Sermon Illustrations on selfishness
Background
From We to Me
Over the next few years I collected data to suggest that we have seen a broad shift from a culture of humility to the culture of what you might call the Big Me, from a culture that encouraged people to think humbly of themselves to a culture that encouraged people to see themselves as the center of the universe. It wasn’t hard to find such data. For example, between 1948 and 1954, psychologists asked more than 10,000 adolescents whether they considered themselves to be a very important person. At that point, 12 percent said yes.
The same question was revisited in 1989, and this time it wasn’t 12 percent who considered themselves very important, it was 80 percent of boys and 77 percent of girls. Psychologists have a thing called the narcissism test. They read people statements and ask if the statements apply to them. Statements such as “I like to be the center of attention…I show off if I get the chance because I am extraordinary…Somebody should write a biography about me.”
The median narcissism score has risen 30 percent in the last two decades. Ninety-three percent of young people score higher than the middle score just twenty years ago.4 The largest gains have been in the number of people who agree with the statements “I am an extraordinary person” and “I like to look at my body.”
If Life is a Competition
If a man is forever concerned first and foremost with his own interests then he is bound to collide with others. If for any man life is a competition…then he will always think of other human beings as enemies, or at least as opponents who must be pushed out of the way…and the object of life becomes not to help others up but to push them down.
The Meaning of Entitlement
Entitlement is a hot topic today. The root word entitled means exactly what it says—to give someone a title or a right. It used to be reserved for the wealthy and the privileged, based upon economics or status, but now it seems to have shifted to human nature and our rights—the “feeling or belief that you deserve to be given something.” We live in a culture that is obsessed with the right to have what we want, whether we’ve earned it or not.
Taking Selfishness Seriously
In 1976, Richard Dawkins claimed in his bestselling book The Selfish Gene that we can’t expect humans to be anything but selfish: “We are survival machines—robot vehicles blindly programmed to preserve the selfish molecules known as genes.”
…One of Dawkins’s fans was Enron CEO Jeffrey Skilling, who pulled off the largest accounting and corporate fraud ever, resulting in shareholders losing $74 billion. Skilling said his favorite book was Dawkins’s The Selfish Gene, which was in the evolutionary spirit of Darwin’s theory of natural selection.
Even though Darwin was by all accounts a kindhearted man, his theory ultimately inspired some controversial philosophical and political positions, such as social Darwinism and eugenics. Social Darwinism. The late-nineteenth-century English professor Herbert Spencer coined the phrase “survival of the fittest,” because he saw natural selection as “red in tooth and claw,” a brutal description of the competition for scant resources. He didn’t value protecting the weak. If more weak people died, more beautiful, healthy, strong, and smart people could thrive. Spencer believed this would improve the condition of humanity over time.
Richard Lui, Enough About Me: The Unexpected Power of Selflessness, Zondervan, 2021.
When Life Goes Wrong
One of life’s enduring mysteries is that you don’t have to do anything wrong for your life to go horribly wrong. When we are abused, rejected, hurt, betrayed, or manipulated, we search our hearts and minds, wondering what we did wrong. Maybe you did things to open or close doors, but it is not your fault.
People make choices and they hurt us, but it’s not our fault. Don’t take it personally. I know it sounds ridiculous, but it’s profoundly true. When a man breaks up with a woman and says, “It’s not you, it’s me,” unconsciously he’s being outrageously honest.
The drunk who says, “I wasn’t thinking” isn’t lying. She wasn’t thinking about her husband and children. The man who cheats on his wife and says he didn’t think about how it would affect his wife and children isn’t lying. When we get in these self-destructive places, we are so self-absorbed that we don’t think of anyone or anything else. That’s why they call it selfishness.
Matthew Kelly, Life is Messy, Blue Sparrow.
Stories
It’s My Life!
In Redeeming Productivity, Reagan Rose tells his own story to illustrate the two ways in which the idea that “it’s my life” leads to two very different and disordered outlooks on productivity. When he started college he was “overweight, addicted to video games, and without purpose or ambition in the world.” [1] He had concluded that, because it was his life, he could live it how he liked. And he liked Halo 3 and Flaming Hot Cheetos. Productivity didn’t matter.
However, he later transferred schools and decided to reinvent himself: “I decided I was going to get As, start eating healthy, get in shape, and really be someone.” [1] He began to become obsessed with productivity—and it worked. But in spite of external progress, he was “drinking theological poison.” [1] Everything he was doing assumed that “it’s my life.” It was about him getting happier, more successful, and wealthier.
This isn’t the right way for Christians to think about productivity. Our lives belong to God. [1]
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- Regan Rose and Tim Challies, Redeeming Productivity: Getting More Done for the Glory of God, Moody Publishers, 2022. Please see this book as an excellent resource on reclaiming productivity for God.
Summary by William Rowley
Meals in Heaven and Hell
I once heard a description of what meals are like in heaven. The saints are seated on either side of a four-foot-wide banquet table. The table is set with delicious foods on every plate. The only thing that appears out of the ordinary is the silverware. All the utensils have three-foot-long handles. The dinnertime rule is that everyone must eat using the long forks and spoons. Amazingly, the dining room in hell is designed exactly the same.
What makes heaven heavenly and hell hellish? In heaven, the diners immediately set about feeding their brothers and sisters across the table using the perfectly proportioned utensils, while in hell each person rages at the ill-fitting utensils as they attempt the impossible task of feeding themselves.
Our relationships to what we eat and to each other are important here on earth. We humans have the ability to eat a highly varied diet. We can eat fungi, mollusks, birds, grains, fermented foods, nuts, insects, flowers, tree sap, bees’ honey, fish, eggs, cow’s milk, and plant roots.
Who figured out that the bark on one tree made cinnamon and the bark of another made poison? We will never know. Our relationship to food is vital. Food is not an option. It is a necessity we can merely eat our fill, or we can be nourished. We can choose foods that are good for us or ones that do us long-term harm. Our choice of diets can encourage sustainable, ethical farming, or we can support agriculture that is out of sync with long-term planetary and human health.
Mine! Mine!
Do you remember those birds in Finding Nemo? They get me every time. As they fight for what’s on the ground, they are flying around screaming, “Mine! Mine! Mine!” Never has Disney nailed a picture of the selfish human condition better than in that little scene.
Sadly, we do the same thing. Our tendency is to fly around screaming, “Mine! Mine! Mine!” We do that with our ideas, our projects, our ministries, and our roles. Choosing positivity forces us to recognize that whatever we have has been given to us as gifts to develop.
Clay Scroggins, How to Lead When You’re Not in Charge, Zondervan, 2017.
Studies
From We to Me
Over the next few years I collected data to suggest that we have seen a broad shift from a culture of humility to the culture of what you might call the Big Me, from a culture that encouraged people to think humbly of themselves to a culture that encouraged people to see themselves as the center of the universe. It wasn’t hard to find such data. For example, between 1948 and 1954, psychologists asked more than 10,000 adolescents whether they considered themselves to be a very important person. At that point, 12 percent said yes.
The same question was revisited in 1989, and this time it wasn’t 12 percent who considered themselves very important, it was 80 percent of boys and 77 percent of girls. Psychologists have a thing called the narcissism test. They read people statements and ask if the statements apply to them. Statements such as “I like to be the center of attention…I show off if I get the chance because I am extraordinary…Somebody should write a biography about me.”
The median narcissism score has risen 30 percent in the last two decades. Ninety-three percent of young people score higher than the middle score just twenty years ago.4 The largest gains have been in the number of people who agree with the statements “I am an extraordinary person” and “I like to look at my body.”
Studying the Selfish-Selfless Spectrum
Researchers at the University of Kentucky and University of Central Florida who explored the neurobiology of the selfish-selfless spectrum found that most of us are neither extremely selfish (which results in becoming aggressive psychopaths) nor extremely selfless (which results in becoming zealous altruists).
Most of us are between these extremes, moving closer to one side or the other on the spectrum depending on the circumstances. When it comes to selfishness and selflessness, it turns out we’re not static, nor are we incapable of moving toward one end or the other.1 Breaking stories often prove out this fluidity, as they often include someone on the psychopath end of the spectrum who has done something extremely selfish; the answer to that are the altruists who step up and remind us there are amazing people ready to act, to call a halt to the actions of those who epitomize selfishness.
Richard Lui, Enough About Me: The Unexpected Power of Selflessness, Zondervan, 2021.
Analogies
Meals in Heaven and Hell
I once heard a description of what meals are like in heaven. The saints are seated on either side of a four-foot-wide banquet table. The table is set with delicious foods on every plate. The only thing that appears out of the ordinary is the silverware. All the utensils have three-foot-long handles. The dinnertime rule is that everyone must eat using the long forks and spoons. Amazingly, the dining room in hell is designed exactly the same.
What makes heaven heavenly and hell hellish? In heaven, the diners immediately set about feeding their brothers and sisters across the table using the perfectly proportioned utensils, while in hell each person rages at the ill-fitting utensils as they attempt the impossible task of feeding themselves.
Our relationships to what we eat and to each other are important here on earth. We humans have the ability to eat a highly varied diet. We can eat fungi, mollusks, birds, grains, fermented foods, nuts, insects, flowers, tree sap, bees’ honey, fish, eggs, cow’s milk, and plant roots.
Who figured out that the bark on one tree made cinnamon and the bark of another made poison? We will never know. Our relationship to food is vital. Food is not an option. It is a necessity we can merely eat our fill, or we can be nourished. We can choose foods that are good for us or ones that do us long-term harm. Our choice of diets can encourage sustainable, ethical farming, or we can support agriculture that is out of sync with long-term planetary and human health.
Humor
Mine! Mine!
Do you remember those birds in Finding Nemo? They get me every time. As they fight for what’s on the ground, they are flying around screaming, “Mine! Mine! Mine!” Never has Disney nailed a picture of the selfish human condition better than in that little scene.
Sadly, we do the same thing. Our tendency is to fly around screaming, “Mine! Mine! Mine!” We do that with our ideas, our projects, our ministries, and our roles. Choosing positivity forces us to recognize that whatever we have has been given to us as gifts to develop.
Clay Scroggins, How to Lead When You’re Not in Charge, Zondervan, 2017.
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