Foolproof Self-Worth [Part 1]

Allen Wright, pastor, Bible teacher, and author of his latest book, The Power to Bless. Proclamation of the gospel should have this result in the end that we love ourselves.

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 the teaching today in the series, Foolproof, 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 Allen Wright Ministries. So as you listen to today's message, go deeper if we're happy to send you today's special offer. Just contact us at pastorallen.org, that's pastorallen.org, or call 877-544-4860.

That's 877-544-4860. We'll have more on this special offer later in the program. But now, let's get started with today's teaching.

Here is Allen Wright. Well, we come today to the end of our Proverbs series. And every time I get to the end of a series, I feel a little bit sad, like I'm leaving something unfinished. But I hope that what's happening for you, if you've been part of this study with us, is what's happened for me. And that is that you've fallen in love with the wisdom of the Proverbs. And it'll be part of your life maybe more than ever before for the rest of your days.

Are you ready for some good news? When you're a Christian, God has accepted you through the sacrifice of Jesus. So, to be a Christian means to be someone who has been, though you do not deserve it, has been radically accepted and utterly loved. And as one who is radically accepted and loved by God, He gives you an invitation to likewise accept yourself in Christ. I want to talk to you today about the person that you might be the quickest to judge, the slowest to forgive, and the most likely to condemn.

It might be that person is yourself. Proverbs 19 verse 8. Proverbs 19 verse 8. It's a fitting conclusion to our study of Proverbs. This one verse. Whoever gets sense, whoever gets wisdom, whoever gets sense, loves his own soul.

He who keeps understanding will discover good. Priceless parental moments come when you least expect them. You can't predict them or manufacture them, but these moments that you never forget. And it's good to tell the stories over and over. And one of the most famous stories in our family that some of you've heard numerous times is one that we tell over and over because it was so delightful to us to hear these words kind of our little boy's mouth, but also because of the great truth that is behind it and all that it means and basically what we want for our kids.

Bennett must have been about nine years old, around third grade or so, and he and I were doing a lot of eight or so, and he and I were driving to the golf course where we spent a lot of time together in his growing up years. And en route out of nowhere in the back seat, my little boy says, Dad, can you be addicted to gambling? I knew where it was coming from because not long before that, a world famous golfer, it had just been revealed, had blown a million dollars in Las Vegas and was revealed that he had a gambling addiction. And he must have heard about this on the golf channel or on the golf show, we're watching a tournament or something. And I thought, oh no, we homeschool our kids so they'll be sheltered from all these things.

And here they are. He's nine years old and he's wondering about addiction. I said, how in the world am I going to address this touchy subject, which he's too young to even have to worry about such things. And I thought about all of the years of pastoral ministry where I have loved and served and helped counsel and worked with people struggling with addiction. And I thought about all of the complexities of shame and the inward angst of the soul and how it is that most addiction is fueled by some type of inward insecurity, anxiety, and how we try to mask these feelings with temporary cover-ups. And I thought about the complexities of the way the brain works and the addictive process and all of that. And I thought, how am I going to explain this to him?

I said, well, yes, Bennett, you can be addicted to gambling. He paused and said, I don't understand it. Said, he is rich, he's famous, and he gets to play the best golf courses in the world. Why would he go around blowing his money on gambling?

And I finally put it this way to him, as simply as I knew how. I said, well, Bennett, I said, I happen to know a little bit about this golfer, read a little bit about his growing up, and he didn't have a happy growing up. He didn't have a happy family. And I think he got some wrong thinking in his mind about his own life. And I said, I actually just think that he doesn't feel very good about himself, despite the fact that he's famous and wealthy and gets to play on all the best golf courses. I don't think that he really, in the end, feels very good about himself, and that makes a person have bad feelings. And when you have those kind of bad feelings, that sometimes you look for something else that seems a little bit exciting or something to try to take your mind off of the way that someone might feel about themselves. That put it something like that.

Stumbled around with that. And he was quiet for a pretty long time, until finally he just blurted out innocently, well, I love myself. That's a famous line in our family now, I love myself.

And I just chuckled from the front seat, kept driving. I said, well, that's great, Bennett. You probably won't be addicted to anything if you love yourself. And he just summed up a whole lot of what our goal in parenting actually is. And the proclamation of the gospel should have this result in the end, that we love ourselves.

And I want to talk to you today about what this means, because there's a lot of confusion about this. But the proverb here in 1908 is very clear. Let me give you a couple of other translations, the way they render the verse in RSV, the New Revised Standard Version puts it well, to get wisdom is to love oneself. He who keeps understanding, to keep understanding rather, is to prosper. The New American Standard puts it this way, he who gets wisdom loves his own soul. He who keeps understanding will find good. And the New Living Translation, to acquire wisdom is to love yourself. People who cherish understanding will prosper. This verse literally in the Hebrew reads like this, whoever buys heart, if you're going to, literally, that's what it says, whoever buys heart. Now it doesn't mean literally buy, but it means to make sacrifices for, that this is what is valuable. And heart is a picture of discerning and wisdom. So the discerning heart, whoever decides it's worth making sacrifices and doing whatever it costs you to have a discerning heart, that's the way it sounds, whoever that person is, is someone who loves his own life. And the word for life there is the Hebrew word nefesh, which is the word that in the beginning when God created a man out of the dust, it said he breathed into his nostrils and he became a living nefesh. So to say a nefesh in Hebrew is not just to say soul as opposed to the body, like we're body and soul or something. It is to say something bigger about the totality of the essence of your life. It is the breath within you. It is your life itself to say loves his own soul. That's Alan Wright, and we'll have more teaching in a moment from today's important series. Ever feel like something's holding you back as if you lack an important key that could change everything?

Is there someone you love who seems stuck? You'd like to help them, but how? What's missing? Blessing. We all need a positive faith-filled vision spoken over our lives. You can learn how to embrace the biblical practice of blessing through Pastor Alan Wright's new book, The Power to Bless, which quickly became an Amazon number one bestseller after its recent release. Until now, the hardcover book has only been available through retail sales, but this month, Alan Wright Ministries wants to send you the book as our thank you for your donation. When you give this month, you'll not only receive the bestselling book, but you'll also receive a free five-session video course in which Pastor Alan teaches how to bless and covers content not found in the book.

The video course includes a detailed study guide perfect for personal growth or small group discussion. Make your gift today and discover the power to bless. Call us at 877-544-4860.

That's 877-544-4860. Or come to our website, PastorAlan.org. Today's teaching now continues.

Here once again is Alan Wright. So what the proverb is saying here, what Solomon is telling us, is that if you could find somebody who loves to get hold of wisdom and understanding what the proverbs are all about, then you can know for sure that the reason they're doing that is that they love their own life. By contrast, the one who does not love his own life does not pursue wisdom.

So you could say that the fool is someone who doesn't love or accept his own life is something that is worthwhile. In other words, the more that you love and have high regard for this life that God has given you and for all that God has done to accept you in Jesus Christ, the more that you understand that, the more that you love your own life, the more you're going to be one who pursues wisdom. It is something that is pervasive throughout the proverbs, this whole idea. Proverbs 8 35, whoever finds me, wisdom says this, is personified, whoever finds me, wisdom, finds life and obtains favor from the Lord.

But he who fails to find me injures himself. All who hate me, all who hate wisdom, love death. That's a stark statement from the Proverbs, but I want to show you just how powerful and true that really is. People that reject wisdom, people that reject counsel, reject understanding, who live a foolish life, love death. You would never want to put it that way, but that's the way the Proverbs puts it. Proverbs 15 32, whoever ignores instruction despises himself, but he who listens to reproof gains intelligence. Not many people I've ever counseled with would ever occur to them that they despise themselves, but I just believe that it is one of the greatest problems that we have, is that we tend to loathe ourselves and don't even realize it, and it fuels so many of our problems. Proverbs 29 24, let me just give you one more that just puts it very plainly, the partner of a thief hates his own life. Now the people that hang around with other rebellious people and rob people or whatever the partner of a thief is, they don't sit around and go, well, I'm doing this because I hate my own life, but that is the essence that is behind it, the Proverbs says. Now, surely somebody, as soon as you begin to say the problem is not loving ourselves enough, somebody will be quick to say, well, I thought the whole problem of our culture is that people are just stuck on themselves and that's all they care about is they love themselves, and you might think of what Paul said to Timothy in 2 Timothy 3 verse 1, understand this in the last days, there'll come times of difficulty for people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents and so forth. And at the surface you might just say, well, our problem is too much self-love, but I want to show you that what Paul's talking about to Timothy and that type of self-love is not the love of one's own life, but is self-absorption, and there's a huge difference between self-absorption and self-love, and I want to show you today the absolute essence of what it means to love yourself and how you can love yourself in Jesus Christ, because I believe that though this is hard to wrap your mind around, that this is absolutely at the heart of all spiritual and psychological and emotional health in this world, loving and accepting yourself through Christ.

So let's just talk about this connection between getting wisdom and self-love by way of everyday example in our household this week we dropped off Abby for a second year of college down at Chapel Hill, and so she starts out her sophomore year, I, like any parent, have many desires. I'm praying for her. What would I want for her? Well, I want her to, I want it to go well with her. I want her to prosper in her relationships and friendships and in her academics. I want her to grow spiritually. I want her to be a blessing to other people. I want her to have a lot of joy. I want her to continue to be engaged in her major that she's gonna be moving into the journalism school and taking some core courses this fall. I want her to be able to be engaged in those well. I want her to be able to do her best.

All of those, all of those things that any parent would want for their child. Well, the week began with Abby going down to the coast for a short retreat with other leaders in the campus ministry she's involved in, and so she was gonna be driving down to the beach, and she was driving some other girls with her, so she's walking out the door with, to get in the car to go, and she's gonna be driving down the beach. I told my 19 year old, I looked her right in the eyes, I said, all right, now remember, what's my treasure? And she said, I am. And I said, that's right. And I said, therefore, no distracted driving.

You'd be on your best. And she said, I know, daddy. And I said, because you're what matters most, and so drive safe, and have a wonderful time.

Okay. Well, so the reason I'm saying that is because I want her to know that I have a tremendous love for her, and that that's the motivation, because her life is treasured, and matters so much. That's the motivation for exercising responsibility when you're driving a machine. I could say to her, you know how you can get distracted, and you know what, how sometimes you're not a very good driver, and you, you, if you wreck the car, you're gonna have to pay for it.

But I don't really want to put fear into her, as much as I want to put faith into her. I'm gonna, so she goes, and she comes back, and then we have the delightful time of going down, and getting her into her room at school, and we are there, along with her roommate, and her, her mom, and we're, we're blessed by the, where this dorm is located, and knows other girls on her hallway, and so what do we do? We say, boy, this is great.

This looks, your room looks great. You're in such a great location right here, directly across from the library, and we emphasize that point several times, and I talked to her about her classes. She said that one of them is going to be a journalism writing class that she heard was hard.

She said they're timed essays, and they take off for any misspelled word or anything, and I said, well, if you were writing a news story, you got to write it fast, and you got to write it accurately. I said, this would be good training for you, you know, be stretching your mind. You know, this is the kind of conversation that we're having, and what we could do is, we could instead go around, and say, well, you better try hard, and I know that you're going to tend to get lazy, and if you do, and you don't make good enough grades, I'm not going to pay for this deal, and you know, I mean, there is a time, sometimes people are so irresponsible, you just got to withdraw your support for something, but that's not the approach I want to take.

Why? What I'm getting at is that in an everyday transition like this, what it is that I want is, I want her to love her own soul. I want her to love her own nefesh, because in the end, fear might motivate us at a certain level, but fear is toxic to the soul.

Anxiety produces most of our problems. In other words, most of our sin behaviors are the result directly or indirectly from insecurity, and if a child can say, I love myself, then they want to apply themselves. If you have a mind, and you believe that God gave it to you, and that you can make a difference in this world, then you want to take that mind, you want to use it, and you want to apply it. If you're good with your hands, and you can make things, and you can do certain things skillfully with your hands, because you know that God gave them to you, you want to develop that. If you have a craft, you want to be able to develop it, because you see it as a good gift, and fear might motivate, but it's toxic. I don't know how I stumbled across this piece of a quote from an interview with Madonna, who is, according to the Book of Records, the best-selling female recording artist of all time, and the wealthiest female musician ever, who said in the interview, my drive in life comes from a fear of being mediocre.

That's always pushing me. I push past one spell of it, and discover myself as a special human being, but then I feel I'm still mediocre, and uninteresting, unless I do something else, because even though I have become somebody, I still have to prove that I'm somebody. My struggle has never ended, and I guess it never will. Fear, motivation, never ends. The carrot that's dangled in front of you for acceptance will always move, and what that anxiety does is it produces folly. So here's Madonna, who is this, in many ways, exquisitely gifted.

It was trained in dance, and ballet, and music, and throughout her career, if you just watched her, she just moved into increasing folly, where she had to become more and more raunchy, and everything that she did, right? It's just foolishness, and fear is associated with that, but God loves faith. God doesn't inspire us by fear. He doesn't inspire us by withholding love. He inspires us by giving that love, and so that's the posture that I want my kids in. It's what I want you.

It's what I want in my own life. There's a life of faith, and the studies have shown that if a baby doesn't receive unconditional love from the earliest time, that child will have a hard time learning to trust. So trust, like all faith, is born out of unconditional love, wherein you realize that you are loved, and you're valuable. If there's someone who is bigger, and stronger, and wiser than you, who loves you. Alan Wright, today's teaching, Full Proof Self-Worth.

It's in our series on Full Proof, and Alan is with us in just a moment, back in the studio, sharing a parting good news thought for the day. Stay with us. Ever feel like something's holding you back, as if you lack an important key that could change everything?

Is there someone you love who seems stuck? You'd like to help them, but how? What's missing? Blessing. We all need a positive, faith-filled vision spoken over our lives. You can learn how to embrace the biblical practice of blessing through Pastor Alan Wright's new book, The Power to Bless, which quickly became an Amazon number one bestseller after its recent release. Until now, the hardcover book has only been available through retail sales, but this month, Alan Wright Ministries wants to send you the book as our thank you for your donation. When you give this month, you'll not only receive the bestselling book, but you'll also receive a free five session video course, in which Pastor Alan teaches how to bless, and covers content not found in the book.

The video course includes a detailed study guide, perfect for personal growth or small group discussion. Make your gift today and discover the power to bless. 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.

That's 877-544-4860. Or come to our website, PastorAlan.org. Back here in the studio to share Alan's parting good news thought for the day. I know some may look especially at us Americans as being very self-centered and prideful. At the same time, I think that we do struggle a lot in this society with self-worth, with not having enough self-worth, and we're made in God's image.

So chin up. You're a child of the King. Whoever gets sense, Proverbs 19, 8 says, loves his own soul. So wisdom is to love your own soul. Daniel, we do God no honor by disdaining that which he loves and blesses.

We do no glory to God by cursing that which God has died in order to bless. We don't do any good for ourselves or anyone else when we look upon ourselves as though we have no worth. So what we're learning about is what it really means to accept yourself in Christ.

And I know that they're listeners that are probably going, well, that wouldn't be a problem in our country. Everybody's just in love with themselves. But what I would have to say to that is no, we're self-absorbed, but we don't love ourselves. And we have much to learn about this. One of the most important things is to learn the practice of self-acceptance rather than self-hatred. That's what we're talking about. Today's good news message is a listener supported production of Allen Wright Ministries.