Sermon: The Art of Being Yourself #5: Loving Yourself and Living for Others

The Art of Being Yourself #5: Loving Yourself and Living for Others
by Don Bromley
July 7-8, 2007

This weekend, I’m doing the fifth and final sermon in our series entitled “The Art of Being Yourself.” The subject of my sermon is “Loving Yourself and Living for Others”

The text I’m looking at is in the Gospel of Mark, chapter 10:

Jesus is talking with his friends, his students, and two of them have been saying they want to sit on his right and on his left when he becomes King, because they want to be in great glory with him.

Then James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came to him. “Teacher,” they said, “we want you to do for us whatever we ask.”
“What do you want me to do for you?” he asked.
They replied, “Let one of us sit at your right and the other at your left in your glory.”
“You don’t know what you are asking,” Jesus said. “Can you drink the cup I drink or be baptized with the baptism I am baptized with?”
“We can,” they answered.
Jesus said to them, “You will drink the cup I drink and be baptized with the baptism I am baptized with, but to sit at my right or left is not for me to grant. These places belong to those for whom they have been prepared.”
When the ten heard about this, they became indignant with James and John. Jesus called them together and said, “You know that those who are regarded as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all. For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” (Mark 10:35-45)

“We want you to do for us whatever we ask.”
“Let one of us sit at your right and the other at your left in your glory.”

James and John didn’t have problems being assertive, or asking for what they want!

One of the interesting things you’ll notice when reading the Bible is that there aren’t many texts that deal with the topic of low self-esteem. You don’t see a lot of the characters in the Bible struggling with it, and there isn’t much that addresses the issue. It’s hard to know exactly why. Maybe people did, but just didn’t write about it. Nevertheless, it seems that the average person in the ancient world wasn’t quite as introspective as we are.

Anyone who’s taken Psychology 101 is probably familiar with Abraham Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. At the bottom you have physiological needs, such as hunger and thirst. If these needs aren’t met, every bit of your energy and resources are spent obtaining them. These needs must be met before you move up the pyramid to the next level of needs, which are safety needs, like security and protection. Next on the pyramid are social needs, such as a sense of belonging and love. Then esteem needs: self-esteem, recognition, status. Finally self-actualization.

So it’s not until you’re in a place where most of your basic needs are met that your mind can wander to issues of self-esteem and self actualization. One theory is that people in the ancient world were much more preoccupied with the lower, more basic needs than we are—just trying to stay alive—and so ideas of self-esteem and self actualization weren’t at the forefront of their thought.

Anyway… in the Bible, the idea that people have a fairly positive view of themselves is pretty much a given. It’s assumed that everyone loves themselves, in the most basic sense—everyone is taking care of themselves, because if you don’t, you won’t last long.

This idea of self-love is fundamental to the Old Testament’s law code:

“Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against anyone among your people, but love your neighbor as yourself. I am the LORD.” (Lev. 19:18)

Jesus assumes self-love when reaffirms the greatest of the Old Testament laws:

Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” (Matt 22:37-40)

Paul, in speaking to husbands, assumes that they love themselves first:

“…Husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself.” (Eph 5:28)

Jesus doesn’t correct this attitude and tell us that we really shouldn’t love ourselves. Instead, he says that we should love others as we love ourselves. If we don’t love and take care of ourselves, how can we even begin to love others?

Sometimes Christians get the false impression that following Jesus means some sort of loss of self, or de-selfing as Ken talked about a few weeks ago. As if we stop existing and somehow are absorbed into some kind of cosmic consciousness. This is the negative sense of “living for others.”

People sometimes say a prayer like this one, "Lord, make me nothing." Did you ever hear that prayer? It's not a good prayer, because what if God answers it. Think about it… What if he should say, "Okay"?

It is a very good thing that you exist. You can’t reject yourself and love God.

Self love is a horse that you can fall off either side of. On the one hand a person can love themselves in such a way that they are selfish and narcissistic. Their interest is only in themselves, see only themselves, and they overlook the needs of others. They’re often aggressive with others.

But falling off the other side of the horse are those that are self-less in the negative sense of loss of self or “de-selfing.” This can take the form of codependence—in which the person’s needs are met in an unhealthy way through their relationships. Their interest is only in others (or so it seems), they “live for others,” overlooking their own needs and desires. They’re often passive and lack assertiveness—thinking that those are Christ-like qualities. I’m unhappy and my needs aren’t being met—so I must be following Jesus.

It’s true that there is a degree of self-denial and selflessness in living for Jesus, properly understood. But first a few things self-denial does not mean. Self-denial does not mean that being miserable is a good thing to God. It does not mean that you are supposed to deny your feelings or that you should try to avoid pleasure. It doesn't mean that it's a bad thing that you exist.

Following Jesus doesn’t mean I should move to a country I don't like, wear ugly clothes, eat bad food, date unattractive people and inflict pain on myself. Sometimes we act as if it is, and we wonder why people aren’t flocking to church.

Jesus says, “I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.” (John 10:10)

Living life to the full isn’t a selfish life, and it’s not a life in which we de-self. Jesus’ desire is that in loving ourselves, in discovering our true selves, we will live our lives to their fullest.

When Jesus speaks to his disciples, he’s assuming self-love, and a desire for good things. “Whoever wants to become great among you…” And Jesus doesn’t reprimand James and John for what they ask; he only instructs them in how their thinking about leadership is wrong. Of course, all the other disciples are upset with them—but probably only because they wanted to ask the same thing of Jesus!

Let’s talk about this idea of what it means to “live for others” in a healthy sense—the idea of servanthood.

There is, Jesus says, a standard approach in this world of power and greatness among the Gentiles. That's his way of saying, "The world apart from the kingdom of God." The rulers lord it over their followers.

He says their “high officials” -- the Greek word is the megaloi we get our word "mega" from this word -- the mega leaders, the big kahunas, are tyrants in this world. They use power to dominate, control, gain status and inspire fear. Life among them is a competition. Who's the greatest? Who can climb the ladder the highest? Who can impose his will?

Jesus says, "Not so with you." Now, because power and leadership can be abused and can be dark in the hands of fallen people -- because Jesus has warnings about it -- some people get distrustful about any form of leadership or the exercise of power. They don't initiate, they don't challenge, they don't stretch those who are around them.

They hold back from leading when they ought to lead, and they hold others back from leading. That’s not a good thing. Their families, their churches, their organizations suffer. When people aren’t envisioned and challenged and stretched to grow, they suffer.

To lead is a good thing. At the very beginning, the Bible says that God created human beings to be fruitful, to multiply, to fill the earth, to subdue it and have dominion over it. Jesus doesn't reject leadership or even the use of power or greatness for that matter, but he redefines it, he redeems it.

As he says here, Jesus himself is the ultimate example of redeemed leadership. He says, "I didn't come to be served," which is generally the measure of leadership in our world. How many people are below me, serving me?

He says, "I came to serve." That's what servants do. Here's a real key point. In Jesus, to lead is to serve. In Jesus, leadership is simply one form of servanthood. In God, to lead is to serve those he leads.

When Jesus places a towel over his arm and washes the feet of those that he loves, he's not disguising who God is; he's revealing who God is. He says God is up to the same old tricks he's been up to before time began.

This takes a little bit of thought, because it’s hard to imagine what this means before Jesus was born, or even what it means today.

Scripture tells us that God is basically community; that within the being of God there are three persons, Father, Son and Holy Spirit united in a relationship of oneness, a relationship that is unbreakable, unassailable because together they make one being.

These are three expressions of the same divinity but with different roles/functions—they practice these in deference to each other so that the Father gives everything he has to the Son, the Son gives to the Father everything that he is, and the Holy Spirit puts himself at the service of both.

The Father glorifies the Son, the Son glorifies the Father, the Holy Spirit glorifies both. It's a mutuality arrangement where each one’s function supplements the other’s function so that there is dynamic within the being of God.

Indeed, the Scripture tells us that God is love, and where there is love, that love seeks expression. It has to give—give of itself, and we know that God assumes servanthood in the fact that he created. Just the work of creation is an expression of God's servanthood, when he lavishes his bounty over his creatures. Actually, in creation he wants to give them all that he has that is give-able, that is transmissible, and the highest good that he can provide in servanthood to his creatures is himself, his image.

There is not only a relationship of servanthood within the persons of the Godhead, but whenever God expresses himself it is for the good, it is to serve, it is to give, it is to support, to provide, to sustain, to nourish, to grow, to develop.

God is community and oneness, and there is servanthood bounding that community together, and God establishes the human community as his reflection, his image, and he wants that community to be bounded by a mutuality of servanthood. Servanthood is not just a passing idea; it has to do with the very essence of who God is and therefore with the purpose of creation.

When Jesus goes to the cross, when he's whipped and beaten and battered and bleeding and dying, he's not disguising who God is. We think that because we misunderstand God. Jesus, on the cross, is revealing. It is the ultimate revelation of the heart and the nature of God -- Jesus hanging on a cross.

"For," Jesus says to his friends, "the Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve and to give his life a ransom for many."

At the same time, Jesus had the strongest character of anyone who ever lived. He was never intimidated. He was always assertive. He defied those who held immense power without batting an eye. He threw full grown men out of the temple area with a whip. He is a servant, but he didn’t suffer loss of self; he wasn’t passive; he was truly in touch with his real self.

He calls us, calls his followers to be that form of servanthood – being “servant leaders.”

People who love themselves in the best way: are in touch with their God-given aspirations and dreams, understand that they’ve been made in the image of God, and are seeking to understand the true self that God has created them to be. They’re people who understand that living for others means leading through servanthood. That in being servants we are not debasing or lowering or losing ourselves, but we are expressing the very essence of who God is—a community of love.