A Sermon on Self-Acceptance

The following sermon was originally presented
at the Seattle Vineyard on October 26, 2005.
How do we see ourselves? This inquiry into our personal perspective is one of the most important questions we can ask ourselves as Christians. Where do we find our value? Where do we find acceptance?

Our culture is all-too willing to answer these questions for us. Just look around you. Financial success is idolized as the salvation of our country. Failure is our only sin. Cosmo and Vogue tell us what to look for in beauty. Movie stars and celebrities provide unhealthy, unrealistic standards and expectations of our worth. All around us, things of little or no importance suddenly take on an immense and overwhelming value.

Now, intellectually, we all know this. On some level, we know that the images of models and movie stars aren’t something we need to aspire to. We know that success isn’t the only measure of our worth. We know this, but still, our culture’s values press in on us and soon become our values.

The play we’re going to watch tonight looks at some of the different ways we see ourselves. It’s set in a high school, the characters are teenagers. But I want you to look beyond the specific issues each character struggles with. I want you to look deeper. At its heart, this is a story about worth and value, a parable of acceptance. In the midst of very real, very concrete, and very important issues, at the heart of each character’s struggle is this question of the way they see themselves.

After the play is done, we’ll have some time for a question and answer session with the actors, but then we’re going to come back and look a little closer at the heart of this issue of image and self-acceptance. So without further ado, it’s my great pleasure to present the Seattle Pacific University Players and their presentation of the play, Perfect.

* * *
Whenever I write a play, the first draft is always the hardest part. After that first draft, it’s simple. We spend time working and reworking scenes, getting the dialogue just right, making sure we’re communicating something true, something meaningful. Once it’s on its feet, once we’re performing the piece, there’s this amazing exhilaration and incredible high, which dissolves into a crippling fear and terrifying paralysis as I’m suddenly confronted by the very tangible possibility that this is it. I’ll never be able to write anything again. I’ve run out of stories to tell. I don’t have anything left to say.

That’s where I was sitting last March. We had both of our shows up and running. Everything was going great. And then I realized – I needed to have a new play in six months. Now, that may seem like plenty of time to some of you. But if you don’t have the slightest idea what you’re going to write about, if you don’t think you have any stories left to tell, six months is unbearably close. So in a panic, I looked at all the crap I had sitting on my computer to see if I had something there that I could salvage or rework or that would just give me the slightest springboard of an idea I could launch from. And there it was. Sitting on my desktop, unused, unblemished. A play about self-esteem. I could do this. I could totally make this work. Why not? All it was going to take was a few touches here and there, add a character, change some stuff around. It was going to work. I just needed to start working on it.

Well, of course I did what any great artist would do – I procrastinated. I didn’t even read through the old draft to get some ideas. I just let it sit there. And I let time close in on me.

I realize now that I didn’t feel very connected to the material. My best work tends to come when I have some sort of stake or interest in the themes and ideas I’m exploring. And I really didn’t see any connection between myself and the play’s characters – hoping and striving for a perfect life in order to accept and value themselves.

Well, since I didn’t see the connection myself, God decided to hit me over the head with it. I was out on a particularly bad date – a date with someone I was interested in, but who obviously wasn’t interested in me. And I knew this as the date was winding to a close. So, it’s over, we say goodbye, and I walk to my bus stop, listening to the new Green Day album. I’m rocking out in my head, thinking that if only I was really rocking out to this song – on stage with a guitar and that super-serious, hip, rock-star attitude – then everyone (especially the girl I was interested in) would think I was amazing. Everyone around me would be forced to recognize how cool and interesting and attractive I was. My life would be perfect.

You know when you get those little taps on the shoulder? Those little epiphanies? You see it in cartoons all the time – the light-bulb that goes off over a character’s head. Well, that’s what happened to me. I suddenly saw my connection. I suddenly saw that I wasn’t accepting myself the way God made me. I suddenly saw that I thought if only I was someone else, my life would be perfect. So, I started writing the script right then and there, beginning with Kevin – my alter ego in the show.

You know, I think a lot of times it’s as subtle as that – the ways we don’t accept ourselves. I know for me it always starts off with “If only...” or “I just wish...” Do you know what I’m talking about? If only I looked like Brad Pitt or Gwenyth Paltrow. If only I was a rock star or a movie star. If only business was doing better. If only the person I love loved me back. If only I had Miguel’s life. If only I had Bill’s ministry. If only this. If only that. If only. If only. If only.

Isn’t it insidious, the way this self-doubt, this self-condemnation sneaks into our lives? Because that’s what it is. Self-condemnation. All these “If only’s” are just another way of saying, “The person I am now? The person God created and loves? That person isn’t worthwhile. That person isn’t valuable.”

Sadly, this attitude and mindset is all too prevalent in the church today. Sure, we know that God loves us as we are. We have a very firm grasp of the fact that nothing we do can earn our way into heaven – that even while we were sinners, Christ died for us. We get that part of God’s love for us. But somewhere along the way it gets twisted. Paul’s statement that no one is righteous has led us to an unhealthy condemnation of ourselves – the very person that Christ has redeemed and made holy. We’ve come up with an elaborate “worm” theology – I am lowly and despised and worthless.

So what do we do? We try to earn our acceptance. Just like the characters in the play, we try to find perfection on our own, thinking that’s the only way we can be accepted – by ourselves and by God. And because we try to do this on our own, because we try to do this in our own power and out of our own resources, we are so easily led into believing that the world’s values – the things that our culture tells us about perfection – that those are the things that God values and requires.

This unhealthy perfectionism – perfection removed from the grace of Jesus Christ – is so rampant in the church. This belief that God requires us to become perfect on our own before we can receive his grace and his love and his acceptance – is slowing killing the body of Christ. Is it any wonder that the number of women suffering from disordered eating is disproportionately high among Christian women of all ages? Religious schools, Christian colleges, church youth groups, Christian women’s ministries... all of these supposed places of refuge have become places where Christian women are assaulted by the lie that they have to achieve perfection on their own.

What’s happened is that we’ve neglected the other side of the equation. Through the blood of Christ we are redeemed. Through the sacrifice of Christ, we are new creations. Through the atoning power of the cross and Christ crucified, we are justified. The old self, the sinful nature, the “worm” – those all dead and gone. We are new creations. It doesn’t matter if we feel like it or not. We are now new men and women because of the death and resurrection of Jesus. This is the person we are called to love and accept.

If we don’t love ourselves, this incredible soul that God adores (in the Song of Songs it says that we have captured God’s heart), this beautiful person that Jesus died for – how can we ever hope to share the love of Christ with others? How can we ever hope to truly and selflessly love others? If we don’t love and accept ourselves, aren’t we essentially saying that God can’t and doesn’t love us?

Now, please hear me. I’m not talking about a narcissistic self-love. I’m not talking about selfishness and self-centeredness. In fact, what I’m talking about is in direct opposition to selfishness and narcissism. Much of our selfishness has its root in our inability to love and accept ourselves. Because of this insecurity we are constantly turning the focus back to ourselves, we are continually trying to prove ourselves to ourselves and all those around us. Any love we show others becomes tainted by selfishness and our own selfish motives.

But the act of truly loving and accepting this beautiful new creation has the opposite effect – it causes us to turn outward. When we see and love and accept ourselves the way God sees us, we are able to enter into relationships with others without agenda, without the intense focus on “me.”

Looking back at the play, it isn’t until Kevin finally hears Julie’s challenge to accept himself the way God made him that he is able to reach out to anyone else. He’s able to walk with Alex through his difficulties with friendship. And he’s able to selflessly help him. When Alex stops seeing himself through the eyes of his friend Todd, he’s able to support and protect Carrie. And now that Carrie has started to accept herself the way she was made, she will be able to move outside of herself and really love and care for her friends.

Catholic theologian and philosopher Romano Guardini puts it this way:

The act of self-acceptance is the root of all things. I must agree to be the person
who I am. Agree to have the qualifications which I have. Agree to live within
the limitations set for me... The clarity and the courageousness of this acceptance
is the foundation of all existence. (1)

We have all been given gifts and talents. We have all been uniquely created in the image of God. For me to wish that I had someone else’s talent or ministry, to wish that I was someone else, is just as futile and foolish as wishing that I could fly. And my dissatisfaction with the way God created me means that I’m not living the life God has called me to live – I’m not fulfilling the unique and singular role that he has for me.

So how do we counter this? How do we turn from this self-condemnation to accepting the self that God has created and loves and adores? It’s easy to dwell in abstraction. It’s easy to talk about self-acceptance. It’s not so easy to practice it, is it? I can say that you are valuable and worthwhile in the eyes of Christ time and time again, but how do we let that penetrate our hearts? How do we make this switch?

I know it’s going to sound like a cliché. I know it sounds like something from a bad self-help book. But the first step we all need to take in this is to admit that the way we see ourselves is unhealthy. We need to acknowledge the fact that we do not accept ourselves the way God created us. And we need to acknowledge the source of this self-condemnation.

Were you picked on in school? Were you always told that you weren’t smart enough or talented enough? Were you always held to unreasonable standards and expectations? Were you always pushed further and further, making you feel you weren’t good enough?

What are those lies that others have spoken over you? What are those lies that you have spoken to yourself? I’m not good enough. I’m not attractive. I’m worthless. I’m a loser. I’m a failure. I’ve screwed up too many times. I’ve lost too many opportunities. God can’t possibly love me.

Those are lies. I want you to hear this. Those are lies. Take those lies, take those despicable, vile statements you’ve believed about yourself. Take them, and offer them up to the Lord. Take them, and pray about them. Pray about those specific lies that you’ve heard all your life, and ask God to speak his truth into your life. And he will. He will.

Don’t get me wrong, those lies will come back. But the next time you find yourself confronted by one of those lies, take it to the Lord, take it before the cross – where Jesus died to set us free from these lies – and ask him to replace the lie with his truth, and his grace, and his mercy.

Hang out in the Bible. Find those passages that really speak about our identity in Christ. 1 John. Hebrews. Philippians. Find those passages that really speak to you. Find those passages and meditate on them.

And pray that God will give you the assurance and the peace to trust in him, to know that you are loved and that you are accepted.

I’d like to end by reading from Romans 8 – one of the great exhortations given to us to remind us, not only of who we are in Christ, but of the incredible and amazing life we have in Jesus, the one who loves and accepts, the one who died for and redeemed us.

Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death. And the lies of our past. And the lies we have told ourselves. The lies we have believed. For what the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by the sinful nature, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering. And so he condemned sin in sinful man, in order that the righteous requirements of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the sinful nature but according to the Spirit.

That’s us. Because of Christ’s sacrifice, because we have accepted Christ’s sacrifice, we don’t live according to the sinful nature, we live according to the Spirit. And because we live according to the Spirit, we meet the requirements of the law – not partially, but fully. And it’s not something we have to do. It’s not something we have to earn. We don’t have to be perfect – it’s Christ, it’s the Spirit living within us that makes us perfect.

Those who live according to the sinful nature have their minds set on what that nature desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires. The mind of sinful man is death, but the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace; the sinful mind is hostile to God. It does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so. Those controlled by the sinful nature cannot please God.

You (and that means you), however, are controlled not by the sinful nature but by the Spirit, if the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ. But if Christ is in you, your body is dead because of sin, yet your spirit is alive because of righteousness. And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit, who lives in you.

Don’t you get it? We don’t have to rely on ourselves, we get to rely of the Spirit of God who raised Jesus Christ from the dead – that’s the God we rely on, that’s the God who makes us perfect. It isn’t us. We can never do this on our own. It’s only God.

Therefore, brothers, we have an obligation – but it is not to the sinful nature, to live according to it. For if you live according to the sinful nature, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live, because those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear (or perfectionism, or self-condemnation, or doubt), but you received the Spirit of sonship (and love and acceptance). And by him we cry, “Abba, Father.” The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children. Now if we are children, then we are heirs – heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory.

Paul goes on to talk about living for the future, that our present sufferings are not worth comparing to the glory that will be revealed in us. He ends this chapter, starting in verse 31, with the following exhortation. And I’d like to leave you with the same.

What, then, shall we say in response to this? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all – how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? Who can say that we are worthless? Who can say that we have no value? It is God who justifies. Who is he that condemns? Christ Jesus, who died – more than that, who was raised to life – is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? Or the “if only’s” in our life? Or the failures? As it is written: “For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.” No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, the way we see ourselves, our culture’s expectations and values, our own fears and shortcomings and imperfections, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Our Lord who sees us as we are. Our Lord who loves us as we are. Our Lord who accepts us as we are. Our Lord who shows us how to see ourselves.

Let's pray.

1. From the essay “The Acceptance of Oneself,” by Romano Guardini

(Posted 10/23/2009)

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