Sermon Illustrations on self-deception
Background
The Danger of Trusting Yourself
Over the years, I’ve read about many leaders who failed ethically in their leadership. Can you guess what they had in common? They all thought it could never happen to them. There was a false sense of security. They thought they were incapable of ruining their lives and the lives of others. Learning that was very sobering to me, because I shared the same attitude. I thought I was above such possibilities, and that scared me. At that moment, I made two decisions: First, I will not trust myself. Second, I will become accountable to someone other than myself. I believe those decisions have helped to keep me on track and able to lead myself and others. Lack of accountability in our personal life will certainly lead to problems in our public life. We saw that time and time again with high-profile CEOs a few years ago. A Chinese proverb says,“When you see a good man, think of emulating him; when you see a bad man, examine your heart.”
John Maxwell, The Toughest Person To Lead Is Always Yourself (Thomas Nelson, 2012)
The Fictions We Live
The simple truth of our being gets lost in the metanarratives we spin. We become the fictions we live. Consequently, our way of being in the world is so false and unnatural that our presence is thoroughly ambiguous.
It is no wonder that we find the presence of most people so clouded as to be not worth noticing, and it is no wonder that a truly unclouded presence is so luminous and so compellingly noteworthy!
I’m Great at What I Do
I’m a college professor — I have been for almost a decade. I work reasonably hard at my job, and I think I do it fairly well. In fact, in my honest and solitary moments, when there’s no occasion false humility, I’d say I’m a better-than-average teacher.
I’m in good company. A recent study revealed that 94 percent of the people who do what I do think they’re doing a better-than average job. And it’s not just college professors. “A survey of one million high-school seniors found that 70 percent thought they were above average in leadership ability, and only 2 percent thought they were below average.”
In terms of ability to get along with others, all students thought they were above average, 60 percent thought they were in the top 10 percent, and 25 percent thought they were in the top 1 percent!”’ Clearly, a lot of people are wrong about how they stack up in comparison with their peers.
Fortunately, I’m not one of them. Am I?
Greg Ten Elsof, I Told Me So: Self-Deception and the Christian Life, Eerdmans, 2009.
Stories
Elephants Chains and Self-Limiting Beliefs
Have you ever wondered how people keep elephants, whether at a circus or as means of transport throughout Asia, from throwing off their shackles and marching to their own tune? A single metal chain is wrapped around one foot and fastened to a tiny post is able to hold them in place. Any elephant held in place like this could easily rip the stake out of the ground and be on their merry way. But they don’t, and so their caretakers can comfortably leave these giants chained up as long as necessary, even though a simple pull of the chain would grant them instant freedom.
So why do these massive creatures allow themselves to be chained up so easily? The answer, it turns out, has everything to do with the way these elephants are raised. You see, when they are young, their trainers begin tying them up, and at that age, they will pull and pull but without success. Eventually the trainer gets the elephants to accept their chains and for most of them, that’s the end of the story.
Except…when it’s not. Occasionally, an elephant will become so agitated that it will pull hard on the stake and its chains will immediately be released. The chains of an elephant provide an apt analogy for our lives. We often develop, either internally or from others, “limiting beliefs.” Limiting beliefs keep us bound to ways of life that are either unhealthy or unhelpful. But occasionally, something might cause us to throw off our shackles, lose our limiting beliefs, and pursue a life of flourishing
Stuart Strachan Jr.
The Snake in the Cell
John O’Donahue, in his book, Walking in Wonder, shares a story from India that is thousands of years old, but just as relevant today as it was back then. It’s about a man who was forced to spend a night in a cell with a poisonous snake. Any movement, even the smallest stirring, would cause the snake to strike with a lethal bite. The man convinced himself the best course of action was to stand in the corner of the cell, as far away from the snake as possible, as still as humanly possible. So the man stayed awake all night, huddled in the corner, praying that he would not arouse the poisonous snake and meet an early end.
As dawn began to settle on the cell, the man began to make out the shape of the snake, and he was relieved that he had stayed so still for such a long period of time. But as the light began to more fully illuminate the room, something strange became evident: the snake was no snake at all, just an old rope.
The point of the story is clear: there are many rooms in our minds where ropes, not snakes exist. These snakes keep us from fully living, entrapped as we are by the fear of being stricken. We become prisoners of our own making. The solution is not to merely protect ourselves, but to face the dangers head on, so that we can experience the fullness of life Jesus offers us in his Word.
Stuart Strachan, Source material from John O’Donahue, Walking in Wonder: Eternal Wisdom for a Modern World (Convergent Books, 2018).
Analogies
Elephants Chains and Self-Limiting Beliefs
Have you ever wondered how people keep elephants, whether at a circus or as means of transport throughout Asia, from throwing off their shackles and marching to their own tune? A single metal chain is wrapped around one foot and fastened to a tiny post is able to hold them in place. Any elephant held in place like this could easily rip the stake out of the ground and be on their merry way. But they don’t, and so their caretakers can comfortably leave these giants chained up as long as necessary, even though a simple pull of the chain would grant them instant freedom.
So why do these massive creatures allow themselves to be chained up so easily? The answer, it turns out, has everything to do with the way these elephants are raised. You see, when they are young, their trainers begin tying them up, and at that age, they will pull and pull but without success. Eventually the trainer gets the elephants to accept their chains and for most of them, that’s the end of the story.
Except…when it’s not. Occasionally, an elephant will become so agitated that it will pull hard on the stake and its chains will immediately be released. The chains of an elephant provide an apt analogy for our lives. We often develop, either internally or from others, “limiting beliefs.” Limiting beliefs keep us bound to ways of life that are either unhealthy or unhelpful. But occasionally, something might cause us to throw off our shackles, lose our limiting beliefs, and pursue a life of flourishing
Stuart Strachan Jr.
Humor
Only The Symptoms Remain
At university, I knew a guy called Captain Scarlet (nicknamed after the lead puppet in a cult TV series to which he bore a striking resemblance). The Captain was the only nineteen-year-old I’ve ever known who viewed televangelists as aspirational role models. He was about as positive about positive thinking as it is possible to be.
One day, the Captain told me that he had been miraculously healed of a serious back complaint. I tried to give him a hug but he screamed. “I thought you’d been healed?” I said. “Oh I have,” he insisted, grinning furiously. “It’s only the symptoms that remain.”
Pete Greig, God on Mute: Engaging the Silence of Unanswered Prayer, Zondervan, 2020.
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