Low self-esteem is a disease in our society that’s running in plague proportions. So what do you think of yourself? Day-to-day, as you interact with the people around you, what does your inner voice tell you about you? We all have one, an inner voice, a secret self-image of who we are, how we compare and ultimately what we’re worth.

And depending on what that inner voice tells us about ourselves, well, we either enjoy our lives, or we live with a crippling sense of inadequacy that somehow we can’t share with anyone else. So let me ask you the question as you weigh up how you see yourself; how comfortable are you with who you are. What score would you give yourself, say, on a scale of zero to ten?

I guess most of us have heard the Hans Christian Anderson story of the ugly duckling. You know, that little duck that was with all the other ducks. And he looked different and he looked ugly. And later on when they grow up, it turns out there was a really good reason why he looked different. Because he was a swan. My hunch is that, there are actually lots of swans out there who still see themselves as an ugly duckling.

For most people, our feelings about ourselves fluctuate up and down day-to-day. I mean feelings are fickle, they do change. There is an impact on us when there are good things happening and when there are bad things happening. And so as we go through the ups and downs of life, we need something deeper. Something that anchors our sense of self.

That thing is called our self-esteem and people with good self-esteem, seem to be able to weather the ups and downs of life pretty well. But people with low self-esteem, to them the ups and downs make all the difference in the world. Someone with low self-esteem constantly needs positive external experiences to prop up their self-image. So a person with low self-esteem, relies on the things happening around them as to whether they feel good about themselves or not.

Someone with high self-esteem has an inner voice that’s positive, that’s reassuring, that says nice things to us about who we are. Someone with low self-esteem has an inner voice that’s like a harsh inner critic, that’s constantly punishing them, that’s belittling their accomplishments.

Low self-esteem manifests itself in one of three different ways.

Firstly, there’s the imposter model. Some people with low self-esteem feel like they’re imposters. They act happy and successful on the outside, but really they’re terrified of failure. They’ve got a constant mark of success and achievement on their face and the inner fear of being found out because there is such a gap between what they feel inside and what they put on the mask on their face. They feel like an imposter.

That’s one manifestation of low self-esteem.

The second one is, that of being a rebel. The rebel pretends that the opinions of others – particularly those who really should matter like people who are quite senior, their boss or someone that they love – they pretend that the opinions of those other people don’t actually matter. They have a bold, brash exterior that really belies the underlying sense of inadequacy. And they need to prove that criticism doesn’t hurt them.

So this person is often very belligerent and the last thing, when we look at them, that we would expect is going on inside them, is a real sense of inadequacy and low self-esteem. And often, the rebels won’t even admit it to themselves.

The third model for someone with low self-esteem is the loser. The loser acts helpless and unable to cope. They need someone to come and rescue them, not just once or twice, but every day. The loser is a highly dependent person and very rarely takes responsibility for their own situation and condition in life. They have a sense of self-pity, a sense of indifference that shields them against taking any sense of responsibility.

So these are the three basic models for low self-esteem; the imposter, the rebel and the loser. Why is self-esteem such an important thing? Why are we spending a week on it here on this program? Well, it turns out that low self-esteem is a real cancer; a real malady in our society.

Maybe you recognise the imposter or the rebel or the loser either in yourself or in those around you. If you recognise them in yourself, I guess there’s a bit of an uncomfortable feeling that we’re actually sitting here and talking about it. But truly, if you recognise any of those models in you, even in part, I wonder whether today is the day to say, “Maybe that joker on the radio has a point. Maybe, I’m struggling with issues around my self-esteem”.

Be honest, really, is this you?

Maybe you recognise some of those things in other people around you; people whom you watch and observe and listen to. And when you have relationships with people like that, it’s like walking on eggshells because it’s so easy to offend these people. They’re so touchy but this feeling of inadequacy, of low self-esteem, is so deep, it’s so real, it’s so much a part of their lives that what they need from us is not our criticism, but our love.

There are some deep consequences to low self-esteem – anxiety, stress, loneliness – it’s a private hell. The person with low self-esteem puts on a mask and they separate the person who they really are from everybody else. They feel that they can never be open or transparent; just be who they are.

It often results in problems with friendships and relationships. Someone with low self-esteem will typically change jobs quite frequently because they cut off the people that they work with, they cut off people that they would have relationships with because they don’t feel secure in relationships.

It can seriously impact academic or job performance. Often low self-esteem results in under-achievement, vulnerability to addictions and a whole range of different problems. And the really tough thing about it is, that the more these problems occur, it’s like a downward spiral, they’re kind of self-reinforcing, the more they occur the worse it gets.

Why does this happen? Well, we understand a lot of what we understand about ourselves from what other people say and how other people react to us. And those other people’s reactions and what they say, is kind of like a social mirror. We look at what they say and we see ourselves reflected in what they say and think about us.

Maybe you’ve grown up with a lack of encouragement. Maybe there’s been strong competition between yourself and others. Maybe you only get valued if you win or if you’re beautiful. So we can end up with a distorted image that gets written onto our hearts.

Let me encourage you, if you have something like that going on in your life, admit it today and be determined to do something about it. But what? Most psychologists use a sort of a changing our own self-image, positive thinking, self-talk thing. But I truly believe that as we look in the world’s mirror and we see our self-image (which is distorted because other people respond badly to us some days). I believe that the way to transform our self-image is to have a faith-image and to look in God’s mirror.

If God is good, if God is a God of love and a God of grace and a God who sent His Son, Jesus, can’t you and I rely on the image that we get from Him? The Apostle Paul wrote this:

As we look at God with our face uncovered and we see God’s glory as though it’s being reflected in a mirror, we’re being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to the next. This comes from God. It’s like a gift from His Spirit. (2 Corinthians 3:18)

This speaks of healing. God wants us to come to Him just as we are and to spend some time looking at Him. All of sudden, we discover that God is saying, “Look at Me, really truly, maybe for the very first time gaze on Me, feast on Me, listen to what I think about you”.

God is a good and perfect God and God is saying “Let Me transform you from glory to glory”.

This week, on A Different Perspective, we’re talking about dealing with low self-esteem – that deep, nagging, critical voice inside – the self-image that so often drags people down. Maybe, in your heart of hearts, you know that’s you or maybe it’s someone that you know. But low self-esteem is one of the deepest maladies in our society, a cancer that’s quietly but surely eating away the joy and the peace that should be there, in people’s lives.

There are so many self-help programs out there for self-esteem problems; think positively, use logic, self-talk; great! But self-help is hardly a good place to start in dealing with self-esteem, is it? It goes much deeper than that. Low self-esteem is so destructive, so all consuming, that some really deep healing, deep acceptance, penetrating love, isn’t that what’s needed here?

Often, we get our self-image, our impression of who we are, from other people. Sometimes, those other people are good and strong and encouraging and nice. And other times, people are hard and tough and critical. And depending on who we are, we can get a distorted image from those people which gets written on our hearts. And for many, many, many people results in a crippling sense of low self-esteem, a self-image that we carry around of an ugly duckling instead of a swan.

Yesterday, we looked at what the Apostle Paul wrote two thousand years ago. He said:

As we look at God with our faces uncovered (in other words just as we are) and we see God’s glory, as though, it’s being reflected in a mirror, we’re being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to the next. It’s a gift from God. (2 Corinthians 3:18)

The problem, Paul says is, we’ve been looking in the wrong mirror. It’s a deep profound truth. I think it’s the distinction between self-help and genuinely coming to a realisation of who God made us to be. The deep profound truth is that, if we’re struggling with low self-esteem (or anyone you know is struggling with low self-esteem) healing begins with saying, “I’m actually not going to look at what the world says about me anymore. I’m going to look at what God has to say about me. Look in the God mirror, see what God reflects back to me about who I am”. Because here, Paul says:

As we look at God, as we see what God says about us we end up being transformed into the same image as God, from glory to glory. It’s a gift from God. (2 Corinthians 3:18)

There’s a great story about a man with low self-esteem, who lived in Jericho. His name was Zacchaeus. And Jesus came into Jericho. If you have a Bible you can find it in Luke’s Gospel chapter 19. Here’s how it goes:

Jesus was going through Jericho, where a man called Zacchaeus lived. He was in charge of collecting taxes and he was really rich. Jesus was heading his way and Zacchaeus wanted to see what he was like. But Zacchaeus was a short man and he couldn’t see over the crowd so he ran ahead and climbed up into a sycamore tree.

When Jesus got there, he looked up and said, ‘Zacchaeus come on down. I want to stay at your place tonight’. And Zacchaeus hurried down and gladly welcomed Jesus. Everyone who saw started grumbling, ‘This guy Zacchaeus, well, he’s a crook and Jesus is going to his place to have dinner with him.’

Later that day, Zacchaeus stood up and said, ‘I’ll give half of my property to the poor. And I’ll now pay back four times as much to everyone that I’ve ever cheated’. And Jesus said to Zacchaeus, ‘Today you and your family have been saved because you are truly a son of Abraham. The Son of man came to look for and to save people who are lost.’

Zacchaeus was a tax collector. Now, none of us likes paying taxes. But back in those days (in the first century in Israel), Israel was an occupied land. The Romans occupied Israel. And so they really resented paying over taxes to Rome. They worked hard. And so much of their money was carted off to Rome; to Caesar, to pay for armies, and palaces, and his decadent lifestyle; while the people here in Israel struggled.

And worst still, tax collection was a lucrative business. It was actually auctioned off by the Romans to the highest bidder. So Zacchaeus was a Jew, he was one of the people. And yet, he was seen as a dishonest agent of Rome. But not only was he acting as Caesar’s tax collector, he was making lots of money out of it, growing rich. And as we see later, by his own admission, cheating people and ripping them off.

So tax collectors were despised. They were the lowest form of life. And here comes Jesus into Jericho, the guy has rock star status. He has been healing people and the crowds are following Him. It’s like Bono coming into our town, you know. And it’s unbelievable that He walks up and He looks up at this short little grubby tax collector in a sycamore tree and says, “Hey Zacc, come on down because I’d really love to have dinner at your place tonight”.

The people couldn’t believe it. They were grumbling. Zacchaeus was hated. Zacchaeus might have had wealth. But my hunch is, he also had some low self-esteem. Because he wasn’t really one of His people. Sure, he had money. He was rich but he didn’t have friends. He was despised. He had outer wealth but inner cancer.

And as Jesus is coming to his city, he climbs a tree to see Jesus because he’s short. Will you climb a tree to see Jesus? I mean, would you and I take a step, say “I’m a Zacchaeus, you know, I’m struggling inside just the way Zacchaeus was struggling. And I want to see this Jesus’”

And then Jesus is walking through town and He seeks Zacchaeus out. When we take that small step towards Jesus, Jesus notices. And Zacchaeus was as surprised as everybody else. It was unexpected. Surely, Jesus wouldn’t come to my place. Surely, this man whose fame had spread throughout all of Judea and through Jerusalem, surely, He wouldn’t pick me, a tax collector.

I had an email recently from someone and this woman said, “Oh look, I really don’t know much but I heard you speak. I don’t know much. I’ve never done much. I don’t know my Bible really well but can I help with the ministry?” That’s the language of low self-esteem but in a sense, she climbed a tree. In a sense, she took a step forward and she took a step out.

You know, if we have low self-esteem, if we feel bad about ourselves, the last thing we ever think would happen is that, Jesus would come to us. And then you see after Jesus has had dinner with Zacchaeus, Zacchaeus responds. He gives half of his possessions to the poor. And he gives back four times, anything he ever defrauded from anyone. That acceptance blew his heart open. That acceptance changed him so radically.

And when everyone was grumbling about Jesus going to Zacc’s place, Jesus said, “Hang on a minute, I have come to seek out and to save the lost”. You see, you and I think, “Surely, Jesus wouldn’t be looking for me”. And Jesus is saying, “I picked Zacchaeus. I picked the least. I picked the reject. I picked the guy that never thought I would pick him” and Jesus is saying, “I mean, especially to come to you”.

And Zacchaeus responded with an amazing change of heart because Jesus conferred value on him. Jesus said “I care about you”.

This is better than self-help. This is a new mirror. This is a new way of understanding our value. It’s a mirror worth gazing into. It’s a mirror of Jesus, of a God that says, “You do matter. I do value you, no matter what you think about yourself. No matter how badly the world may have treated you, I love you and I value you. And I want to come to your place for dinner”.

At some point in our lives, we all come to the realisation that we aren’t going to be the Prime Minister or the President of our country. Well, at least 99.9% of us do. And at some point, we know that we have to give up that dream of being a famous rock star or a famous tennis player or a concert pianist. And at some stage, in our lives most of us have to accept that we won’t be the CEO or the President of our companies.

Why? Because at some stage, we have to come to grips with our own limitations, we’re all just not cut out for the top job. But here’s the catch, most of us come to the realisation, but only some of us accept it. Other people can’t accept the fact that they’ve missed out on their dreams. So they spend the rest of their lives being angry and bitter and blaming everyone and everything else.

So many people live a life that is ruined by low self-esteem. It’s an epidemic in our society. Sometimes people feel, as though they’re imposters. You know, they put up a face outside but inside they’re secretly afraid of failure.

Some people react to low self-esteem by being rebels. They behave as though no one matters and they don’t care about anyone’s attitude. And people like this can often be really belligerent. And the last thing we’d ever expect is that these people are suffering from low self-esteem.

And other people react in a different way, they tend to be the loser or the victim. They’re very dependent personalities and they’re always needing a hand. And they never take responsibility for their own actions. We all know some people like that. Maybe you recognise some or all of those in yourself as well.

The problem is, as we look into the social mirror that reflects who we are – as we listen to what the advertising industry says, as we listen to what people say to us about who we are, some of them not very nice, some of them with their own problems – we can end up with this distorted self-image. This distorted picture of who we are. It’s not logical but it’s so real. It’s so painful and lonely and fearful. And we live life robbed of the goodness that God’s got planned for us.

Someone with low self-esteem struggles because they need external positive influences all the time to prop them up on the inside. And when those external positive influences aren’t there, and let’s face it, my life isn’t twenty-four by seven external positive influences. Not everything goes well in my life. And I’m sure not everything goes well in your life. And when those good things aren’t there to help us prop up our mood, someone with low self-esteem has an awful life.

The other day, we looked at what the Apostle, Paul wrote, he said “Look guys, we are looking in the wrong mirror. If we look in the social mirror to figure out who we are and what our value is, that’s full of people with their own problems! Of course we’ll end up with a distorted sense of who we are. No, no, turn around and look into a perfect mirror. Look at God, listen to what He has to say about who you are.”

I can hear someone think, “Ah well, religion, pfft, I’m not going to get self-esteem out of religion”. I agree, I don’t think you or I are ever going to get self-esteem out of religion. I’m not talking about religion. I’m talking about Jesus. I’m talking about the Son of God, who died on a cross for you and for me, who looks across at the criminal on the next cross and says, “I know you can’t do anything for me. I know you and I are going to be dead shortly. But I’m going to bless you. And I’m going to take you to heaven with me and you are going to have a fantastic eternal life”.

That criminal couldn’t do anything for Jesus. All he did was look at Jesus and believed. And Jesus saw that in his heart and blessed him. If Jesus thinks that about a criminal, He certainly thinks that about you and me. Being accepted by God, for me, was the most surprising thing. I never ever, ever expected Him to accept me unconditionally. And I certainly never expected to have the sense of peace and well-being of just knowing that He loves me, of just knowing my life is in His hands … to live a life that doesn’t depend on external circumstances.

Today, I’d like to move on and look at the whole question of accepting our own limitations. You may have heard me talk in the past about the fact that we are a packaged deal. You’re a packaged deal and I’m a packaged deal. And that package is made up of strengths and weaknesses.

Sure, your strengths are different to mine and my weaknesses are different to yours but we all have abilities; in part, they’re natural abilities. In part they’re learned. Someone who is a great musician or a great sports person, they have a certain amount of natural ability. And they then use that and work on that and learn from that. It’s not all natural and it’s not all learned.

Someone called me a Social Darwinist once. But you know what I mean, I mean, you have natural talents that you’re really good at, that I could never do. And I have talents that I’m really good at, that you could never do. As we take an inventory of that, I wonder, have you ever done that? Have you ever really sat down with a piece of paper and written down the things that you are really good at?

Some people don’t think they are good at anything. But I tell you everyone is good at something. Everyone can do at least one thing better than anyone else around them. I’ve been in Churches, where, people see all the glitzy leaders up front and they sit in the pews and they think ‘I’m not good at anything’. And yet those very same people have the quiet gentle love to stick with someone when they’re struggling through something in life.

So often, people don’t recognise their strengths. As I look at my strengths and my weaknesses, I can see a whole bunch of things I’m not good at; sport, administration, I’m not very good at a pastoral care role, that’s not what I’m called to do. You’d never ask me to be a counsellor.

I have weaknesses but then I’ve got some strengths; I’m a communicator, I’m a story-teller, I’m passionate about that. I love doing the thing that I’m doing right now.

Wouldn’t it be shocking if everyone was like me? Wouldn’t it be terrible if everyone was like you? The truth is, that with my set of strengths, I need people around me, like you that has different strengths. Paul the Apostle wrote this:

Everyone among you don’t think of yourself more highly than you ought but think with sober judgement each according to the measure of faith assigned to you by God. (Romans 12:3)

In other words, it’s God’s choice. The strengths and weaknesses that you have, the strengths and weaknesses that I have, God picked them. And to tell you the truth, once I let that sink in, I love the things that I am. And actually, I love the things I’m not because the things I’m not are the opportunity for me to be blessed by your gifts, by other people’s gifts around me that complement who I am.

We can’t really get to that space until we’ve been gazing in God’s mirror and until we’ve been transformed from glory to glory and really know who we are.

It’s like an eco system, you know, you go to a big forest and the huge massive trees can’t live without the little insects. And the little insects can’t live without the flowers. And the flowers can’t live without the shade of the trees. It’s all connected, they’re all linked, they all need each other.

And until we come to grips with how beautiful and wonderful and loved we are in Jesus, we can’t see our weaknesses as anything more than a source of shame. But when we experience that deep sense of security of ‘who I am in Jesus Christ’, all of a sudden those weaknesses become something that we’re comfortable with.

They become an opportunity for experiencing the blessings of God through other people, who have other gifts that are different to ours. And the weaknesses of other people, you know … the things that drive us nuts about other people … when we get secure in God, those weaknesses, instead of being a sense of frustration become our opportunity to love them with the love of God. They become our opportunity to bless them with our gifts.

It’s a wonderful plan. It’s God’s plan and it happens when people are safe and secure in His love.