So one of the phrases in our culture that became a few years ago and is still used some today is “the struggle is real.”  It, of course, is an expression used to emphasize the gravity of a frustrating circumstance or hardship. 

But also, the way it gets used sometimes is sarcastic.  Like in relation to first-world problems that come up.  For example, someone might be in line at Chick-fil-a and say “Man I just can’t decide between getting chicken strips or chicken nuggets,” and then say “Gosh, the struggle is real.”  Or someone might be at Starbucks in line and trying to decide whether or not they want their pumpkin spice coffee drink HOT OR COLD, and in that situation might say, “Gosh, the struggle is real.” 

Obviously, these are not “real struggles,” I mean not at least in the sense that we should be spending our time really worried about things when people are starving to death in other places of the world.  So, for some, it’s become just a funny way to express first-world problems…

THE STRUGGLE IS REAL

However, there are situations and circumstances that we each find ourselves in, in which the struggle is VERY REAL.  I mean, some statistics tell us that 21 million people in the U.S over the age of 12 deal with some kind of substance addiction, 300 million people in our world today suffer from depression, 70% of Americans have non-mortgage-related debt and have a really difficult time sticking to a budget.  And aside from struggling with all these things, many people struggle with chronic pain and illnesses every day of their lives…others are struggling with relationships whether they are single or married or even family dynamics…and it’s a real struggle.

And so, for many people in our world today, and quite honestly, for many of us who are here today the struggle is real… it’s very real to you.  And so starting today, we are going to begin a brand new message series titled #The Struggle Is Real.  And we are going to be talking about many of these things I just mentioned…the struggle with depression and anxiety, with relationships, with money, with pain and illnesses.  So, we are going to see what God’s Word has to say about these kinds of things going on in our lives & if there is any hope for us in dealing with whatever it is that you struggle with.

And today as we begin this series we are going to start with the struggle of self-image or low self-esteem.  And this can be a real struggle for many of us on various levels.  In preparation for this message, I read a lot of stories of people’s struggles with image, and it is heartbreaking.  The struggle for many is real.  One of the people I read about is a young girl named Sydney…

SYDNEY’S STORY

Little girls find many occasions for “wishing.” Maybe it is while blowing out birthday candles, seeing a shooting star, or catching a fallen eyelash on your finger so you can blow it off. Wishing is a precious part of being a little girl. My wishes were always the same. Every year. I never had to pause and think about my wish. It was always, “I want to be skinny.”

I dreaded going shopping because it meant I would have to find clothes that would hide my “fat.” I wouldn’t wear jeans or any form-fitting clothing through most of my upper elementary school years. Just sweat pants. I claimed it was for comfort, but really, I longed to wear the cute clothes I saw other girls wearing. In my mind, I was huge…& I couldn’t let anyone see how big I was by wearing clothing that showed the shape of my body.

Through junior high and high school I became consumed with food…counting calories and restricting, skipping meals and lying about it, feeling ravenous and out of control when I hadn’t let myself eat for an extended period of time, and exercising as much as possible. I aimed to burn off the exact amount of calories I ate that day. I was terrified I would never be able to live a normal life, not engaged in this constant battle with food. I didn’t know if it was even possible.

Not only was I battling this negative body image, I was also driven for perfection. I HAD to be perfect. The perfect student, the perfect athlete (in all 5 of my sports…good luck with that), the perfect friend…you get the picture. Anything less than perfect meant I was a failure. Anything less than perfect, in my mind, translated to not being worthy of love or acceptance.

My eating struggles and negative body image came and went in waves of varying intensity through the next few years. I was never hospitalized. I was never deathly ill. But I was being completely robbed.

I was robbed of joy & fun. I was robbed of the ability to focus on things that truly matter. I was robbed of the chance to be confident and free. I was being robbed of the opportunity to truly see other people because I was so busy looking at myself. I was being robbed of the ability to actually enjoy my life. I was being robbed of real meaning & purpose.

Sydney’s story is heartbreaking to me because I know there are 1,000’s more Sydney’s out there dealing with this same struggle.  And it’s of course not just with teenage girls or young women.  I’ve heard stories of women who have struggled with this their entire lives, including Christians.  I’ve heard women tell stories of coming to church and comparing themselves to what everyone else at church looked like and feeling shame.  I’ve heard women tell stories of thinking that so and so always looked perfect and took care of themselves and they admired them for being able to do that throughout their lifetime, only to find out later from them that it was a real source of struggle and effort to maintain that image…the work that went into it and the mental anguish of someone seeing them “not all put together.”  And someone that you had so much respect for and admired for the way they carried themselves and put themselves together you find out was basically living their lives in bondage.  Bondage to presenting an image to everyone around them in order to feel loved and accepted.

And it’s not just a female issue either.  Boys and men more and more are struggling with body image and low self-esteem as well.  And it comes on both ends of the spectrum for boys/men regarding their bodies.  On one end, there is a struggle with many just like females with seeing themselves as overweight and wanting to be skinny.  But on the other end of the spectrum, there is a real struggle with being too skinny, because men are supposed to be strong and muscular according to society.  And so many are spending hours in the weight room and watching their diet and taking supplements all in search of bigger muscles and that perfect 6 pack of abs.  And it consumes them. There is a bondage to creating that kind of image or maintaining that kind of image.  And of course, it doesn’t just have to be body image…many men are in bondage to an image of respect (job title, performance, through materialism), and it can be a struggle to get there or to maintain it if you feel like you get there. 

So, what do we do?  If this is an issue many of us are dealing with, where do we turn?  Is there a way to get past this struggle of the way we view ourselves and the way we feel others view us as well?

HOW TO OVERCOME THE STRUGGLE WITH SELF-IMAGE

Well, we start with God, and what He thinks of us instead of what we think of ourselves and what we think other people think of us.  Because God is our Creator.  He and only He knows exactly why He created us and created us the way He did…and He as God and our Creator is the one who carries authority.  So what He thinks is the main thing that matters here.  And to find out what He thinks about us, we turn to His Word, which is the Bible and the place we go to find truth.  And here is what God’s Word says about you…

In Psalm 8, David is talking about us as humanity and asks the question, “Who are we?”  I mean, compared to you, who are we?  Like we must be “nothing,” so insignificant…but look at what verse 5 says…

5 Yet You have made him a little lower than God, and You crown him with glory and majesty! (Psalm 8:5)

Now there is some discrepancy here about the Hebrew word translated “God” here.  It could be translated “God,” it could be translated “heavenly being.”  But the main point of this as you can see is that God created us with glory and majesty. 

His view of us is not one of worthlessness but rather honor, glory, majesty.  We are the pinnacle of His creation.  In the creation account of Genesis, we are told that only humanity was created in His image.  WE BEAR THE IMAGE OF GOD!  What does that alone say about you?   You have worth, are loved, special, and honored.  And we are not talking here about anything that you have achieved as part of your image.  We are simply talking about you, like the you that came into this world without having accomplished anything yet.

In Psalm 139, another Psalm of David, he writes…

13 For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. 14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. 15 My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place, when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.

This says so much about you.  It says first and foremost, that YOU ARE NOT AN ACCIDENT.

YOU ARE NOT AN ACCIDENT 

God designed you and made you just the way you are on purpose… and God doesn’t make junk. 

You are “fearfully and wonderfully made,” the Psalmist says.  THIS IS WHAT GOD SAYS IS TRUE ABOUT YOU, and He should know because HE CREATED YOU.  And this implies you are wonderfully made in your physical appearance, your personality, your abilities…ALL PARTS OF YOU ARE FEARFULLY AND WONDERFULLY MADE. 

And this also says that you are loved and accepted not based on what you achieve or the you that you create yourself into (the way you look, the status you achieve, whatever)…God loves you and values you as someone made in His image.

SATAN’S DECEPTION

But Satan doesn’t want you to believe that.  Remember, his job is to deceive you from the truth.  So he whispers lies to us…he says “…you need to look better…you need to perform better and if you could just get there, then people will love you more, they will accept you, you’ll find worth…It’s a way that he uses to convince us that we can justify ourselves and our worth and meaning by looking a certain way or creating a certain image. 

And he moves and works within an entire culture to shape these views.  He creates “ideals,” within society… the ideal physique, the ideal personality, the ideal abilities…because he knows they lead to an endless chase of trying to find fulfillment in your image instead of in God.

And so Satan is basically casting these lies that we all need to try and be more like these “ideal people in our society.”  But here are 2 things I want you to think about.  First, how many of these people that are viewed as “the ideal people to be like,” are actually happy?  I mean, how many celebrities do we hear about who are depressed, addicted to something, in and out of relationships.  So…Satan has us all trying to strive to be like a certain group of people who are no happier than we are! 

And the second thing is this, how boring would this world be if we all ended up being the same anyway?  In other words, diversity is a good thing. God creates diversity on purpose, and for a reason.  All of us with our diverse skin colors, facial features, and bodily physiques are made in the image of God and a beautiful display of who He is in our world today!  And our diverse personalities and giftings & abilities are all given to us by Him and meant to be different for a reason!

Here's what Paul says in Romans 12:4,

4 For just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, 5 so in Christ we, though many, form one body, and each member belongs to all the others. 6 We have different gifts, according to the grace given to each of us.

We are meant to be a diverse group of people who form one Body with Jesus Christ being the Head in order to build each other up and accomplish His Kingdom purposes here on earth. 

So, we should celebrate our uniqueness.  We should be content with who we are and who God made us to be because God loves us as we are and finds worth in our diversity.  And we should celebrate the uniqueness of others because God created them the way they are for a reason, and He finds value and worth in them, just the way they are too.

And so, I think seeing these kinds of things in Scripture…seeing the truth about diversity being a good thing, part of God’s design…seeing the truth about the way He views you over the way you view yourself is a good thing.  It should ELEVATE THE VIEW YOU HAVE OF YOURSELF IF YOU FIND YOURSELF STRUGGLING WITH A LOW SELF IMAGE.

But here’s the other thing that I want you to see…I just read Romans 12:4-6 to you but I didn’t read the verse that came right before it.  Look at verse 3

3 For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the faith God has distributed to each of you.

 See, here is the danger in the message that I am giving right now.  It is truth, and we should celebrate who God created us to be, but Satan loves to twist that truth just a hair. 

And here is what we’ll find ourselves doing with a message like this…we’ll start to celebrate ourselves too much.  We will start to make our lives all about self-image, and all of a sudden we start to think too highly of ourselves. 

In other words, if Satan can’t keep us from feeling too lowly of ourselves and not measuring up to the ideal standard in society, he will take us to the other end of the spectrum where we think we are better than others…or where our focus is just always on ourselves and using our image to justify ourselves.

And here’s the problem with either extreme, whether it’s too low of a self-image or too high of a self image…the focus is on us!  We constantly focus on us not being good enough or we constantly think about how good we are.  And that is not where our focus was ever meant to be!

Over and over again Scripture tells us to keep our focus on God, who we are in Him, not in and of ourselves. 

Hebrews 12:2…2 fix our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith…

Col. 3:2…2 Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things…

and even the verse right before all of what we’ve read in Romans 12 today…12:2…2 Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.

The renewing of our mind happens when we are focused on Christ and not this world…when we are focused on Him and not us…when we are focused on His truth and not our own or what Satan is whispering in our ears.

And with the focus on Him, we find our worth…that He loves us, that He created us, that we are fearfully and wonderfully made just the way we are…with our focus on Him we will not think too lowly of ourselves. 

BUT also, with our focus on Him, we won’t be moved to think too highly of ourselves…how could we?  I mean if He is the One who created us, then we only look the way we do because of Him, we only have the abilities we have because He gave them to us…so it causes us to be content with who we are and make ourselves available to Him to use for whatever purposes He created us for.

And so, listen, if the struggle is real in your life in regard to self image or body image, let’s talk for a minute about what we just unpacked in Scripture and what that practically might mean for you today…

So, first, maybe the struggle is real because you don’t have Jesus in your life.  Listen, without Him, you will always be struggling to find meaning and purpose in regard to your image and well, really everything else. 

See, when you put your faith in Jesus’ finished work on the cross to forgive your sin and put you in a relationship with God, the Bible says that you become a new creation…that you are transformed and changed from the old you into a new you.  Now you still have the same body, you still have the same personality and natural talents, but you become completely forgiven, you become righteous and holy, and the power of sin in your life is broken. 

You become the YOU that God always intended you to be but that you could never really be without Him in your life because of sin.  And so maybe the step God is asking you to take today is to say yes to Jesus, and then to begin allowing Him to shape the way you think of yourself and guide you in the direction of life that He created just for you in His family.  If so, I’m going to give you an opportunity to receive Him and take that step today in just a little bit.

But if you are here today and you’ve already said yes to Jesus, you have been made a new creation in Christ and you are still struggling with self-image, with body image, then the first thing to ask yourself is “Do I have a proper view of myself according to Scripture?” 

In other words, maybe the step for you today is to fix the view you have of yourself by renewing your mind, owning these truths we talked about today.  We act out of what we believe. 

If you have always believed your worth is tied to the way you look compared to others, the way you perform compared to others then your life will revolve around making your body look a certain way or trying to outperform others with your personality or abilities.  So, maybe spend some time going back through Psalm 139 and repeating it over and over.  Or doing a study on your identity being found in Christ is an action step for you today if this is new to you.

But for those of us who this isn’t the first time we’ve heard this…we know we are fearfully and wonderfully made, we know who we are in Christ, we know these truths, but we still struggle with this…Know that because of the world we live in and how good of a job Satan has done in creating a culture around us, who sets ideal standards for beauty and worth…even if we know something else is true, it is going to be so easy to lose sight of that and chase after what the rest of the world is chasing after.  So here are a couple of action steps…

#1, make sure that you are involved in biblical community.  Satan works primarily when we get alone and isolated from other Christians.  Stay plugged into biblical community and the help that they can be to you and the help that you can be to them in keeping each other focused on Christ and the life we have in Him.

#2, make sure that you are regularly immersing yourself in God’s truth.  Your mind can’t be renewed if you are never reading your Bible.

#3, put limits on environments that you know Satan has used in your life to trick you into thinking too lowly or too highly of yourself.  If you find yourself on social media and feeling inferior or lacking worth or if you find yourself judging others and exalting yourself over them…then stop looking at social media or at least put limits on it. And the same goes for any other environment.

So listen, Satan will always be working to make this a struggle in our lives until the day we die and go see Jesus, but remember that if you are in Christ, He has broken the power that sin used to hold in your life and you can find victory in Him as you turn to Him, renew your mind in Him, and make yourself available to Him.

So these are several things Jesus may be saying to each one of you today, but what about US?  See, I think there is an “us” to this as well… what it says to us as a church family.  “How are we creating a culture that adds to this struggle or makes it easier?”

Our culture can add to the struggle when we put an emphasis on dress code (“you better make Jesus proud of you by how you look!”)…we can add to the struggle when we create a culture that says “it’s not okay to be real…project your image and hide behind it.”  But we can help make this less of a struggle when we say, “come as you are,” and when we lead the way with authenticity and real-life talk about our struggles.