Series: June 2025
Speaker: Rob McClellan
Today's Sermon
"Looking for Self In All The Wrong Places"
Matthew 16:24-25
24 Then Jesus told his disciples, ‘If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. 25For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.
In All the Wrong Places
Imagine yourself approached by someone who trusts you – a friend, loved one. They’re just not happy, can’t really find meaning, depressed even. In addition to advising them to get appropriate professional help, you might encourage them to take care of themselves. I say that to folks. Practice self-care. Treat yourself to a spa day.
All of that is certainly gentler than what Jesus says to his followers. Self-care? Deny yourself. Hate your life as we heard last week. Maybe Jesus is simply a demanding spiritual teacher who knows his path will weed out many lukewarm followers.
I think Jesus knows where people often turn for fulfilment is hollow. We often talk about life as about finding oneself. We are starting a short series on looking for self in all the wrong places because so often we do. You could build a list of places we look as well as I. Substances? Unhealthy relationships? Certain forms of achievement?
One place we mistakenly look for ourselves is in the mirror. We look in the mirror a lot, metaphorically and literally. I work out at a little gym out in Fairfax, populated certain times of the day by high school kids and man do they look in the mirror a lot. I genuinely worry for their self-image because they seem obsessed. It’s not just youth. Self-improvement is big business. According to market researcher, John LaRosa, in 2022 self-improvement was a $13.4 billion industry in the U.S. Apps such Noom, Headspace, and Calm account for over $400 million a year,[1]and these things, in and of themselves, are fine. It’s nice to have tools. Some of you really should find ways to give your own needs a little more attention. I’m all for that. Self-care, however, has undergone quite a devolution.
Let’s remember where the concept came from. The self-care movement was founded by women of color on the front lines of the Civil Rights struggle who had to find ways to heal from the wounds inflicted on them by an unjust and violent society. It’s become a marketing tool for products, a tagline for pastors wanting to please their parishioners, but it has justice roots and it has evolving justice implications. How many people can’t afford basic care, much less the luxury of what we call self-care?
Do you think we’re doing well at finding ourselves? Insofar as it would make us happy, it appears not. According to the happiness index, one metric, in 2024 the U.S. ranked 23rd.[2] In 2025, in the world happiness report, the U.S. had its lowest ranking ever at 24th.[3]Say what you will about these survey metrics, recognize the complexity of factors, but it’s hard to claim the way we’re doing it in the wider culture is working very well.
Amid the complexity, one simplicity stands out: When we obsess about ourselves, we find neither happiness nor our true selves, and we won’t find Jesus there either. Life is not about carving out the biggest best slice of the pie. You want to find happiness, who you truly are, try focusing on someone else’s needs for a change, and I know some of you have only done that, have always put others’ needs ahead of your own. You don’t have to listen to me. For the rest of us, a surefire recipe for depression is to make ourselves the center of our lives. It’s also a recipe for societal sickness, the kind that allows us to cut aid to the poorest in the world, including children, and take from the poorest right here to give to those who already have the most. You can keep you the center. You just can’t do that and follow Jesus, and I also don’t think you can do that and feel much true joy, not superficial happiness, but true, deep joy. Show me the counter example and I’ll stand corrected.
I think Jesus knows there is a better place to focus one’s energy. He ought to, he was schooled in the prophets who knew the same. Consider what Isaiah said, expanding on this theme.
if you offer your food to the hungry
and satisfy the needs of the afflicted,
then your light shall rise in the darkness
and your gloom be like the noonday.
The Lord will guide you continually,
and satisfy your needs in parched places,
and make your bones strong;
and you shall be like a watered garden,
like a spring of water,
whose waters never fail (Isaiah 58:10-11)
You want to rid yourself of the gloom, make someone else’s day brighter. You know this to be true, any of you who have engaged in charitable work. There’s no better feeling than to help someone else, contribute to something greater, to follow the way of Christ with the tools you’ve been given. I’m not telling you to dismiss your own mental and physical wellbeing; I am telling you that both will be served by caring for what is beyond you. I think we get this, on one level, interpersonally. What if we understand the same would be true if we got that collectively?
So, put yourself back in that scenario. Someone is down. They’ve lost their way. There’s no meaning, no joy. Recommend a spa day…but not for them, for someone else. Take them and say, let’s go make someone else’s day. Let’s go work at the food bank. Let’s go volunteer at the animal shelter. Let’s get involved advocating for a cause that will make our communities better. Don’t take my word for it. Do it and then you see what it does. If you want to find yourself, you have to stop looking in the wrong place, the mirror. Instead, find a deeper reflection, as Jesus did, in the eyes of another.
Amen.
[1]https://blog.marketresearch.com/self-improvement-market-recovers-from-the-pandemic-worth-13.4-billion-in-the-u.s
[2]https://www.theglobaleconomy.com/rankings/happiness/)/
[3]https://www.cnn.com/travel/worlds-happiest-countries-2025-wellness