Envy, Part 2

Today on Summit Life with J.D.

Greer. You envy those people who have the thing that you most worship. If you love popularity and prestige, then you will be envious of those who have more friends and influence than you.

If you love thinking of yourself as the perfect mom and homemaker, then you're going to envy other mothers who seem to be doing it better than you. Follow the smoke trail of your envies down to the fires that you have built at your altars of worship because that's where the real problem is. Welcome to Summit Life, the Bible teaching ministry of pastor, author, and theologian J.D.

Greer. I'm Molly Vedovitch, and we are thankful to be jumping into God's word with you today. Sociologists say that envy seems to be a bigger problem for today's generation than any before us, and I think we all know why. Social media seems designed to play on it, leaving us all discouraged and wanting what others are daily showing off to the world.

But it's important to remember that when we look at other people's lives on social media, we are seeing quite literally a filtered image. So let's join Pastor J.D. right now as he concludes his message on the difficult emotion of envy. Envy, at least a version of it, was a key element at work in the Garden of Eden. God had told Adam and Eve that they could eat of literally every tree in the garden except one. And they thought, well, I bet that's the best one.

I bet that's where the best fruit is. I bet he's holding out on us. Tim Keller summarizes it this way. He says envy will make you think something is wrong even in paradise, and that dries up your soul, taking away even your appetite to enjoy things. I was one time talking with somebody who had some issues with throat and mouth cancer, and they said, you know, one of the worst, most unexpected things was losing my ability to taste. He says food no longer tastes good to me, and he says I didn't realize that when you lose your appetite, just so much of your life gets destroyed. That's what envy does.

It is a cancer that destroys your ability to enjoy anything, to taste anything. For example, envy makes some of you unhappy in your marriage. It makes some of you unhappy in your job. It's why you've become a generally critical person, critical about everything. It's why you can find a flaw in anything.

That critical spirit is not a personality quirk. It comes from a deep dissatisfaction that arises many times from envy. It's why some of you guys are having a midlife crisis when you're only in your early 20s because you're like, well, I just feel like there's got to be more from life because you're looking around. It's why lurking in the back of your mind, every time you look at Facebook or Instagram, you're always thinking, well, I think others are probably enjoying something that I'm missing out on.

Nothing's ever good enough because envy has destroyed your ability to enjoy the good, if not imperfect things that God has put in your life. Stop ignoring that check engine light. You got a cancer in your soul that is drying up your life force, and it's going to start drying up everybody around you. You start to feel faint, which is another translation, a different English translation of Numbers 11 uses.

You start to feel faint in whatever you have, and life requires more for you to be really healthy, to be really fully alive. It needs something else. The happy life always seems like it's right over there, right somehow in that one tree that God has not let you have yet. You're like, well, that's where it is. It's just right there. If I could just get that one tree that God has said no to me for right now, then I would be healthy, and then I'd be fully alive. Oh, but it's a lie. Go read the book of Ecclesiastes and come back and tell me if literally being the richest, smartest, most powerful man in the world with the most girlfriends and the most fame is going to lead to any kind of happiness.

Give you a big hand. The answer is no. That's not where it is. Number three, envy ignores God's goodness promise for the future.

They seem insanely to forget this whole situation they're in. It's temporary. God was sending them to a literal promised land that flowed with milk and honey, which is their way of saying abundant and blooming onions and cheesecakes, non-calorie ones. You can just eat all you want. You never get fat. He's like, that's, it's just going to be awesome.

It's just amazing. Let me acknowledge, okay, just I want you to hear me. There are some good things that you might want that you miss out on for a few years. For some of you, you might miss out on for your entire life. But those deprivations are only temporary. Wealth or a strong and beautiful body or regular vacations to Hawaii, they might be some of those things you miss out on.

Or a great marriage, even a great family might be one of those things you miss out on. In fact, part of Paul's counsel to those who are unhappily single is he tells them to reflect on how temporary this situation is. 1 Corinthians 7, he says, verse 29, 1 Corinthians 7, the appointed time has grown very short. From now on, let those who have wives live as though they had none.

Now at first when you read that, you're like, what? That seems like a terrible verse. That seems like the key verse of people going to Vegas.

Let those who have wives live as though they had none. But let me assure you, that is not what Paul means. Now look at the next verse.

He explains himself. Verse 30, for the present form of this world is passing away, and along with it things like marriage and biological families and cousins and sons and daughters, none of that stuff's going into heaven. So basically he says, you married people should reflect on the fact that your marriage is not ultimate or permanent, and you single people should reflect on the fact that your situation is not permanent either.

Both situations are light and momentary, and soon they will give way to what is permanent and ultimate, which is Christ and the church and eternity. And on that day Paul assures you, and the whole Bible assures you, none of us will suffer any kind of lack. Psalm 17 15, as for me, David says, I will behold your face in righteousness. When I awake in heaven, I shall be satisfied with your likeness.

None of us are going to feel like we're missing out on anything. Or Psalm 16 11, a verse that we use a lot here, in your presence is the fullness of joy. At your right hand are pleasures forevermore. Fullness of joy means joy that could not get any stronger. Pleasures forevermore means literally no pleasure conceived that could last any longer than what you're going to experience up in heaven. First Corinthians 2 9, one of my favorite verses about heaven. As it is written, what no eye has seen, what no ear has even heard, no human heart has conceived. God has prepared these things for those who love him. If you can think about it, it's not good enough for what's going to happen up there.

Right? It literally cannot be described and if somehow I could describe it to you, you wouldn't believe it if I told you. It'd be like me standing up here telling you about a square circle or a four-sided triangle.

It just would not compute. And see, because of that knowledge of what is coming in eternity, watch this, it means that because I know that, I can be content with the impartial blessings that I have now, even if there's a bunch more that I want that I don't have yet. Because these small blessings point to something far greater I will soon receive.

The time is short and that's what God gives me in a promised land that is flowing with milk and honey. All right, alert here for a minute. I'm gonna tell a total nerd story and I'm doing this for just a handful of you, but the handful of you better appreciate this, okay? J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis were really good friends.

Does y'all know that? I think J.R.R. Tolkien led C.S. Lewis to faith in Christ when they were both professors at Oxford. Both of them are writers.

In fact, both of them would arguably be two of the most influential Christian writers of the last, you know, British writers at least, over the last 100 years. Tolkien was very envious of Lewis because they used to talk about how they wanted to write books that everybody loved to read and wanted to write books that would really change the world. And Lewis was a writing machine. He just churned out book after book after book and his books were selling like crazy.

And J.R.R. Tolkien was stuck on one book he was trying to write. It was called Lord of the Rings and he kept on writing and rewriting chapters because nothing was ever as good as what he aspired to.

It just can never be good enough because I got to be better than Lewis. He got so frustrated with his lack of progress compared to Lewis that he got writer's block and stopped working on the Lord of the Rings completely. He just put it aside said I'm never going to pick that up again or touch it again. He said then one night he said I had a dream.

He said when I woke up I wrote the dream down into a story and after this dream he said I was fine. The story is called Leaf by Niggle. That's a strange I know but just I just want to nerd everybody out for a minute. How many of you have read Leaf by Niggle? Anybody in here?

All right good so fellow nerds we identify here we are. It's a curious little story. Niggle is an artist that is commissioned by his town to make a mural but after years of working on this mural he had only completed a leaf in the mural and then after years with only a leaf completed he died. And he's on a train to Paradise and as he's going into Paradise before him stands the tree completely finished. And Tolkien said I realized that in this was a picture of my life. All of us only get to taste a little bit of the world to come. Some of us get more than others but eventually we're all going to get the whole tree. So when we when all we feel like we have is a leaf you can look toward heaven and think about the day that you're going to enjoy and experience and see the full tree. The point is our knowledge of what is coming in the future can help keep us content here when there's some blessing that I want but just don't have yet. Or like another one of my favorite authors Jen Wilkins says it those who know good awaits them in heaven can be content with having little here on earth. By the way realizing this was what freed Tolkien's of his writer's block. He was able to feel free of the pressure of feeling like everything had to be perfect and so his appetite came back so to speak and he finished Lord of the Rings and glorious orcs and all.

And by the way if Lord of the Rings was only the leaf I can't wait to see the whole story the whole tree up in heaven right. And all God's nerds said amen amen. All right lastly number four. Number four envy doubts God's goodness experienced in guidance. So number one was envy let's see if I can get this right envy forgets God's goodness poured out in the past. Number two envy overlooks God's goodness provided in the present. Number three envy ignores God's goodness promised for the future. Number four envy doubts God's goodness experienced in his guidance. God had a purpose for his people even in the wilderness. It was a part of his plan to make them into his special people. In the wilderness God was teaching his people things about faith that were far more valuable than garlic and onions and his presence was with them every step of the way keeping them from famine and war and all the diseases of Egypt.

Right they literally never got sick for 40 years but envy kept them from seeing that or believing it instead they saw themselves as alone abandoned and deprived of the really good stuff in life like garlics and leeks and onions. In 1st Corinthians 10 the Apostle Paul references this story in Numbers 11 and he says the root cause of what's going on here the root cause of their envy is idolatry. And at first that may sound confusing because you say well idolatry I didn't see any little gold statues in the story. I didn't see anybody bowing down you know worshiping a different God but idolatry is when you love and crave something more than you love and crave God. When you think that something beyond God and his plan for you is more necessary for the good life than God and his plan. Watch this you see according to Jesus in John 6 Jesus was symbolized in the manna so in despising the manna in their saying the manna was not enough they were despising Jesus and saying Jesus was not enough. What they always had and what we always have in every situation was the ever-present fellowship of Jesus the knowledge of his love and the assurance of his promises and that is supposed to be enough and if we got to choose between him and that and garlic and onions we take him. Because knowing him is the essence of the happy and the abundant life knowing him is what keeps our souls from drying up knowing him is what makes us really come alive and this is eternal life Jesus said John 17 3 to know him that's eternal life just knowing him eternal life's not streets of gold and no sickness no eternal life is just knowing you and that's something that you can know right now eternal life is something you begin right now um Jesus said I've come to give them life and to give it to them more abundantly and that life that they're looking for is found in me he says they didn't get that they were idolaters they didn't think God was enough so they turned elsewhere sore in Kierkegaard the old philosopher in his book sickness unto death says that envy arises directly out of worship if you want to understand what you really worship listen to this if you want to understand what you really worship if I asked you what you worship everybody in you listen to me this week and what do you worship all of you would say God well I have no statues in my house I worship God since you want to understand what you really worship follow your in these you envy those people who have the thing that you most worship for example if you love popularity and prestige then you will be envious of those who have more friends and influence than you that was totally me in high school in college the rest of my life as well if you love thinking of yourself as the perfect mom and homemaker if that is where you find your worth and identity then you're going to envy other mothers who seem to be doing it better than you if you worship the idea of being happily married or having a boyfriend or being in love then you're going to feel envious of those who have a boyfriend if you don't or a girlfriend or you're always going to be on the lookout for those whose relationships seem better than yours if you idolize family stability then you are envious of those who look like they've got a better family dynamic than you follow the smoke trail of your envious down to the fires that you have built at your altars of worship because that's where the real problem is don't just deal with the smoke deal with the idolatry because that is the only place to correct the problem it's like paul paul trip says if you worship your way into envy well see then you got to worship your way out now you worship your way into envy i can't just tell you to stop doing it if you worship your way in you got to worship your way out i have a pastor friend in texas who says we our church was growing people were talking about us we were kind of the hot new church so we we had a building campaign and we were going to move across town and we're going to move into a better section of town and that was going to be where our church exploded and we went from kind of cool new church to we went to one of the nation's premier mega churches he said i don't really to this day i don't know how to explain it but when we made that move it never happened he said we started to struggle our attendance began to to lag we struggled to just pay the the the debts i mean we we keep doing things but we never became that kind of big huge church he said i was walking through a field behind my house one day and he said i'll just be honest i was angry at god and i started to yell at god and you know i told god about a pastor he said not far from me who'd had affairs with five women and his church grew really big while he was having it and he ended up getting fired another guy north of me at a mega church but he was now going to jail for embezzlement he says i just looked up at god and i said god come on you got the wrong address in your blessing i got my pants on i got my hands off the offering plate you got these guys over here doing all this stuff why aren't you blessing me so all of a sudden this little question came into my mind son when will jesus be enough for you he said sometimes honestly i think that's when i became a christian he said i just fell down on my knees and i started to weep because i realized that he had not been enough for me he had never been enough for me i wanted jesus plus all this other stuff i was miserable because of our attendance the day before but i mean if i got the holy spirit if i got the word of god why can't i be content why can't i be content why is my joy based on having to grow my church as big as somebody else's so here's my question for you when is jesus going to be enough for you right when is jesus when is he i know you want to have a better job it's fine i know you want to live in a nicer house that's fine that's not unspiritual you might want to be married you might wish your husband was like you know somebody else you might wish they would improve that's fine right to to want these things to to improve but when is jesus going to be enough for you that you can be content and not hate people who have what you think that you want you think this is something that only unspiritual people wrestle with how about apostle paul passage we looked at the other day a couple weeks ago when we were talking about anxiety paul said this paul said this because he struggles with it watch this i've learned in whatever situation i am to be content see that word learned it didn't come instinctively i just had to learn it now i know how to be brought low i know how to abound in any and every circumstance i've learned the secret of facing planning and hunger abundance and need i can do all things through him who strengthens me see i know that my god will supply every need of yours and mine according to his riches of glory in glory in christ jesus you ought to keep in mind by the way that paul wrote this from prison he's under house arrest he's been betrayed by his friends there are people literally going from church to church that he's planted smearing his name he's not getting a lot of letters from those churches he planted he's chained to a roman guard 24 hours a day and put it this way he's not writing these words on the beach drinking a little drink with an umbrella in it he's not living his best life now but he says listen i've learned to be content with a little and i can be content with a lot it doesn't really change my contentment i'd rather have a lot than a little but neither the lot or the little changes my contentment because i've learned to do all things through christ through him who strengthens me y'all contrary to popular opinion that is not supposed to be the athlete's verse who quotes it as they get ready to shoot a foul shot and i can make this foul shot through christ who strengthens me that is not what that verse means what that verse actually means if you want to apply to the athlete is if i make this foul shot and become the hero great and if i airball this foul shot and they make fun of me for the rest of my life and i lose the championship game and because of that i never get picked and i never go pro and my whole sports career comes crashing down it's okay because i've got christ i can do all things through christ it is because of the presence of christ he is the real manna he is what my soul needs i just need him to come alive i don't need my jersey in the rafter i don't need people talking about me i don't need to be the hero the champion i don't need a bunch of money i just need jesus he is enough the secret to contentment is not being thankful for the little that you have the secret to contentment is seeing how much you really have been given how rich a treasure we possess in jesus christ our lord and you are to feast on jesus the true and eternal manna it is knowing him i promise you it is knowing him that is the food that your soul craves y'all think about it on the cross jesus lived out the opposite of envy did he not rather than being resentful of our joy jesus was broken over our brokenness and jesus gave up his good things so that we could be saved from our bad things has anybody else or anything else ever demonstrated that kind of love and commitment to you no that's why he's the true manna your hunger will cease to be overpowering only when you learn to feast on him the secret to contentment is not just being content with the little that you have it's learning how much god has given you in christ i'd rather have jesus than silver or gold i'd rather have him than riches untold i'd rather have jesus than houses or lands i just want to be led by his nail scarred hand i just want jesus he is the manna that my soul needs as with all these problems i've tried to show you we start out thinking that jealousy envy is a horizontal problem it's a problem between us and people who have things that we want but what we come to see is that it's really a grudge against god is that jesus is not enough for us it's that we don't really trust him the reason you're envious is because you don't trust him and the reason you envy him is because you don't treasure him he's not enough do you really believe in his goodness and can you say jesus right here right now yeah i got a lot of things that i'm working for in life a lot of things i want but i from this point on i just need you just give me jesus just give me jesus i'd rather have jesus and can you release yourself to jesus all the way and say jesus yes i'm gonna work for things but i just want to do your will i want to know that when when 10 years 20 years 70 years however long i live i'm just gonna have you i just need you to be happy i can do all things with christ through christ beside christ i can do all things with jesus because you're the one who strengthens me god i pray that you would be the manna for our souls and release us god from envy and bitterness release us god from idolatry turn our eyes upon jesus we pray in jesus name amen when is jesus alone going to finally be enough for you don't doubt god's goodness you're listening to summit life the bible teaching ministry of jd greer pastor jd our current teaching series about emotions is called smoke from a fire can you explain what you mean by that phrase yeah that phrase actually comes from saint augustine where he said that our emotions special emotions that are troubling to us like anxiety worry fear stress deep sadness he said those are like smoke that are it is arising from the fire and if we follow us this trail of smoke back down to the fire we can see the altars that we're worshiping at so it's actually an indication it's an indicator light of what's actually going on in your heart so rather than just trying to suppress your emotion or deal with your emotion i need to be less sad less worried you've got to actually figure out what is it that is the fire that indicates the altar you're worshiping at that's creating that emotion now we have a new devotional book that i'm really excited about because it's a great a great tool to help you actually do this it's called smoke from a fire just like our series and i think it'd make a great accompaniment to you as you as you listen to and study and ponder these things please get in touch with us today and like jd said we'd like to get you our newest resource when you visit jdgrier.com this 10-day devotional and scripture guide will help you call to mind the goodness of god and realize that his plans for you are ultimately good let us get it to you today i truly believe it will be something that you will continue to come back to again and again for important reminders and encouragement the smoke from a fire devotional workbook comes as our way of saying thanks when you donate to support this ministry your generosity makes it possible for us to produce these programs and to keep them coming to you on the radio tv and web when you give you're helping someone else experience the extravagant life-changing love of god through this program join that mission by giving today and be sure to ask for your copy of smoke from a fire call 866-335-5220 that's 866-335-5220 or give online at jdgrier.com that's j-d-g-r-e-e-a-r.com i'm molly vinovich thank you for joining us today and be sure to tune in tomorrow as we begin the difficult emotion of shame right here on summit life with jd greer ministry today's program was produced and sponsored by jd greer ministries