Overcoming Selfishness

This program contains portions from the following episodes:

"Making Tough Choices"

"Envy Is Your Enemy"

"Don't Waste Your Womanhood"

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Dannah Gresh: So, I’ve got a hard question for you: would you consider yourself . . . selfish? Probably not. I mean, most of us would not. But let’s be brave today and take inventory of our own hearts. Here’s Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: Love is not envious. It is not jealous. When love sees another person who is more popular, more successful, more beautiful, more talented than I am, then if I have a heart of love, I will be glad for that person, never jealous or envious.

Dannah: We’re going to talk about overcoming selfishness today on Revive Our Hearts Weekend. Thanks for joining me. I’m Dannah Gresh. 

A Pew survey examined how Americans feel about others. People said their fellow Americans are patriotic, honest, and intelligent. They also said most are selfish. Ouch! Sixty-eight percent of those surveyed felt this way. 

Is it true? And if so, what do we do about it?

Today we’re looking at ways to overcome selfishness. We’ll hear from someone who chose a path away from selfishness. Then Nancy will share an opposite of selfishness. And finally, we’ll get our eyes off of ourselves and on to God. 

First up on today’s episode: let’s call this “A Model to Follow.”

Janet Lynn is best known as a championship ice figure skater. She started skating as a young child, and she received Christ at twelve years of age. She competed in the 1968 and 1972 Winter Olympics, winning a bronze medal in '72. She married—today she’s Janet Lynn Salomon—and had one son and then twin boys, so three boys in two years! (Eventually, she and her husband, Rick raised five children.) Now, a struggle with asthma did take her out of skating for a while, but she came back, and her skating career continued.

There came a time pretty early on when she faced a difficult decision: whether or not she was going to put herself before her family. Here’s Janet Lynn Salomon, in conversation with Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth.

Janet Salomon: There was an interview that I did for PM Magazine. In that interview I said, "If I ever have to give up my skating for my family, I will." But when I said that, I had no idea that God would make me put my money where my mouth was.

Nancy: But He was actually going to ask you to do that.

Janet: Well, just situations that came up that He brought into my life would place a decision before me. At that time, in my heart I felt like it was a choice between "the way of life and the way of death." And by His grace, I chose "the way of life."

My husband had a wonderful opportunity to do something that he had always wanted to do. He would have to go away for three-and-a-half months, away from our family to be able to pursue this opportunity.

Well, the choice was, was I going to continue the opportunities that I had and leave my children at home with no parent there, with some sort of babysitter, or was I going to be supportive of my husband in the talents and gifts that God had given to him.

Nancy: Because the opportunities you had were taking you in travel around the world as you were skating.

Janet: I was traveling around the world. One year I was out of the country eleven times.

I had just wonderful opportunities coming up, actually things that I had only dreamed about in my life—skating at the Metropolitan Opera and the Kennedy Center which were once-in-a-lifetime opportunities. I had to choose—I didn't have to choose, but I chose that by God's grace, rather ungracefully on my part, that it was not the right way to go.

Nancy: You said that while you were having this career and had these children at home, at times you felt fractured. That’s a word I’ve seen you use. What do you mean by that?

Janet: Well, as I said in an interview at my comeback performance, actually I said, "When I am skating, I feel like I should be at home. And when I am at home, I feel like I should be skating."

I felt like someone else owned part of my time when I was working, and I couldn't give my children the full attention that they really needed. As a matter of fact, I don't really know that I knew my children all that well when I was skating. So that "fractured" feeling was I wanted to be here but I wanted to be there, and I wanted to do it all well. And I thought, I'm doing it all well. Well, I found out that I really wasn't doing it all that well.

Nancy: You said something, "My life at home was shallow, but I didn't know it."

Janet: Yes, it was very shallow. And no, I didn't know how shallow it had become. When I got married and had children, my life had not been geared to the home.

I had skated since age two-and-a-half, and I'd traveled all over the world. My life was literally and figuratively out of the home. It was somewhere else. The only thing I knew how to do was make German chocolate cake and skate. That’s it. So I had to start from the beginning. Having children and I never babysat, I’d never been around small children at all, so I had to start from the very beginning.

I realized that God is in those little things, and He can take us from wherever we are and He can help us to grow in the area of making a home. Even if you're working, or you have to work, or you're at a place right now saying, "Gee, I'd like to get there, but I'm not there yet," God can start moving us in that direction.

The other thing I would just like to say for women who find that they absolutely have to work, that your children, I think, know whether what you're doing outside of your home is for their benefit or if it's for your benefit.

I think that message comes loud and clear.

Nancy: So you didn't have a lot of background in homemaking. This was kind of a foreign world to you.

Janet: Totally foreign.

Nancy: Were you nervous about how to be a keeper at home?

Janet: Well, my husband taught me how to cook and clean. Then I found that I was trying to do it, and I'm not that great of a homemaker even now.

As a matter of fact, a number of years ago I got an award as full-time homemaker of the year. And the week before I went to receive it, I had to call the fire department while I was cooking dinner. I'll let you imagine why!

Nancy: I actually could tell a few stories of my own along this line.

Janet: So I'm not the consummate homemaker, but I do want to say that God has a plan for the little things in our home—for the cooking of the meals and the cleaning and all those. I found that God's blessings are in those little things, and through those little things are powerful messages to our children about what's really in our hearts.

Nancy: It was as you came back into your home to be a full-time wife and mom that God really gave you a heart for your home.

Janet: My heart definitely came home after I came home. My heart was not at home at first. But as I came home and my heart came home, I found that our family started growing in new and wonderful ways.

Nancy: Did some of your friends think you were nuts when you made this decision?

Janet: I didn't ask them. I just kind of disappeared from the skating world.

Nancy: You just knew that was what you were supposed to do.

Janet: I knew that I had to do this. In my heart, I knew. Like I said, it was the way of life that I had chosen. It was something that was going to work, and I knew that God wouldn't have asked me to do it if He wasn't going to provide a way to do it.

Nancy: Now, this was a huge change in lifestyle for you. Obviously financially, it was a change in lifestyle. You'd had this lucrative career. You mentioned that for this position your husband was taking, he was also taking a pay cut at the same time.

Janet: A very large pay cut.

Nancy: So, financially it was a lifestyle change—time-wise, priorities, it was a lifestyle change. What was that transition like?

Janet: Well, it was painful, but I want to relate it to the pruning of a rose. I did a speech a number of years ago, and as I was preparing for it, everywhere I went I started seeing roses as I was praying about it. So I looked up a rose in a book.

I went to get a gardening book, and it talked about the pruning of a rose and how when you cut down the rosebush to almost nothing, the roses will come up more beautiful than they've ever been before. So my life was pruned by God so that there could be more blossoms and something more beautiful than had been there before.

Nancy: And that pruning can be painful.

Janet: It can be painful. But the good thing about that kind of pain is you know that it's done in love so that something else good is going to come from it.

Dannah: What Janet Lynn Salomon shared there reminds me of what Jesus said about pruning in John chapter 15. He said the Father prunes us, the branches, so that we’ll bear more fruit. 

So Janet’s choice was about putting her husband and kids ahead of her own desires and opportunities. Of course, as she mentioned, the issue isn’t whether you have a job outside the home or not. It’s about why you’re doing what you’re doing.

You’re listening to Revive Our Hearts Weekend. I’m Dannah Gresh. 

Next, if we’re trying to overcome selfishness, to put it off, I think we need to put on the opposite of selfishness. What would you say is the opposite of selfishness, Phil? 

Phil: I'd say the opposite of selfishness is unselfishness.

Dannah: Blake, what do you think is the opposite of selfishness?

Blake: I don’t know.

Dannah: Nobody here seems to know!

I think Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth might know. She would say at least one opposite of selfishness is love.

Here’s Nancy.

Nancy: Paul said, “What’s the key to dealing with this issue of jealousy, comparison, contention that flows out of this jealousy?” The key is to live a life of love, to put on love, to pursue love, to learn to love in God’s way. Love is not envious. It is not jealous. When love sees another person who is more popular, more successful, more beautiful, more talented than I am, then if I have a heart of love, I will be glad for that person, never jealous or envious.

James chapter 3 talks about the deadliness of the sin of envy or jealousy. Paul said, “[If any person] is wise and understanding, let him show it by his good life, by deeds done in the humility that comes from wisdom. But if you harbor bitter envy and selfish ambition in your hearts”—and, by the way, those two invariably go together, envy and selfish ambition, seeking more for myself. Paul says, “if you harbor [this] envy and [this] selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast about it or deny the truth. Such 'wisdom' does not come down from heaven [this is not of God] but it is earthly, unspiritual, and of the devil” (vv. 13–15).

One translation says, “It’s devilish." It’s demonic to have this kind of selfish ambition and envy. Envy is not just a little problem. Envy is something that comes from the pit of hell.

So James says in chapter 3, verse 16: “For where you have envy and selfish ambition, there you find disorder and every evil practice.”

Isn’t that a description of what was taking place in the church at Corinth? There was disorder. There was contention. There was pandemonium at their communion services. “You have disorder and every evil practice.” In that church there was a man who had an incestuous relationship with his father’s wife. Talk about evil practices and the church was condoning it. Where did this come from? Paul says it all goes back to a lack of love. "You envy; you’re jealous of one another."

James goes on to say in that passage: “But the wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure; then [it’s] peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere” (v. 17).

In her book, The Music of His Promises, Elisabeth Elliot has a wonderful passage about this part of the love test. Here’s what she has to say:

If I imagine that I love my neighbor, let me test my love by asking how glad I am that he has achieved what I have failed to achieve; that he has managed to acquired what I have long wished to acquire; that he is loved by someone or by many or in some way that has never been granted to me.

By the way, let me just put a little word in there, those of you who may be single, do you find yourself jealous of your friends who are getting married? They’ve got a mate; they’ve got a husband. Perhaps you’re a woman who’s married but you’ve not been able to have children. Do you find yourself jealous of the one who’s been able to have children because it’s a blessing that’s not been given to you?

Do I rejoice because my neighbor has reasons to rejoice that have been denied me? Can I honestly praise God for His goodness to my neighbor? Can I praise Him wholeheartedly for His gifts to me? If I love my neighbor as myself, there will be no reason at all for the least twinge of jealousy—because I will be just as happy that he has what I wanted as I would be if I had it (p. 139–140).

So we ask this question as we take this little test:

• Do I rejoice with those who rejoice?
• Do you rejoice when others receive blessings and benefits that you have not received?
• Are you genuinely glad when someone else at work gets promoted or gets a raise or is recognized, praised for their efforts, and you are overlooked?
• How do you respond when your mate gets attention or honor or praise that you know, because you live with them, they really don’t deserve?

Do you get jealous? Do you find yourself wanting to correct the statement that was made, to set the record straight? See, when we’re jealous, we will often say critical things to put others down so that we can lift up ourselves.

• How about when your friend’s child excels at sports, at music, at academics, at everything, and that mother loves to make sure you hear about it. Can you rejoice in the blessings of how well that child is doing?
• How about when one of your siblings—brother, sister—their family is financially prosperous while your family is struggling to make ends meet. Do you find yourself being jealous, or do you find yourself rejoicing with those who rejoice?

Father, when You have been so very good to us, it’s really a great sin against Your grace that we should be envious of Your goodness in other people’s lives. I think of the parable where Jesus said to those who were listening: “Are you jealous because your owner, your master has done something good to someone else? Does it bother you?” Lord, we confess that often in our selfish ways we are jealous; we are envious of others. Thank You that You have been so good to us. You have met all of our needs that we can be content. Fill us with Your love that we really will rejoice sincerely with those who do rejoice. I pray in Jesus’ name, amen.

Dannah: Amen! Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth has been praying that we would choose love over jealous selfishness. 

Just because she prayed doesn’t mean Revive Our Hearts Weekend is over yet!

The ultimate solution, the way to overcome selfishness, is in fixing our eyes not on ourselves, but on God. That’s something John Piper tries to help people do with everything he says and writes.

He spoke at the very first True Woman conference in 2008. Let’s listen to a few minutes of that message.

John Piper: What is the ultimate meaning of true womanhood? It's this: True womanhood is a distinctive calling of God to display the glory of His Son in ways that would not be displayed if there were no womanhood.

When God described the glorious work of His Son as the sacrifice of a husband for his bride, He was telling us why He made us male and female. He made us this way so that our maleness and femaleness would display more fully the glory of His Son in relationship to His blood-bought Bride. This means that if you try to reduce your womanhood to physical features or biological functions and then determine your role in life purely on the basis of competencies, you not only miss the point of womanhood, you diminish the glory of Christ in your own life.

Dannah: In that message from True Woman '08, John Piper then went on to tease out some of the implications of that reality. How do married women live out their womanhood to the glory of Christ, and how do single women do it? Here’s what he said to single women.

John: The apostle Paul loved his singleness, really loved his singleness. He loved it because it gave him such radical freedom to get arrested month after month without having a wife at home crying her eyes out, and to be beaten with rods over and over, and be lashed so that his back became jelly five times multiplied by thirty-nine, and so he could be shipwrecked at sea. Singleness is a high calling if you take it like that. He celebrated it and called many of you to follow him in it, even though marriage is meant to display the glory of Christ.

So how can that be? Why would He lure some of you out of marriage, that is,out of pursuing marriage? Why would He do that if He made marriage as this magnificent portrait of His Son's covenant-keeping love with His Bride so that husbands and wives, living out their unique manhood and womanhood, become a magnificent drama of that glory? Why would He lure anybody away from that, which He does? There's a very clear reason why.

In this season of history since the Fall, the natural order that God established at the beginning is not absolute. "It's not good that man should be alone. It's not good that woman should be alone." That's true. It's just not absolutely true because now sin has entered into the world, and there are other things to take into consideration besides the sheer natural order that God set up before there was sin and collapse, and thousands and millions of people to be rescued from perishing. The reason that it is not an assault on God's glory for the apostle Paul to say, "I would that you were single like I am, if you had the gift" (see 1 Cor. 7:7).

The reason that's not an assault on God's glory is that in this world there are truths about Christ and His kingdom which can be more clearly displayed by womanhood in singleness and manhood in singleness than by womanhood in marriage and manhood in marriage. I'll give you three of them.

These are three things that your womanly singleness can say better to the world than any married woman can say by virtue of her marriage.

1. A life of Christ-exalting singleness bears witness that the family of God grows by regeneration through faith not propagation through sexual intercourse. The family of God grows by regeneration not by propagation, by faith, not sexual intercourse. The main thing we're about is growing that family. So if you never marry, and you embrace a lifetime of chastity and biological childlessness, and if receive this from the Lord's hand as a mercy and a gift with contentment, and you gather to yourself the poor and the lonely, and you spend yourself for the gospel without self-pity; you will, in your unique single womanhood, magnify Christ in ways no married woman can.
2. A life of Christ-exalting singleness bears witness that relationships in Christ are more permanent and more precious than relationships in families. If a single woman turns without bitterness and regret from the absence of her own family and gives herself to creating God's family in the church, she will find a flowering for her womanhood in ways never dreamed of, and Christ will be uniquely honored.
3. The Christ-exalting singleness of a woman bears witness to the truth that marriage is temporary and finally gives way in the end to the relationship to which it was pointing all along, Christ and the Church, the way a picture is no longer needed when you're face to face.

Marriage is a beautiful thing, and I want to bear public witness and gratitude for Noel. She has been a gift to me that I didn't deserve, and we together have labored to raise five children and ten grandchildren and are still, with tears, laboring. As parents you never ever stop being a parent, we have now learned, never stop with tears, never stop with joy.

Nevertheless, she and I would both say, we say it with deep conviction: Marriage is not the main thing. It's momentary. Otherwise Jesus would not have said, "In the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage but are like angels in heaven because they do not die anymore." My relationship with Noel has a few more years, and then she and I will experience what that was all about, ultimately, with Him.

As I close, I commend to you this truth: The ultimate purpose of God in history is the display of the glory of the Son in dying for His Bride. God created man male and female because there are aspects of Christ's glory which could not be known and displayed any other way than through the dynamic relationship between femininity and masculinity or manhood and womanhood. Those complementary differences are essential to the revelation of the most important event in history.

Therefore, true manhood, true womanhood—true womanhood—is a distinctive calling to display the glory of the Son in ways that would not be displayed if there were no womanhood. Married womanhood has ways to magnify Christ that single womanhood cannot. Single womanhood has ways to magnify Christ that married womanhood cannot. So whether you are married or single, do not settle for wimpy theology. It's beneath you. God is too great. Christ is too glorious. Womanhood is too strategic. Don't waste it. Your womanhood, your true womanhood was made for the glory of Christ.

Father, I pray that You would work a great, deep, deep sense of why these women are women. I pray they wouldn't trivialize it; they wouldn't be small. That it would be great and that it would be supreme in their hearts, as they seek to live out their marriages and their singleness would be the glory of the grace of God expressed in the sacrifice of His Son for the purchase of His Bride and her everlasting admiration and joy. I pray this in Jesus' name, amen.

Dannah: I don’t know about you, but I think that what John Piper shared in that message from the first True Woman Conference in 2008, it’s needed today, more than ever!

We obviously don’t have time for the full message, but you can listen to it when you go to ReviveOurHearts.com/weekend, and click on this episode. It’s called “Overcoming Selfishness.” 

Our purpose for sharing this today is to remind us all that the way to overcome selfishness is to get our eyes off ourselves and focus on the glory of God, whether man or woman, married or single.

You know, the idea of “overcoming” is going to be our theme all month long here at Revive Our Hearts. Today we talked about overcoming selfishness. Coming up this month on Revive Our Hearts Weekend, we’re also going to tackle these subjects:

• Overcoming Distractions
• Overcoming Anxiety
• Overcoming Bitterness

Not only that, but on our daily program, Revive Our Hearts, Nancy is teaching through Revelation chapters 1 through 3, and being an “overcomer” is a key theme there, as well. You know, the letters to the seven churches in Revelation were not only intended to speak to ancient believers in faraway places. They have a message for all churches in all times and places. They have a message for you and me.

So this month, as a thank you for your donation of any amount, we’ll send you a copy of a study by Nancy called Overcomers: Lessons from the Churches in Revelation. Make sure you ask about the Bible study Overcomers when you make your donation. You can give a gift by calling 1-800-569-5959, or go to ReviveOurHearts.com/weekend and click on today’s episode. 

Next week we’re going to talk about being overcomers when it comes to all the distractions around us. Hey, look! There’s a squirrel! I literally live with a man who does that . . . ten times a day. We’ll hear from Arlene Pelicane and others as they help us see ways to overcome distraction. I hope you’ll join me.

Thanks for listening today. 

I’m Dannah Gresh, inviting you back next time for Revive Our Hearts Weekend.

Revive Our Hearts Weekend is calling you to overcome selfishness and discover freedom, fullness and fruitfulness in Christ.

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