passengers before the plane takes off, in their pre-flight instructions?
They tell us that the oxygen masks will come down in the event of the cabin being depressurized – that means there’s no air to breathe!
If you’re traveling with small children, what’s might be your first instinct? Most parents’ first instinct would be to put the mask on their child, so their child can breathe. But no, the flight attendant says, “put the mask on yourself first, then put it on your child.” Why is that? Because in this case, if you don’t take care of yourself first, you may not be able to help another – in this case, your own child. Is this selfish? No, not really.
There’s a practical reality about self-love that’s appropriate. We must take care of ourselves to some degree before we can effectively take care of others. To love ourselves is in our nature, and let’s be clear that loving ourselves is not necessarily a bad thing - it’s an expected thing - it’s a normal thing.
But, like most things that are normal and true of us, and not automatically sinful in human nature, our sinful hearts often take things to the extreme in pursuit of that self-love.
If loving ourselves were wrong, Jesus wouldn’t have pointed out that we’re to love our neighbors as ourselves - how can we do that unless we already love ourselves?
We must recognize that there are two parts to this statement of Jesus to love our neighbors as ourselves.
1. a command: love your neighbors
2. a recognition of reality : you already love yourself
If all forms of self-love were just plain wrong, and not an accepted norm, it would be pointless to tell us to love our neighbors as ourselves. Also, why would Paul say in this passage from Philippians 2 that Jim read last week: “look not only to your own interests…”
It’s an assumption, not a command. It assumes we will and do look to our own interests.
For example, you probably don’t willingly let yourself go hungry. You clothe yourself as well as you are able. You make sure there’s a roof over your head if you can. You try not to let yourself be cheated or injured. And you get angry if someone hurts you. We protect ourselves emotionally, we take care of ourselves physically - this is self-preservation, a form of self-love. And as we’ve seen, this is normal, natural and perfectly appropriate.
But, the problem with this idea of self-care is we don’t quite know where to stop. Have you ever heard a statement like this from a well-meaning person before? “You’re being way too hard on yourself. You’ll never be able to love others very well until you first love yourself.”
But let’s ask an important question, in light of the scripture we’ve already read. Does the Bible really teach this?
Writer Leslie Vernick - article in Discipleship Journal - called “It’s all about me”
Many believe that the pathway toward good mental health and spiritual growth is through increasing our love for ourselves. However, when we believe we must love ourselves more in order to love God or others enough, we have been deceived. The Bible never instructs or commands us to love ourselves. If anything, the Word warns us against thinking of ourselves more highly than we ought to (Romans 12:3), or thinking only of ourselves (Phil 2:3-4). Yet, this doesn’t mean we are to despise ourselves, either. Whether we are absorbed in self-adoration, or immersed in self-hatred, we are still focused on self. Life does not center (on) our wants, needs or desires. Nor does it revolve around our faults, defects, or weaknesses. A life that is centered on self, whether in the pursuit of pleasure, or avoidance of pain, will never be one immersed in God.
God isn’t opposed to our personal happiness, but He reveals to us in His Word, a way of finding joy that is the complete opposite of the world’s way. The world’s way is “look out for number one - meaning me, myself and I.”
God’s prescription for real, genuine joy and happiness is not self-love - it’s self-sacrifice, self-denial, dying to self.
All these things are included in true, Biblical, agape love. All these things are implied in the 1 Cor 13:5 passage which says to us, “love is not self-seeking.”
So, we see all these warnings in scripture against self-seeking and selfish ambition. Why is that? Because, as with all good things, we tend to go overboard. Though loving yourself is good and appropriate in the proper context, as I think we’ve demonstrated, – the truth is we usually don’t need to be told to do it. We’re already pretty good at it. If anything, our sinful tendency is to go too far – to love ourselves inordinately or selfishly, and then to justify that self love as simple protection or provision, when in reality, it’s often progressed from appropriate self-care and self-preservation on the one hand, to selfishness and selfish ambition on the opposite.
Another example. There’s nothing wrong with making a lot of money. I believe God blesses us, and enables us to make money. Some of us have the ability to make more, even much more, than others. But, even though God blesses us – why is this?
Let’s use the airplane analogy again, and mix analogies here for a moment. We need to have oxygen, or money, and God provides it. But do we stop there? When we have plenty, do we just suck up all the air for ourselves? We may obtain it first, but then we help others get the air they need, too, especially those who aren’t able to get enough for themselves.
Our needs being provided, even provided abundantly, are provided not simply for the purpose of blessing us – though that may be a clear side-effect, and for that we can be grateful. Our needs and even many of our wants being provided are clearly for the purpose of sharing with others.
Let’s look for a few minutes at some aspects of this passage from James. We see the source of so many conflicts in life. Again, conflicts in individual relationships, conflicts in work or even church settings, even conflicts among nations. Why these conflicts? Because we want something and don’t get it. Or, perhaps we want something and just take it, or just do what we want, without any thought for whether or not it’s right, or about the potential impact on others, and this becomes the source of conflict, because sometimes, the one from whom we took something, or the one who bore the brunt of us just doing what we want, may respond in some way that leads to conflict.
Even if the one offended in this selfish act doesn’t respond in kind, the offender, the selfish initiator, has still caused a broken, or at least strained, relationship.
I think we can see that sometimes both parties in the conflict are selfish. There are times when perhaps the first selfish act – someone wanting something, or someone taking something, is followed by another just as selfish act, and the situation just escalates, or I guess deteriorates would be a better description.
Yet, I think we have to recognize that the fault lies in the one who started this endless chain of selfishness. The admonishment here in James isn’t to the one who responds. There are other passages of scripture that outline how to deal with offense. This passage is written to the initiator. It’s to the one whose selfishness in wanting something, led to them taking it, or starting a fight to get it.
Yet, James takes this a step further and offers a solution. Not only are we to recognize the source of these conflicts is in ourselves. We’re to submit ourselves to God, to His wisdom, to His provision of what we really need, not just what we think we need.
Again, this may or may not be something material. It may be influence, or status. It may be recognition. It may be we just want “our way” in a certain situation. But James tells us that seeking these things, especially at the expense of others, is wrong. He also tells us that we should seek God first. It reflects what Jesus told us in Matthew 6:33, a foundational verse for what we are to seek in our lives.
That verse tells us: “Seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness…”
So, when we want something, what should we do? Just take it? Or, fight to obtain it? No, we should ask. Asking means seeking God. That, in this case, is how we’re instructed to seek first the Kingdom.
And James goes a bit further, in telling us that if we ask, and then don’t receive what we get for, there may be some clear reasons for this denial. The most common problems with answers to our prayers, he writes, is either that we don’t ask God, and the implication is that we try to obtain what we’re looking for on our own, or that we ask for the wrong reasons.
Maybe we don’t talk with the Lord about these things at all. Maybe when we do, we ask things only to satisfy what we want, to satisfy our own desires, not truly seek what He wants for us, or what He knows is best for us, despite what we might think. And regardless of what some segments of the church at large may tell you, God’s under no obligation to give us our desires, especially when they are foolish and harmful, especially when they’re selfish.
The end of verse 2 and the beginning of verse 3 of James 4 says:
You do not have, because you do not ask God. 3 When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures
So we’re either not talking to God about what we want or need at all, or we’re asking selfishly. See the problem?
Now, there’s nothing wrong with wanting good things in our lives, and even as Jim noted last week, there’s nothing wrong with pleasure. Thanks be to God – He created all kinds of pleasures, and as long as they’re enjoyed in the right times and places, they’re to be received as gifts from Him.
The Word tells us in
James 1:17 (NIV) 17 Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights…
And in
1 Timothy 4:4-5 (NIV) 4 For everything God created is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, 5 because it is consecrated by the word of God and prayer.
But James goes on to say in this passage in chapter 4, that when we seek pleasure at others’ expense, solely to fulfill our own desires, and not in line with what God has for us, or in disobedience to God’s clear commands, when we seek it selfishly, we’re friends with the world.
James 4:4: You adulterous people, don’t you know that friendship with the world is hatred toward God? Anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God.
There’s a clear distinction here. We’re either friends with the world, and all the fleeting and ultimately unfulfilling satisfactions it has to offer, or we’re friends with God.
So, are we trapped in our own selfishness? What hope do we have? If we’re honest with ourselves, we realize that we’re all selfish to some degree. Think about most of the things you do, and you’ll recognize at least some hint of selfishness in much of it.
When we serve, is it, at least a little bit, to gain recognition in serving? Is part of our service designed to earn the respect or admiration of others? When we give, do we have at least a little bit of need to receive credit from someone?
When we serve in interpersonal relationships, is it at least in part in hopes of receiving something from someone in return, that somehow, that person we serve or show some act of kindness to, will appreciate it, and do something for us in return?
Now, I don’t want to be so cynical that I insist there’s no such thing as a truly selfless act. I don’t believe that.
But let’s be absolutely honest with ourselves. If you’ve been a Christ-follower for 30 years, and 30 years ago you might put a percentage on your acts of love or service that looked like this:
25% selfless/75% selfish
and maybe today, as you’ve grown in Christ, as you’ve learned that love is not self-seeking, and tried to apply that to your relationships, as you’ve sought first God’s Kingdom and His righteousness, sought His approval and no one else’s, as you’ve been more and more transformed into the image and likeness of Christ, you might be able to put a percentage on a similar act of love or service,
and it might look like this:
95% selfless/5% selfish
The reality is, there’s still at least a hint of self there in many of the outwardly selfless acts we perform. I think the dozens of scriptures we could cite that talk about these issues of selfishness illustrate that this was an issue in the times the New Testament was written. Do we think we’ve overcome this problem in our day? Are we really that different from the believers in New Testament times? Each one of these passages was written to New Testament believers:
Philippians 2:3-4 (NIV) 3 Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. 4 Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others.
James 3:13-16 (NASB77) 13 Who among you is wise and understanding? Let him show by his good behavior his deeds in the gentleness of wisdom. 14 But if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your heart, do not be arrogant and so lie against the truth.
15 This wisdom is not that which comes down from above, but is earthly, natural, demonic. 16 For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there is disorder and every evil thing.
There are several passages we could cite using words or phrases such as:
Selfish ambition
Jealousy
Envy
strife
All of these ideas are related to selfishness. C.S. Lewis wrote a poem illustrating this idea of selfishness, and Phil Keaggy put it to music on one of his earlier albums in the 1970s.
As the Ruin Falls
All this is flashy rhetoric about loving you.
I never had a selfless thought since I was born.
I am mercenary and self-seeking through and through:
I want God, you, all friends, merely to serve my turn.
Peace, re-assurance, pleasure, are the goals I seek,
I cannot crawl one inch outside my proper skin:
I talk of love --a scholar’s parrot may talk Greek--
But, self-imprisoned, always end where I begin.
Only that now you have taught me (but how late) my lack.
I see the chasm. And everything you are was making
My heart into a bridge by which I might get back
From exile, and grow man. And now the bridge is breaking.
For this I bless you as the ruin falls. The pains
You give me are more precious than all other gains.
C S Lewis
So, why do we see all these scriptures, aimed squarely at followers of Christ, encouraging us to deal with this problem of self? Because it remains a problem. But it’s not a problem we are powerless to deal with. The answer is the same as it is for any sin problem. The grace of God.
James, in verse 6, quotes Proverbs 3:34. He starts the verse with this wonderful statement: But He (meaning God) gives us more grace.
And then quotes the Proverb:
James 4:6 (NIV) That is why Scripture says: "God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble."
There’s an irony in our pursuit of selfish pleasures. When we’re selfish, we may actually obtain some pleasures, some of what we’re looking for. We don’t always get what we want, but sometimes we do, perhaps even because of our selfishness, but it ultimately doesn’t satisfy us in the long run. We only get cheap substitutes for what really satisfies.
But when we’re selfless, though we may or may not get some or many things we want, or think we want, we get what we really need, sometimes whether or not we realize it. And what we get is from God – every good and perfect gift. We get things we can really enjoy and find satisfaction in, not the cheap substitutes we get from pursuit of self.
Our view of ourselves should be rooted in who we are in Christ - the value we have in Him, not in anything we are, in and of ourselves, and certainly not in anything we can obtain in this world, through selfish ambition – fighting for, or taking, what we want.
When we look at His grace this way, how can we care so much about Me, Myself and I? How can we do anything but serve Him, and others, without selfish ambition, without envy, without jealousy, recognizing the amazing gift He’s given us in the love of God, the sacrifice Jesus made for us.
Pray
