04 Self-Esteem

We live in a crazy generation. We live in a generation of participation trophies. Where schools want to do away with grading and give everybody a pass, whether they've done work or not. All in the name of self-esteem. Self-esteem seems to be the religion of our day.

Which shouldn't surprise us when man has rejected God and turns to worship of himself. What is worship of self other than the need to continually esteem people? We need to be telling people how amazing they are and how incredible they are. And in many churches, the gospel has been perverted and turned upside down.

And it's not about how awesome God is, but about how awesome you are. Even the gospel message is communicated as, "You are so awesome that God died for you." No, God died for us while we were still sinners. In some sense, within reason, self-esteem is important.

Finding Our Value in Christ

On the one extreme it is unhealthy and leads to narcissism. On the other side, "I am a worm, I am useless." No, you have value because Jesus died for you. He didn't die for you because you had value. But we need to understand that our value is in Christ.

But why am I saying all this? I'm saying all this because in today's culture, for most people, we actually don't need people to be telling us how awesome we are. We already think, most of us, that we are awesome, even when we're trying to be humble.

Humble bragging is the disease of social media today. False humility. The classic example of when you compliment someone on their preach, and they reply, "Oh no, it wasn't me, it was God." And you said, "No, it wasn't that good." People have learned how to appear humble, but actually think very highly of themselves.

The Danger of Thinking Too Highly of Ourselves

And interestingly in scripture, Paul didn't spend a whole lot of time telling people to think more of themselves. He didn't think people had a self-esteem crisis. Paul seems to think that people generally think too highly of themselves. And I think that actually is true.

Nobody should think more highly of themselves than they ought. But what does that mean? What it means is I shouldn't think of my gifting as being better than it actually is. It can be a sobering for me to think I'm a great singer and then when I sing in the car and my kids tell me to be quiet.

Because my singing is terrible. But we all secretly like to think that we're more gifted. That we should be having more opportunities and we should be released more. The challenge if we don't have a right view of our own gifting is, when other people are being released we resent them.

We begin to get offended with leaders. We need to be having genuine conversations with each other about how gifted we truly are. And what our gifts are. Because if I believe that I should be JoshGen's next great worship leader, I'm setting myself up for disappointment.

Navigating Honest Conversations about Spiritual Gifting

I don't want one of my leaders or one of my eldership team to come alongside me and say, "Mike, you're a terrible worship leader. You'll never be a worship leader." That would crush me. But instead of crushing that thing, to point me in the right direction and say, "Mike, instead of worship, have you considered this?"

But these are conversations I believe we should be having as a team. Because yes, elder is one office, but the outworking of that office is different according to our giftings. The scripture says those elders who direct the affairs of the church are worthy of double honor.

Those elders who teach. So not everybody is gifted in the same way of teaching. Not all elders are gifted the same way governmentally. One of the challenges with that is, if I think I was governmentally gifted, but decisions have been made and my perspective isn't being sought, I can begin to get offended and resentful.

Rather than not thinking more highly of myself than I ought, and recognizing that maybe somebody else is more gifted in it. Is my opinion on a matter as valuable as somebody else's? Or do I present it in a way that says, "I've got an opinion, I think my opinion matters," but actually I'm going to submit it.

Because I don't want to think of myself more highly than I ought. I don't want to think of myself more like Jesus than I really am. So that my character can't be corrected and adjusted by others. I don't want to think my gifting is greater than it is.

So that I don't improve or so I don't get used in the right way and the most productively. We all talk a good game when it comes to humility. I think we have all learned how to play the church game. But in that deep recess of our hearts that other men can't see, the question is, do we really think of ourselves more highly than we ought?

The Example of Christ and the Principle of Humility

This is what Paul says in Philippians 2, even though Jesus was in every way equal to God, He didn't grasp for equality, but recognized that the role He was called to play was a different role. Ultimately, Philippians tells us, that Jesus was given the name above all other names.

But here we see a principle that we've got to learn. If we humble ourselves, God will raise us up. The challenge is, if we do God's job, He has to do ours. In other words, if we exalt ourselves, then He has to humble us.

And as I said to a young man once, who was battling with some issues of pride, I said, "Please, my friend, humble yourself. It's a lot easier if you do it yourself than if God has to do it." He didn't do it himself, and God humbled him, and it was a horrible, painful, difficult process for him to go through.

But as elders, as leaders, let us not carry ourselves as more than we are. As our opinions, our giftings, our influence, our calling, as more than God has made it. Because God resists the proud and gives grace to the humble. I've seen over the years that when men come with a true godly humility, considering others better than themselves, it's amazing how God gives more.

Because He's attracted to such humbleness. As an eldership team, are we marked by humility? Are we marked by taking the low position? Are we marked by not carrying ourselves and our opinions higher than others, even those that we lead? And are we open to people speaking into our lives, correcting in some of these areas?

Practical Accountability and Evaluation in Leadership Teams

Recently, the eldership team that I'm a part of in Melkbos, we had a discussion about how approachable and teachable we are. Can people come and speak into our lives? And, we just went around the room and we said, let's grade ourselves from one to ten.

Then let's see if our perception of ourselves is other people's perceptions. And it's amazing how many of us think that we're approachable and teachable. Yet, other people feel that maybe we're a little bit intimidating to speak to. But I think it's an exercise that we should be regularly carrying out as eldership teams.

Having a conversation. Hey guys, how good is our preaching, honestly? How good are we at leading meetings? How teachable are we? How humble are we? To help us get a true understanding of who we are, what we have to offer, and where we need to improve.

Many years ago we did that exercise, as an eldership team when we were much, much smaller. We were rating our own preaching. One elder said, "I think I'm a seven or eight." Everybody else said, "No, we think he's a three or four." And it was a really horrible, painful time for that elder to see that nobody else thought he was a really good preacher.

We didn't just leave it there, there was a conversation around that. That enabled the elder to go and consider that, and actually make some adjustments. And now, he's actually a really good communicator. Because he was able to get the perspective of the team and not think more highly of himself than he ought.

He was able to listen, reposition, correct, and because of that, God gave him more. As elders, I think we've got much, much more to walk in. I think we have got gifts amongst us that are waiting to be unleashed. I think there's, anointing, waiting to just flow in greater abundance.

Growing into More Through True Humility

But it'll come when we have that true humility. When we know where we are placed within the team. When we consider others more important than ourselves and we allow ourselves to be adjusted to see ourselves as God sees us. And to see ourselves as God sees that we can become.

And then we will grow into more. Let's not strive for more through selfish ambition, but let's strive for more by being less.