Self-Pity and Self-Esteem: Looking to Jesus, Our Example

Introduction

“This morning, my message has a rather strange title. You are going to be shocked: self-pity and self-esteem.” Marc Fuchs, who preaches at the Église évangélique du Réveil in Lausanne, takes up two opposite attitudes that are often misunderstood in the light of God's Word.

Before getting into the subject, he smiles about his age: people sometimes tell him to calm down, that he is no longer twenty. “No, I am four times twenty.” Four times twenty years means a lot of memories, and just as many reasons to give thanks.

In both cases, he explains, the person ends up emptying the space around them. This happens in Christian circles too, because the values of the world have slipped into the churches along with the people, in a sneaky way: “Satan knows how to seduce.” The point is not to hide our heads in the sand, but to talk about it and pray that the person will be healed.

Message Outline

1. Self-Pity, a Disagreement with God

At first, everything goes well. But when it becomes unbearable to listen to complaints that are often unjustified, people pull away. The person then turns to someone else, and if they do not want to change, they change places rather than changing themselves.
When we decide that life has not treated us the way it should have, self-pity sets in. It pushes us to sulk, to complain, to replay our wounds, real or imagined. “At the heart of self-pity lies a disagreement with God” over the way life has wronged us. And we contaminate those around us.
In the Bible, self-pity is often tied to grumbling and rebellion against God. In Numbers 11:4-6, the people start weeping again and long for the fish of Egypt, the cucumbers, the melons, the leeks, the onions and the garlic. The preacher admits he had to look up the old French plural of “garlic” in the dictionary. Two words to remember: they “wept again.”
He invites us to reread Deuteronomy 1, where the people refuse to enter the promised land out of fear of the giants. We look at yesterday instead of lifting our eyes, and we forget God's promises for tomorrow: “That is for others, not for me. God has forgotten me.”
King Ahab covets Naboth's vineyard. When Naboth refuses to sell it, Ahab goes home, lies down on his bed sulking and refuses to eat (1 Kings 21:4). “Imagine a king sulking on his bed, in his palace!” He only finds his joy again once Naboth has been murdered through Jezebel's scheme (1 Kings 21:15-16).

2. What Self-Pity Damages

“Self-pity is never good.” By giving in to it, we make ourselves important in our own eyes. Paul asks each person not to think more highly of themselves than they ought, but to put on a modest outlook (Romans 12:3).
Bitterness can quickly take over from the fruit of the Spirit: “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faith, gentleness, and self-control” (Galatians 5:22-23).
We are to give thanks in all things. Yet it is impossible to give thanks while clinging to self-pity: we no longer see what God has allowed, what he has promised, or his many blessings. His compassions are new every morning.
Paul urges us not to grumble like the Israelites in the desert: “Now all these things happened to them by way of example, and they were written for our admonition” (1 Corinthians 10:10-11). Let anyone who thinks they are standing be careful not to fall (1 Corinthians 10:12), the preacher adds, not to fall into self-pity.
To complain is to express one's pain, sorrow or discontent, sometimes even toward God. Job did so: “I will complain in the bitterness of my soul” (Job 7:11). “I think Job had reasons to complain.”
When our rights are trampled, filing a complaint is not always the right answer. Within the community, such matters are settled inside, not in the public square (1 Corinthians 6:1-9). Rather than complaining about one another, it is better to forgive one another (Colossians 3:13): “That will do far less damage.”

3. Where Self-Pity Comes From

The causes are many: a child always punished in place of his brothers and sisters, who felt less loved; parents who abandoned or neglected; mockery in adolescence because of weight. In the 1950s, he recalls, children with a cleft lip were mocked in an incredible way. At work, you always got the worst task, and you experienced everything as an injustice.
In the desert, the whole people groan: “We wish that we had died by Yahweh's hand in the land of Egypt” (Exodus 16:3). Then, pressed by thirst: “Why did you bring us up out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and our livestock with thirst?” (Exodus 17:3). “It's crazy!”
Do we not sometimes resemble this people who complain about everything, about every change? In his professional career, with every new boss or new method, he heard the same speech: “We have done it this way for twenty-five years, why change?” The lamenting came every time.
Job, on the other hand, had reason to groan. He cursed the day of his birth (Job 3:1-3) and said: “My soul is weary of my life. I will give free rein to my complaint” (Job 10:1). “Which of us could speak the same words?” So let us stop lamenting over trifles.
The psalmist asks: “Why do you stand far off, Yahweh?” (Psalm 10:1). The preacher testifies: “I am reaching 80 years old, we have gone through terrible things, trials. God has always been present, and I could not list all his kindnesses.”
Self-pity betrays a lack of faith in God's sovereignty and care, and can lead to bitterness, resentment and jealousy. We often have a selective memory: we forget the answered prayers and the blessings received, and hold on only to what God has not yet answered. God's timing is not ours: “The longer an answer takes to come, the better it will be.”

4. Jesus Did Not Pity Himself

“Was Jesus caught up in self-pity?” Reading the Word, the answer is certain: no. When he came into the world, Christ said: “Behold, I have come … to do your will, God” (Hebrews 10:5-7).
He could have said to his Father: “Don't you have someone else to send? Not me.” He did not. Out of love and obedience, he humbled himself even to death on a cross, in horrible suffering.
“Did you ever hear him complain?” He was mistreated and oppressed, yet “he didn't open his mouth. As a lamb that is led to the slaughter” (Isaiah 53:7).
“For the Lord Yahweh will help me; … therefore I have set my face like a flint” (Isaiah 50:7). The preacher invites us to read and meditate at home on all of Psalm 22 and on Isaiah 53. “Let us copy our model.”

5. Self-Esteem, When Man Puts Himself at the Center

The second theme is the opposite of the first: “Oh, how good I am, how handsome I am!” It borders on narcissism.
According to several psychologists, self-esteem is built from the way we look at ourselves and the way others look at us. It is said to bring together self-love, self-image and self-confidence. Reading these definitions, Marc Fuchs notes that man is at the center: “No room for God. It's me, me and me again. Man becomes God.”
He then changed his way of reading and opened the Word. It shows that self-esteem becomes a danger when it focuses on the individual rather than on our identity in Christ.
The Bible also teaches that God created us in a wonderful way, that he chose us before the foundation of the world, that he has a plan for our life and that he has given us a heavenly inheritance. Our worth should rest on God's love, not on pride or comparison, and depend on Jesus Christ, who gave his life for us on the cross.
He distinguishes the pride that God hates from the legitimate satisfaction of a job well done. “I hate pride, arrogance, the evil way, and the perverse mouth” (Proverbs 8:13). The proud person is so centered on himself that his thoughts are far from God: “All his thoughts are, ‘There is no God’” (Psalm 10:4).
With humor, he tells how to get rich: “Buy a man at what he is worth and resell him at what he thinks he is worth.” In his career, he could have become a millionaire: there was no shortage of stock, but nobody wanted to buy.

6. Loving God First, Then Your Neighbor

Some claim today that we are happy when we think of ourselves first: “love yourself” replaces “love your neighbor.” Yet we are happier when each person seeks not their own interest but that of the other.
God's love must come first: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.” Then: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Mark 12:30-31). “I think we still have work to do, brothers and sisters.”
Jesus showed how to reconcile love for God, for our neighbor and for ourselves: “love one another, just as I have loved you” (John 13:34-35). “It is no more complicated than that.”
The Word does not praise selfishness, but it gives self-love its proper place: “Therefore don't be afraid. You are of more value than many sparrows” (Matthew 10:31). He likes this word sparrows, which sounds much gentler to him than being called an old owl.
A thought received this week, jotted down in tiny writing for lack of space: at Jesus' baptism, a voice from heaven declares: “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased” (Matthew 3:17). Jesus had not yet performed any miracle or begun his ministry. “God did not love Jesus for what he was going to do; he loved him because he was his Son.”
As soon as we come to the Lord, we become children of God, saved by grace. God says to us: “You are my daughter, you are my beloved son,” not because we have done something good, but because he loves us. “Never forget it.” Our role is to please him.
Created in the image of God (Genesis 1:27), we are made to show love. It is legitimate to love ourselves, but what truly makes us happy is to love God first and to do good to others: “It is more blessed to give than to receive” (Acts 20:35). Nothing to do with the boxing his father taught him at five and a half: “First you hit, then you talk.”

7. The Example of Jesus, the Humble Servant

Satan told Eve: “you will be like God” (Genesis 3:4-5). “The worst self-esteem is believing that you are like God.” That is the fall. We were created to glorify God and do his will, not to glorify ourselves.
We need to examine ourselves, not only on Sunday before communion, but every day: examine yourselves to see “whether you are in the faith” (2 Corinthians 13:5). What place does my self-esteem take?
Pride keeps many people from recognizing Jesus Christ as Savior and from recognizing themselves as sinners. Let us pray that God will touch their hearts. If we want to boast, let it be of God's glory: what matters is what God says and sees in us.
Pride takes credit for what God has accomplished and keeps for itself the glory that belongs to God alone: “It is worship that we offer to ourselves.” Nothing we accomplish would be possible if God did not give us the strength.
In conclusion, he reads Philippians 2:5-11, a passage to learn by heart: Christ, existing in the form of God, emptied himself by taking the form of a servant, “without sin,” he specifies, and became obedient to the point of death on a cross. That is why God has highly exalted him.
Jesus took the form of a servant: let us also be servants who obey the Word, like Jesus, who said to his Father three times in Gethsemane: “Your will be done.” “This is neither self-pity nor self-esteem, it is the love of Jesus.”
“Humility is not self-pity, it is imitating Jesus.” We are of great worth to God, who gave his Son to save us. That is his grace, not our self-esteem. Every day, let us walk humbly with him, with immense gratitude and a lot of love.

Key Takeaways

Self-pity is, at bottom, a disagreement with God over the way life has treated us. It leads to grumbling, bitterness and isolation.
Gratitude is the antidote: you cannot give thanks while clinging to self-pity.
Self-esteem becomes a danger when man puts himself at the center. The worst kind is believing that you are like God.
God loves you because you are his child, not for what you do. Your worth rests on his love and on the cross.
Jesus, the obedient and humble servant, is the example to follow, in the face of self-pity as in the face of pride.

Personal Application

In which situation of your life are you in disagreement with God to the point of sulking or grumbling?
Is your memory selective? Which answered prayers and which blessings can you name today in order to give thanks?
What does your self-esteem rest on: the way others see you, your achievements, or God's love for you in Jesus Christ?
In the order of your loves, does God come first, before yourself and before others?
Where can you, this week, take the form of a servant and say to God: “Your will be done”?

Verses Cited

Frequently Asked Questions

What is self-pity according to the Bible?

For Marc Fuchs, self-pity means complaining about one's situation, lamenting one's fate and looking only at one's own problems. At bottom, it is a disagreement with God over the way life has treated us. The Bible links it to the grumbling of the people in the desert (Numbers 11, Exodus 16 and 17) and to Ahab sulking on his bed (1 Kings 21:4).

Is it wrong to love yourself according to the Bible?

No, answers the preacher: the Word gives self-love its proper place. It is good to take care of yourself, to respect yourself and to know your worth, because you are of more value than many sparrows (Matthew 10:31). But God's love comes first, then love for your neighbor. Self-esteem becomes a danger when man puts himself at the center, in God's place.

Why is Jesus the example in the face of self-pity and pride?

Jesus did not complain: mistreated, he did not open his mouth (Isaiah 53:7). Though he was of divine condition, he emptied himself, took the form of a servant and became obedient to the point of death on a cross (Philippians 2:5-11). Marc Fuchs invites us to imitate him: humility is not self-pity, it is following Jesus.