Healing the Unaffirmed Soul [Part 1]

Pastor, author, and Bible teacher, Alan Wright. Because of what he's done for you in Christ, you can be assured today that you are of infinite worth to God. You are of infinite worth to God, whether you've lived a good life or you've lived a bad life, where you've been happy this week or sad this week, whether you are a kind person or an unkind person, you are of infinite worth to God.

That's Pastor Alan Wright. Welcome to another message of good news that will help you see your life in a whole new light. I'm Daniel Britt, excited for you to hear today's message in a series titled The Power of Blessing as presented at Reynolda Church in North Carolina. If you're not able to stay with us throughout the entire program, I want to make sure you know how to get our special resource right now. It can be yours for your donation this month to Alan Wright Ministries.

As you listen to today's message, go deeper as we send you today's special offer. Contact us at PastorAlan.org. That's PastorAlan.org or call 877-544-4860.

That's 877-544-4860. More on that later in the program. But right now, let's get started with today's teaching in the series Praying with Power. Here is Alan Wright. Are you ready for some good news? You are to God an infinite treasure, and he wants you to know that. And this is how he's founded his world through the power of blessing that is affirming in a positive way who you are, what your future is. Because of what he's done for you in Christ, you can be assured today that you are of infinite worth to God. You are of infinite worth to God.

Whether you've lived a good life, whether you've lived a bad life, whether you've been happy this week or sad this week, whether you are a kind person or an unkind person, you are of infinite worth to God. There was a legendary story some years ago of a bandit, a Mexican bandit who was stealing treasure and gold, and he could just never be caught until finally some of the Texans called in a renowned marshal who came in with sleuth-like detective work and discovered the little sleepy hideout town of this bandit. And sure enough, went and found him there in an old saloon, and he said, aha, I have caught you. And he says, he held him at gunpoint, he said, I demand that you give the exact location of where you've hidden the treasure or else. And the Mexican bandit just stood there because he didn't understand English. So thankfully, there was another man in the saloon who stood up and he said, I speak Spanish, I speak English. He said, would you like for me to translate for you?

And the marshal said, absolutely. And he turned to the bandit, he said, all right, the man says you have to tell him exactly where that treasure is or he's going to shoot you right now. And so scared and realizing that his gig was up, the bandit told the exact location of where the treasure was hidden.

And the marshal looked at the translator and said, well, what did he say? The translator said, he said, he has no idea where the treasure is. Sometimes there's a treasure and it's really there, but its whereabouts and its existence gets lost in translation. That really is the plight of the unaffirmed soul. The life that is not regularly blessed and affirmed is left as a treasure that has not been identified. And I want to speak to you today about how the unaffirmed soul is changed and healed. I think we're at a point in the series where, you know, surely somebody's beginning to say, okay, I'm getting it about blessing. It's a wonderful power of grace that is released as we agree with God for the well-being and the positive future that God has in mind for his children and the affirmation of who we are.

And I see how powerful that is. But what do you do if you haven't received that? What if you do if you just have either grown up that way or even are in an environment right now where you're just you're not receiving that kind of affirmation?

What do you do about that? And that's what I want to talk to you about today. And if you are one of those people that you have grown up in a household where you were regularly praised and people are always telling you how proud they are of you, speaking blessing over you, announcing positive things over your life, treasuring you, being your ally, and you've grown up that way and been surrounded by that kind of affirmation, then hallelujah, you must be listening today not so much for your own healing as you'll be listening to see how you could help somebody else. But for the other 99 percent of us, let's all turn to Genesis chapter 37 for a timeless story about some brothers that were not affirmed while one brother was. It's the story of Joseph and his brothers, a story that I turn to often in my own prayer and meditative life, and one that I turn to often in preaching because of the picture that we get here of what happens when someone is affirmed and then others are not. And we're going to see the contrast, and we're going to see some of the tender places of what happens, what goes on in the soul when that soul has not been affirmed or blessed. And then we're going to see what happens in order to transform and heal that.

And we'll pray today, and we'll pray for one another, and we'll speak blessing over one another. This is Genesis chapter 37. Jacob lived in the land of his father's sojournings in the land of Canaan, and these are the generations of Jacob. Joseph, being 17 years old, was pastoring the flock with his brothers. He was a boy with the sons of Bilhah and Zilpah, his father's wives.

Let me pause here just to make sure we lay this groundwork to say what happened was Jacob who was the conniver that stole his brother's blessing. Jacob fell in love with a woman named Rachel, but somehow inadvertently married Leah and then later married Rachel. And then each of those, Leah and Rachel, they had these maidservants Bilhah and Zilpah, and they bore children also to Jacob. So you have a messed up household here, and too many of them were married. And too many women, and it's not working out that great.

So there's already problems in this dysfunctional home. And Joseph was, at this point in the story, he's the only one born to Rachel who was the true love of Jacob. So Joseph brought, at the end of verse 2, Joseph brought a bad report of them to their father.

Now Israel, that's the new name for Jacob. Israel and Jacob are the same person. Israel loved Joseph more than any of his sons because he was the son of his old age, and he made him a robe of many colors. But when his brothers saw that their father loved him more than all his brothers, they hated him and could not speak peacefully to him. Now Joseph had a dream, and when he told it to his brothers, they hated him even more.

We'll be looking at more of the story as we go along, but you can see the setting here of what has happened is that there is a sin pattern in this family of showing favoritism to one child over the other. Jacob was actually the favored child by his mother, but Jacob's brother Esau had been favored, we're told plainly in the scripture, had been favored by their father Isaac. So Jacob had received firsthand what it was like to have his father really love his brother more than him. And now, instead of saying, boy, I'll never do that with my kids, here he's doing it in even a grander way because he not only just makes it plain that he just loves Joseph, he just he spends time with Joseph, he praises Joseph, he affirms Joseph. It's obvious he loves Joseph, who was born to Rachel, the love of his life. And the other boys, we don't really know all the ways that they're neglected, but they don't receive this affirmation. He makes this special coat for Joseph and the brothers see all this and they are, they become increasingly outraged because he's loved and affirmed and we're not loved and affirmed.

And this leads into the conflict that we'll be looking at today and take a look at it. So the fact of the matter is that these brothers of Joseph, these 10 older brothers, they are loved by God in exactly the same way Joseph is loved by God. One of the most important things you could ever understand about what the Bible means, it says God is love. You see, God loves every single human being and He doesn't love one more and one less. And He doesn't love according to your giftedness or even your obedience. He just loves Him.

He just loves. And you must understand that this is the beginning point of understanding who you are as a human being. You were created in the image of God. And the Bible says you were fearfully and wonderfully made. There is so much at stake in believing that you were made by a benevolent omniscient being who is utterly good and who made you in His own image. That's Alan Wright and we'll have more teaching in a moment from today's important series.

That's Alan Wright and we'll have more teaching in a moment from today's important series. Before God commanded Adam and Eve to be fruitful, He blessed them. Before God called Abraham to father a nation, He blessed him. Before God released his son into ministry, He blessed him.

Why? Because blessing is God's secret strategy to empower you to be all He made you to be. When others affirm you, most of the time it's because you've proven your worth.

Maybe you did well on a test, accomplished a goal, or proved yourself competent. Such affirmation is nice, but it's not the way of God. God's strategy is to declare your worth before you have done anything to prove it. In the kingdom of God, blessing is the fuel for your productivity, not the reward for it. Maybe you need your heart to be healed from old wounds caused by others withholding their blessing, or maybe you're ready to shatter that invisible ceiling that keeps you from soaring. Either way, Pastor Alan writes, the power of blessing will change your life. Change how you interact with others as you discover the ancient skill of the Hebrew patriarchs as they bless their children. Learn how to tune your heart to accept blessing and reject curse.

Most of all, drink in the unquenchable blessing of God in Jesus Christ. Get motivated God's way with Alan Wright's seven message CD album, The Power of Blessing. When you make your gift to Alan Wright Ministries today, we'll send you Pastor Alan's messages in an attractive CD album or through digital download as our way of saying thanks for your partnership. The gospel is shared when you give to Alan Wright Ministries. This broadcast is only possible because of listener financial support. When you give today, we will send you today's special offer. We are happy to send this to you as our thanks from Alan Wright Ministries.

Call us at 877-544-4860. Today's teaching now continues. Here once again is Alan Wright. To think in the spirit of the age that you're made simply by accident or coincidence over a long period of time is to leave anyone who believes that with no sense that there's something that is absolutely magnificent about who you are. But the beginning of all biblical theology is that God is good and God is love. And He made this creation as an expression of His own beauty and His own love.

And He made you, the Bible says, a little lower than the angels. And what I want you to understand is that whether Joseph's brothers were good guys or bad guys or whether they sinned or not, God loved them every bit as much as He loved Joseph. And the irony of this story starts very early on, is that when Joseph has a dream that seems to imply that his brothers will one day bow down to him, they immediately start assuming that Joseph is trying to Lord this over them. But in fact of matter, this is a dream about how God is going to show His love to these brothers. It is a story about God showing His saving providential redemptive grace to people who do not deserve it.

That's what this story ends up being about. And yet they can't see that at this point. So as soon as they are left unaffirmed by their father, they begin to draw conclusions. They draw conclusions about Joseph and conclusions about themselves and conclusions about God that are absolutely incorrect. In other words, for everything that I have to say to you today about how it is that you grow and how it is that you live out of destiny, and how it is that you have faith, and how you have joy in this world despite difficult circumstances, it begins with this, to understand that whether or not it has been acknowledged by the world around you, you are an infinite treasure to God.

And to think anything less than that is an insult to the Almighty because He made you in His own image. And even if you have been stained and marred and no one has ever told you or affirmed to you what a treasure you are, it does not change the fact that you are of infinite worth in the heart of God. I love these shows and things that are about people where they find a piece of, you know, there's like a junk piece of something just lying around and then they find it as a real treasure. Have you ever had something like that where you found out something was valuable? I mean, I wish I, I mean, I would have just, not just because I'm greedy for the, you know, money, but that'd be good.

But I mean, I'd like to just find out that, are you kidding? This old thing here is actually worth a ton of money? I have, we have a few of the Tom Clark figurines, this craftsman that makes a lot, mostly they're little gnome figurines and, but also you have some realistic looking ones. I have the figurine that's of a preacher leaning on his pulpit is called Parson Patterson. And for years Parson Patterson was just lying around somewhere. I wasn't even sure where Parson Patterson was, not in any place of prominence.

This was years ago. And I was in a store and I looked and there was some of those Tom Clark figurines and they had a glass case and they had these, some of these, some of these gnomes and figurines back then. And I looked and then the glass case, the place where the really special ones were set apart, there was Parson Patterson. And I said, wait a minute, Parson Patterson is special. And I looked at it and Parson Patterson was, was at that time, this was years ago, was selling for $450. And I was like, whoa, Parson, I put you on a prominent shelf right here, you know, and had my wife not given it to me, I'd have sold it right then.

But anyway, so this week I got to thinking about this for illustrative purposes. And I thought, you know, I'm going to check and see what is Parson Patterson going for today? I mean, it was $450 15 years ago. What in the world, that thing might be worth $2,000 or something. I went on eBay and Parson Patterson, guess how much it's going for? $100.

I took Parson Patterson, get back down on a lower shelf where you belong. I ever seen the PBS's show, the Antiques Road Show. It's people bring in their old stuff and they hope that they're going to find out it's worth a million bucks. And they say that actually the average item is worth about $100. People bring it in.

It looks like it worth about $100, probably worth about $100, but every now and then it's different. And one of the, one of the biggest finds in recent times, a woman named Claire, 30 years ago, she'd been at a yard sale. She was getting some furniture for a little house or apartment she had. And she had this one little section where she wanted to just get a small table.

She knew about the size that she needed. Didn't want to spend much on it because it was just going to kind of go in a corner. And she was at a yard sale and there was this piece. It was, it was kind of really mildewy and kind of dark all over, but it was the right size and shape. And she thought, well, I could, I could, I could dress that up.

I could refinish that or something. And it was $30. And, and, and, and Claire told the lady, she said, only got 25 bucks. And the lady said, all right, you can have 25 bucks. She took it home and she got some linseed oil and turpentine or something out, you know, and she started kind of cleaning it off.

And she's like, wait a minute. And underneath it, it was really beautiful mahogany. It had some inlaid work in it and all. And she thought, you know, this is a nice piece. And she, she kept it, kept it for 30 years and it took it to the PBS Antiques Roadshow. And the expert appraisers became wide-eyed when they saw it and began to inform her that this comes from the federal period and is made by two of the greatest cabinet makers in Boston at that time who made furniture for only the wealthiest and finest customers. And this piece that you have here is one of the finest that they ever made. Look at the intricacy of this inlaid work. And we're so glad that you didn't try to refinish it.

And on and on they go. And it finally said it's worth between 200 and $300,000. And, and Claire loved that table so much that recently she sold it for $490,000 at an auction. What, what would happen if you fought yourself to be a $25 piece of junk and found out that you were a $490,000 masterpiece? Well, what would be the difference in the way you would treat something? If you spent 25 bucks for it and you didn't know it was worth a half million, you think back, you would treat it differently. Things that we don't value, we treat differently, don't we? We, something that's not valuable, what do you do? You don't highlight it, talk about it, and praise it.

If you bought a $25 dirty table at a yard sale and somebody wants a tour of your house, that's not where you take them on the tour. You don't talk about it. You don't, in other words, you don't praise something that's not valuable. You praise something that is valuable. If there's something that's not valuable, it's often simply ignored. You're silent about it because, oh no, I had Parson Patterson for years. I never mentioned him to anybody, just ignored him until I saw him in a cabinet for $450.

I apologized to him and I began to talk about Parson Patterson to other people. You just ignore something that's not valuable. You don't praise it.

You just ignore it. You don't necessarily mistreat it. But if something is not valuable at all, you don't mind dealing with it carelessly. If it's a $25 table from a yard sale and somebody puts down water glass on it and it's condensing and leaving a ring, you don't care.

To be careless with something means you don't care about it that much. It's not valuable enough to take care of, so you deal with it carelessly. If something is not valuable, it is often used for something other than its true original and noble purpose.

Something's cheap enough, might as well use it for kindling or firewood or might as well just use it as a place to put old stuff on it or whatever rather than a prominent piece of furniture that was made by Boston's finest cabinet makers to be a card table. And if something is reckoned to be without value, sometimes you just discard it. It's a tender thing to think that way of your own soul. But if someone is not praised, if a child is never praised, not affirmed, what does the soul conclude? We know things that are valuable, we praise. Things that aren't valuable, we don't. If someone is simply ignored, no attention given to it, what does that soul conclude?

Nobody has to say you're not valuable. If they just remove praise and sort of ignore you, what are you left to conclude? Alan Wright, it's something to think about today. Wow, today's teaching, healing the unaffirmed soul.

I don't know, maybe you feel that way. We've got a final word with Alan here in the studio in just a moment. Stick with us. Pastor Alan Wright's power of blessing will change your life. When you make a gift this month, we'll send you the power of blessing as our way of saying thanks for your partnership. And when you give, you'll not only be nourishing your own soul, but you'll help broadcast the good news to someone else. When you make your gift to Alan Wright Ministries today, we'll send you Pastor Alan's messages in an attractive CD album or through digital download as our way of saying thanks for your partnership. Call us at 877-544-4860.

That's 877-544-4860. Or come to our website, pastoralan.org. Alan, as we're coming through the series of the power of blessing, and we've heard a teaching already on rejecting curse. And now you have at this part about healing the unaffirmed soul. This sounds like this is almost like it's not something that's been brought against you. It's not necessarily an offense, just something that's left out. And I think we've all been there and can relate.

Yeah. Well, there's a kind of a wounding that just comes from the absence of affirmation. And it might be one of the most subtle in all of life. And yet it's a real wound and it must be healed by the grace of God. So that's what we're going to continue learning about tomorrow as well. But just as we close the program today, Daniel, just thinking of listeners right now who haven't been affirmed. And I'll leave you with this word that while you were still in your sin, the God of the universe, the creator of the ends of the earth came in the person of Jesus to die for you because you were worth that much to him. And that's the gospel. Today's good news message is a listener supported production of Alan Wright Ministries.