Know Thyself!

*** As we do every year, we will be breaking from the blog for a month after our April 3 post. Look for more content in May.

Three quotes today (all for the same price) based on Romans 12:3-4,

“For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned.”

In my sermon on this passage (which you can listen to here) I said this, or something similar, (The quotations are from my sermon notes which have sources behind them so don't be surprised if you hear echoes of a commentary or two.)

“Paul tells us first to avoid thinking of ourselves more highly than we ought to think. The danger here is pride and self-centeredness; becoming egocentric. We need to look no further than the social media with which our culture is consumed to see exactly this attitude. It is the attitude of the self-focused. But our culture is not unique in its emphasis. Ever since the fall of humanity into sin, every single person has a tendency to see life as centering around ourselves. Because of our sinful and self-centered orientation, we see ourselves as the most important person in the world. Set in the context of our faith, it is tempting for us to believe that everything God is doing must be seen in light of our own current situation. We evaluate what God is doing in terms of the benefit in it for us. And in the context of this passage we have the tendency to see the church in general and the people in it as those who should be meeting our felt needs. They exist for us but not the other way around. But Paul exhorts us not to do this. The renewed mind realizes it is human sin which creates this self-centered perspective. Thus we must strive to see ourselves in light of God’s larger purposes, since those purposes inevitably include others. While each one of us have dignity and value b/c we are created in the image of God and because we have been redeemed by Christ, nevertheless we must see ourselves “with a proper sense of proportion.” (cf Morris) The world does not center around me!”

Then I said,

“But there is an opposite problem to avoid. Paul also does not want us to have a false humility; to think too lowly of ourselves. Paul does not call for humility in opposition of a prideful perspective of ourselves but a true evaluation of who we are in light of what God has done for us in Jesus Christ. In other contexts Paul will call for us to be humble the way Christ was, think Philippians 2, but here he tells us to think of ourselves “with sober judgment.” To be sober means to be level-headed, accurate, completely in touch with reality. In the context of personal evaluation it means that we are able to evaluate ourselves in a realistic, clear-headed, manner.” (cf Keller)

So how do we do that? How do we see ourselves in the proper manner? Now for quote #3 from a much, much wiser man than myself, John Calvin,

“Without knowledge of self, there is no knowledge of God. Our wisdom, insofar as it ought to be deemed true and solid wisdom, consists almost entirely of two parts: the knowledge of God and of ourselves. But as these are connected by many ties, it is not easy to determine which of the two precedes and gives birth to the other.”

Institutes of the Christian Religion, 1.1

Calvin’s answer to our question is simple -- to know yourself properly, whether Christian or not, you must see yourself in light of who God is. Once you know God you will know yourself. When you know God you will find sober judgment of yourself.

Soli Deo Gloria