(Disclaimer: This transcript is auto-generated and may contain mistakes.)

And the title of my sermon this morning is, Who Can Stand Before Envy? Who can stand before envy? The Bible says in verse 4, wrath is cruel and anger is outrageous, but who is able to stand before envy? And what the Bible is basically saying in this verse is that envy could even be more harmful and more damaging than even great wrath or anger, that envy is an emotion that's very destructive. And if you would flip over to chapter 14 of Proverbs, you're there in chapter 27, go back a little bit to chapter 14, envy is something that we need to be aware of. Now, what is envy? Here's the dictionary definition of envy, a feeling of discontent or covetousness with regard to another's advantage, success, possessions, et cetera. So this is when you look at someone else and you say, man, I wish that I had what they have. Or you look at them and you begrudge them their success. You wish to take them down a notch because you don't like the fact that they're doing better than you, that they're succeeding more than you, that they have more possessions than you, they have more advantage or privilege or success. Looking at other people and feeling that way is envy, okay? And this is something that the Bible warns us about, it's sinful. Look at verse number 30 of chapter 14 there, a sound heart is the life of the flesh but envy the rottenness of the bones. So it's not healthy, it's going to destroy you from the inside. You know, your bones are one of the most internal parts of your body and he's saying this is just going to make you rotten down to your core. I think obviously this is metaphorical but it's also literal that even science now is discovering that a sound heart is the life of the flesh. You know, having the right attitude, having the right spirit actually does make you healthier and having these feelings of envy and wrath in you can actually consume you and make you unhealthy as well. Now the Bible is filled with stories about envy. Go if you would to Isaiah chapter 14, Isaiah chapter 14. Now what is envy? When we said it's being discontent, unhappy with your current situation because you look at someone else and you see that they're doing better than you and that bothers you. Now the opposite of that would be what the Bible tells in Romans 12-15, rejoice with them that do rejoice and weep with them that weep. When we see other people succeeding, being blessed, prospering, doing well, that should make us happy. And a good self check on this is just when you see someone else get a promotion, when you see someone who's getting married or maybe they get a raise or they get a new car or just I don't know, something good happens in their life, do you immediately, just your gut reaction, rejoice with them or do you just think to yourself, must be nice, right? What's your reaction to that? Or maybe you see them excelling spiritually. You see someone who's reading their Bible, you see someone going soul winning and maybe you see a church that's growing and thriving. What's your reaction? Like oh man, they're outgrowing us or is your reaction to praise the Lord and rejoice with them? Okay. That ought to be our attitude. We should love other people and when they do well, that should make us happy and we shouldn't even have to make a point of it. It should just be our instant reaction if our heart's right. Our instant reaction should be joy when we see other people doing well and being blessed and envy is the exact opposite of that. So if we go through the Bible, there are just so many Bible stories about envy, okay? You don't have to get very far to find this subject of envy because go to the very first incident of sin with Adam and Eve in the garden, right? And what does the devil say to Eve to get her to eat the fruit? He actually appeals to envy because this is what he says. You don't have to turn there but in Genesis 3 he said, the serpent said unto the woman, ye shall not surely die for God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened and ye shall be as gods knowing good and evil. So he tries to tell Eve basically God has it better than you. He knows good and evil and you don't. Don't you want to be like him? So you see how that's envy. Instead of her just being happy and content, she's got the garden of Eden, she's got her husband, she's got all these fruit trees but know the devil tells her, yeah, but look what God has. He has the knowledge of good and evil. You don't have that. If she had not compared herself to God, then she could have just been content with what she had. Well, God just knows, you know, that in the day you eat thereof, you'll be as gods knowing good and evil and he just, you know, he's trying to basically keep it as the haves and the have nots. He's trying to keep you down. He's got all this privilege, right? Look at Isaiah 14 and we'll see this is how the devil operates. This is what his downfall was. Verse 12, envy. How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning? How art thou cut down to the ground which didst weaken the nations? For thou hast set in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven. I will exalt my throne above the stars of God. I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation in the sides of the north. I will ascend above the heights of the clouds. And here's the key phrase that it all culminates in. I will be like the most high. Yet thou shalt be brought down to hell to the sides of the pit. So we see Lucifer's downfall is looking at God and saying, I want what he has. I want to be like he is instead of just being happy with where God put him. God gave him a job to do. He had his position and it was actually a great position. He was created as a beautiful creature. That should have been enough for him. But his downfall is when he starts looking at someone else and saying, well, yeah, but I'm not the most high. I'm just the close high, right, as, you know, Kanye West tried to say. The point is, you know, he's looking at someone else and envying instead of being content with what he has. This is the downfall of the devil himself. It's the downfall of mankind. Because that's why Eve, even ate of the tree, that's what the devil, he knew if he pushes that button, that's how he can get her to sin. So if you would defer Samuel chapter 18. So we have the story with Eve in the garden. We've got the devil himself. And then, of course, Cain and Abel. You know, in 1 John chapter 3 verse 11, the Bible reads, for this is the message that you heard from the beginning, that we should love one another, not as Cain who was of that wicked one and slew his brother. And wherefore slew he and why did he slay him? Why did Cain kill his brother Abel? Why did he do it? Because his own works were evil and his brother's righteous. Marvel not, my brother, and if the world hate you. The thing that really bothered Cain was that he saw that Abel's offering was accepted by God. Abel brought the offering. It pleased God. God was happy. God accepted it. And that bothered Cain. It wasn't just the fact that Cain got rebuked and he couldn't handle it. Obviously, that was part of it. But a big part of it was, he's looking at his brother, wasn't he? His own works were evil and his brother's righteous. If it would have just been that his own works were evil, that would have been one thing. But no, it was that his brothers were righteous because he's envying his brother. He's not just having his own walk with God, but he's looking at other people. Same thing with Joseph. What does the Bible say about Joseph? The patriarchs moved with envy, sold Joseph into Egypt, but God was with him. So why did Joseph's brethren throw him in a pit, rough him up, and then sell him into slavery into Egypt? The Bible says they were moved with envy. Why? Because Joseph was the favorite child. And Joseph got the coat of many colors. Now look, all of Israel's children were well taken care of. I mean, Israel is a wealthy man. He's got all kinds of flocks and herds. I guarantee you none of them are going cold and freezing and they don't have enough food to eat. Yeah, but he had the coat of many colors, though. You don't need a coat of many colors. You could just have one color, and it's fine, right? It's enough. And why aren't they just happy to have durable clothing, just to have a mom and dad taking care of them? But no, when they saw Joseph with his coat of many colors, they hated him in their hearts. They envied him and made them unhappy with what they had, even though they're doing better than probably 99% of the people in this world at the time, right? They're prospering. They're doing well. They've got a silver spoon in their mouth. But that's not enough, because Joseph had a little bit more, right? Because dad loved Joseph more. Look at 1 Samuel 18, and we can see the downfall of King Saul is envy, once again. Verse 6, it came to pass, as they came, when David was returning from the slaughter of the Philistine, that the women came out of all the cities of Israel singing and dancing to meet King Saul with tabrets, with joy, and with instruments of music. Now look, this sounds fun, right? Yeah, everybody's coming out. Everybody's excited, singing, dancing, fun time. They ought to be happy. And the women answered one another as they played and said, Saul has slain his thoughts. Look, is it a bad thing when a bunch of people are singing your praises? I mean, look, it's a party. We've won. It's a victory. Everybody's happy. And they are literally singing King Saul's praises. But David has ten thousands, right? So now is where the comparison comes in. So Saul has slain his thousands. He's like, yeah, I like this song. All right. But David has ten thousands. And David has ten thousands. And it's like, whoa, wait a minute. Saul was very wroth, the Bible says in verse 8. And the saying displeased him. And he said, they've ascribed unto David ten thousands, and to me they have ascribed but thousands. Look, here's a little hint. Saul did not kill thousands of people. And David didn't kill ten thousands of people. These are both exaggerations, right? These are just songs that they're singing and they're exaggerating. You know, his deeds are being exaggerated. But it's not good enough because somebody else's deeds are being exaggerated more, okay? So you can see how envious he is. What can he have more but the kingdom? David is the picture of loyalty. If you want to just find a story in the Bible to demonstrate being loyal. I mean, he is loyal, just it's crazy how loyal he is. You know, when you're sitting there reading it, you marvel at his loyalty. This guy is not jockeying for position. He's not trying to take the kingdom from Saul at all, ever. And yet, because of envy, it causes Saul to hate him in his heart. Look at verse 9. And Saul eyed David from that day forward. So up until that point it's fine, but now he starts giving him the evil eye. And it came to pass on the morrow, verse 10, that the evil spirit from God came upon Saul and he prophesied in the midst of the house and David played with his hand as at other times and there was a javelin in Saul's hand. This guy shouldn't just be handling weapons at the dinner table because he loses it all the time. Saul cast the javelin and for he said, I'll smite David even to the wall with it. And David avoided out of his presence twice. And Saul was afraid of David because the Lord was with him and was departed. Why would you be afraid of him because the Lord's with him? This is your guy. You know what? He ought to have said, hey, thank God he's on our side. Right? Hey, isn't it great that we have David on our side? Thank God he's not with the Philistines. Thank God he's not with the Amalekites, right? But no, he just is envious of him. You see how destructive this is? And remember, everything in the Old Testament is picturing the spiritual things that we go through in the New Testament, right? We're not going through physical fights like they did in the Old Testament. We don't wrestle against flesh and blood. But there's a spiritual parallel to all of this. So what happens if, for example, you have some achievements for the Lord and then someone else has greater achievements for the Lord? What's your attitude? Hey, thank God the work of Christ is being done. Thank God the Lord's enemies are being defeated, right? Thank God Israel is prospering. That should have been the attitude. But instead, it's like, well, yeah, why don't I get the glory, though? See how foolish that is? It's not about personal glory. It's about the work of the Lord getting done. And we should never look at other people's success, whether it's material success or whether it's spiritual success, and envy them. We should rejoice and be glad that God's blessing them and that they're prospering. So it says in verse 13, therefore, Saul removed him from him and made his captain over 1,000. And he went out and came in before the people. And David behaved himself wisely in all his ways, and the Lord was with him. Boy, he should just be happy to have an employee like that. It can be hard sometimes to find good help. And so if you have a worker that's behaving himself wisely, he's prospering, this should be a huge blessing. But envy has blinded him to that. Instead of being thankful for what he has, he's the king of Israel. What's he worried about? Well, maybe someday I won't be king anymore. Guess what? You're not going to be king someday, because everything in this life is temporary and you're trying to hang on to it. You know, well, what if he gets the king? So what? So what? You came into this world with nothing. You're going to leave with nothing, having food and raiment. Let us be there with content. Not only do you have food and raiment, you're the king of Israel. But that wasn't enough for him. Why? Because he's looking at other people and begrudging them. Envy destroyed a great man. Wherefore when Saul saw that he behaved himself very wisely, he was afraid of him. But all Israel and Judah loved David because he went out and came in before them. Go to Daniel chapter 6. So there are a lot of Bible stories. I mean, I'm not even turning to all the stories. I'm just turning to a few examples of this, because there are so many examples, whether it's with Adam and Eve, whether it's with Cain and Abel. We saw Joseph and his brethren. We see King Saul and the future King David. Also Daniel. You know, we see a whole group of people destroy their own lives and the lives of their families because of envy, even though they're at very high positions. Daniel chapter 6 verse 3. Then this Daniel was preferred above the presidents and princes because an excellent spirit was in him. And the king thought to set him over the whole realm. So basically, there's a bureaucracy in place for the Persian Empire here. And they break it down to where you've got these three presidents, and then you've got these other 120 rulers beneath them. And then they answer to the three presidents. And then obviously, you have the emperor, the king himself. And basically, Daniel is one of these three presidents. But he excels so much, and he's preferred above the presidents and princes so much, that basically, King Darius is thinking about just putting him over the whole realm. Like, instead of having this trifecta, basically making it to where Daniel is over everything. Basically, to where it's just Darius and then Daniel, and then have these other sub-leaders. Well, they don't like that. They don't like the fact that an excellent spirit is in him, and he's succeeding. So verse 4, then the presidents and princes sought to find occasion against Daniel concerning the kingdom. So they start trying to figure out what they can find about him that they don't like. And this is what people do when they're envious. You know what they start doing? They start picking apart other people. This is how this manifests, right? So when you envy someone else, and you don't like the fact that they're succeeding, that they're being blessed by God, you start just looking for things to pick apart. And we're talking about just dumb things. I'm not talking about legit. It's not like Daniel is, you know, skimming off the top, or taking bribes, or doing something big or anything like that. They're just basically looking for something. So they're auditing him. They're watching him. They're spying on him, because they're just waiting for him to slip up. And they're just looking for the littlest thing. And you'll find one person just nitpicking someone else over something so dumb and some little trifle. It's often because they envy that person. And so they want to take them down a notch. And so they just dream things up. So that's what they're trying to do. They're trying to dream something up and find some occasion, some opportunity. And people do this at work, too. This isn't just in church or in a spiritual realm. At work, people will try to find something wrong with their coworkers so they can advance themselves and put other people down. And they're just looking for something. They can't find anything. He's just too faithful for as much as he was faithful. Neither was there any error or fault found in him. So he comes back squeaky clean when they try to find any dirt on him. Then said these men, we should not find any occasion against this Daniel, except we find it against him concerning the law of his God. And we see that happening today as well where people get fired from their jobs because of their religious beliefs. You know, they can't find anything wrong with them about their job performance. So they find that tweet or that Facebook post or they find out that they go to Faithful Word Baptist Church or whatever and don't you know how bad that is and they don't like homos and whatever. And they try to use that to shut you down. But you know what? God ends up blessing Daniel and they're the ones that end up getting wiped out. So don't be afraid of these things. You know, just serve God and let the chips fall where they may because here's how the story plays out. They end up making up this stupid law and then nailing Daniel with that law, getting Daniel thrown into the lion's den. And of course, God closes the mouths of the lions and he survives the entire night in the lion's den and comes out unscathed in the morning. And guess what? These guys who plotted against him, the envious connivers, they get thrown into the lion's den and their families get thrown into the lion's den and the lions just rip them all to shreds. So not only did they destroy themselves, they end up destroying their wives and their children. Their whole families end up getting destroyed because of envy. Why weren't they just happy being literally in the top 0.1% of society? I mean, they're at the very top of society. They're the president but they're just not the main president. There's this other president that's just like, what? Are you crazy? We need to be happy. And look, envy blinds us. Go to John chapter 21 if you would. Envy blinds us to all the blessings that we have. Like from the outside, it's ridiculous when you look at these wealthy people, powerful people, blessed people and it's just like, oh, what about him? That's not enough. It should just be a privilege to work with a guy like Daniel, right? Because if Daniel is this excellent worker, work with him, learn from him and just enjoy being part of an empire that's succeeding. Empires are constantly failing and crashing and burning. Hey, with a guy like Daniel at the helm, you could rest a little easier because your job's probably more secure because you've got a guy at the top that's ruling well but they're blind to all that. So don't let envy blind you like that where you don't see everything that you have. By the way, Jesus was crucified, humanly speaking, because of envy. The pilot said in Matthew 27, 18 that he knew that for envy, they had delivered him. Mark 15, 10 says the same thing, for he knew that the chief priests had delivered him for envy. So why was it that the chief priests and the scribes and the Pharisees hated Jesus? They envied him because their preaching was lame, nobody was coming to hear them preach, nobody was excited about their movement, their Pharisee movement, their Sadducee movement was just boring and dull and so then they hate Jesus Christ. Why? Because when Jesus Christ shows up and preaches, he's being throng with the multitudes. When John the Baptist preached, he's throng with multitudes. That's why they hated John the Baptist, they hated Jesus. They envied them instead of just saying, wow, isn't it great that people are hearing the word of God preached. People are hearing the gospel. People are getting excited about the scriptures. They should have jumped on board, but no, they wanted to be the ones that were getting the attention. Isn't that sick? The Messiah is here and they can't accept him because they're too into Judaism to accept the Messiah. It's ridiculous. But this is what envy does to people. Look at John chapter 21 verse 20 and we'll see envy between Peter and John. Then Peter, turning about, seeth the disciple whom Jesus loved following, which also leaned on his breast at supper and said, Lord, which is he that betrayeth thee? Peter seeing him, saith to Jesus, Lord, what shall this man do? Jesus saith unto him, if I will that he tarry till I come. What is that to thee? What's it to you? Follow thou me. You follow me. Follow thou me. Don't worry about what he's doing. Well, what about him? I mean, I know because he didn't betray you, right? So he's going to, he's going to have a way cooler life than I am, right? Yeah, he is. You betrayed him. You screwed up. I mean, what's he going to do? And you know, Jesus just says, well, what's it to you? Oh, so, oh, great. So I'm going to be martyred. I'm going to be killed for the cause of Christ. This guy's probably going to live all the way till Jesus comes, you know? And that's the rumor that went around because he said, well, if I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to you? All right. If I want him and then it's like, oh, well, he's, oh, well, you know, that's what's going to happen. No, no, no. He's just saying, if I want to do that, I can do that. I have the power to do that. I can do whatever I want. Quit worrying about other people and begrudging other people and envying other people and worry about yourself. Look at yourself. Look at your own life. I mean, Peter's a pretty cool Bible character. John's a little bit cooler, but here's the thing. It should be cool enough to be the apostle Peter. You should be happy with that. All kinds of Peters being born these days. People are naming their kid Peter, right? Peter is a popular character. Peter wrote a couple of books of the Bible, right? First and second Peter, but then there's first, second and third John and the book of revelation and the gospel of John. Well, you know, Hey, I'd just, I'd be happy to write Obadiah, amen, because it's not a competition. It's not about envy. I'd love to just write one Bible verse and be used by God to deliver one scripture, right? No, there's this comparison going on. It makes people miserable. So what was the dictionary definition again? Remember the dictionary said that envy is a feeling of discontent or covetousness with regard to another's advantages, success, possessions, et cetera. Flip over if you would to Acts, Acts chapter 13. And we see that throughout the book of Acts, the Jews are persecuting the Christians because of envy, just like the Sadducees and the Pharisees and the scribes attitude was toward Jesus. Their followers had the same attitude toward Jesus followers. It says in verse 35, chapter 13, verse 45, but when the Jews saw the multitude, so they see great crowds, this is what they were in it for, the crowds. They were filled with envy and spake against those things which were spoken by Paul, contradicting and blaspheming. Not because Paul preached wrong, not because the doctrine was false, but because they saw the crowds. So you see where their heart is, they're not in it for the truth going forward, they're in it for we want to have the crowds. The synagogue attendance was a little bit low, then Paul shows up and the synagogue's packed. The Bible says almost the whole city came out here. The Bible says almost the whole city came out to hear Paul preach. We got to do something to stop this. He's too popular. We want to be seen as the leadership. Look at chapter 17, verse 5. Acts 17, verse 5, but the Jews which believed not moved with envy, took unto them certain lewd fellows of the baser sort and gathered a company and set all the city on an uproar and assaulted the house of Jason and sought to bring them out to the people. They were moved with envy and we see this story playing out over and over again. The devil loves to use envy to get people to do wrong things. And look, we see in these stories unsaved people being moved with envy, but we also see saved people being moved with envy. We see guys like Saul being moved with envy. We see guys like the apostle Peter being moved with envy. Look, this is something that saved people struggle with, unsaved people struggle with. This is something that mankind struggles with. This is the downfall of mankind. This is why our world is at war today. This is why we don't have peace on earth. It's because of envy. From whence come wars and fightings among you? Come they not hence even of your lusts that war in your members? Why? Because you're looking at what other people have and you wish that you had what they have. And you thought you had enough until you saw what they had. And we see this with little children. Little children are just like a raw display of human nature because they haven't learned to cover up their faults as well as we adults have. So children are just a raw display of human nature. And you know, just try this. Just give the child a cookie and they're like, wow, thanks, cool, great. And then just hand the next child two cookies. And all of a sudden that one cookie that was such a blessing becomes just a source of anger and crying. But you know what? You need to grow up if that's how you act. We expect a baby to act that way. We expect a toddler to act that way. But you know what? When you're an adult, you should be smart enough to understand what envy is and decide, you know what? I'm not going to be that kind of person. I'm going to rejoice with those that rejoice. I'm going to be happy to see my brother get two cookies because you know what? I'm perfectly happy with one. One is enough for me, okay? And especially at our age, we can only eat one cookie anyway or we're going to get fat because we don't have the metabolism that we used to have, right? So we got to watch what we eat anyway, right? You know, oh man, it must be nice these kids without metabolism, they can just scarf down all this food. Folks, we live good lives. If we'd be honest, we're living in America. We're living in the most prosperous land of opportunity on the planet. Folks, the dark places of the earth are full of the habitations of cruelty. Folks, I don't know about you, but when I go to bed at night, I do not even think for one second, what if bands of roving robbers come and break into my house? That thought doesn't even enter my mind. I sleep like a baby. You know, cuddled up against my shotgun and, no, I'm just kidding. But anyway, no, I'm just saying, that thought doesn't even enter my mind because of the fact that we live in such a safe place. Folks, there are places in this earth where there are just bands of marauding thieves and robbers just raping and pillaging and murdering and spreading AIDS in their wake. Folks, there are some horrible places in this world. We live in the nicest place. Even if you're living today in quote unquote poverty in the United States, in some places that would be considered a pretty good existence. Whoa, you actually have clean water and you don't have to walk 15 miles round trip to get it. Right? I mean, just having clean water, just having access to all kinds of places where you could go work and even just to go to a day labor place and get paid, you know, a lot of people wish they could make that kind of money when they're living in rougher parts of the world in Central America or in Africa or in Asia somewhere. You know, I mean, look, there are billions of people in Asia today living in conditions that are far below what anyone in this room lives in. You know, anybody in this room, even if you say, well, you don't understand, I'm poor. Yeah, but you're probably still living in a safer, more secure, more climate controlled, more food available than literally probably billions of people that have less opportunity than you have, less luxury than you have. I mean, we said that we're going to sit down to lunch today and we're going to eat produce that was like flown in from all over the world, literally, right? We're going to pick up this as a product of Chile and product of what? I mean, we're eating food, we're eating like kings. We're literally eating like kings in the United States. And then we just complain and whine because somebody else has it better than us. Folks, we should just be happy to just be here and have food. And look, what a blessing to be able to just go to bed at night and not have to just wake up every, you know, wondering if we're going to be attacked or assaulted or, you know, we're just, we're safe. Maybe you live in that kind of neighborhood. But no, because there's not even a neighborhood like that in Phoenix. This isn't Detroit, this isn't South Chicago. You know, this isn't, I mean, this, you know, where's the ghetto in Phoenix? The ghetto in Phoenix is nothing compared to some other ghettos out there. Okay. My point is, we all have it pretty good in this room if we'd stop looking at other people. I don't even have a car. Yeah, but you have a good set of legs, you can walk, you got a bicycle, you got Uber, whatever you got, it's working. You're here. Okay. So don't sit there and look at what other people have and wish that you had what they had. Be happy with what God has given you. You're going to just be miserable if you're an envious, and by the way, once you get what you think you want, you'll just want something else. The Bible says, he the love of silver should not be satisfied with silver. He the love of the abundance, it's not going to be enough. You just want more, more, more, more. I guarantee you, the millionaires of this world, they're not just like, yeah, I have enough money. I'm good. They just want more, because you know why? They're looking at the billionaires. If there was no such thing as a billionaire, they wouldn't even think about that number. That's a stupid number, and he's got too many zeros behind it. They'd just be happy with the millions. What's a billion? You don't even need that number. Okay. You know, it's like, oh, but this guy's a billionaire. There's only so much you can do with your money. How much money can you even spend? How good can food get? How comfortable can a bed get? What do you do with just these excesses of money? Eventually, you're not going to have anything to spend it on. I know there's some really junky food out there, but you know what? You can get a really nice meal easily for like 20 bucks. What are you going to do with the other couple million? You can only eat so much food unless you're just going to become bulimic and just keep ordering more food. That's why rich people do these stupid things, like they eat food with literal gold on it. That's just dumb. By the way, those little flakes of gold that they put on the food, they're not even worth that much anyway, because gold flakes are only worth pennies anyway. They're not worth a lot, because at the homeschool convention, they were just giving away flakes of gold and everything. It's so light. Oh, let's put some of that on our burger and then charge $1,000 for it. You want to eat gold? But that's what they do. Or they've got the foie gras with the truffles. Truffles aren't even good. You know what kind of truffles I like? Chocolate truffles. Right? Amen? And those are only like 50 cents. You got the truffles and it's all fried in duck fat. What's the difference? I mean, I went to a fancy restaurant one time. They gave me french fries fried in duck fat. And you know what it tasted like? A french fry. It just tasted like a french, it's like, oh, you know, and then it's some special ketchup. Give me Heinz 57, man. It's fine. It's the same thing. And you say, well, you're just not a connoisseur. But even if you go out and do spend the money and get the real expensive meal, how much is it going to cost per table? How much is it going to cost per person? 50 bucks or something per plate? I mean, I've never eaten at a restaurant more expensive than that. That's like the most I've ever done, I think. And that was ridiculous. But it's like, what are you going to do with millions and billions of dollars? Four houses. What do you need four houses for? Live in one house and then just go rent and just get an Airbnb or something. You know, all you have all the boats, just rent a boat. What are you going to do with all that money? Folks, it's stupid and vain. What good does it do to the owners thereof save the beholding of them with their eyes? You get to go look at your car and look at your boat. It's vanity. It's meaningless. Folks, I guarantee you that some of the happiest people in this world are just poor people or just middle class people and they're just happy with what they have. The happiest person is not the one that has the most stuff. You know what? There are people today that are just as happy eating their Chipotle burrito, they're just as happy eating at Panda Express, they're just as happy eating at Pita Bistro as the guy who's out eating the foie gras with gold dust sprinkled on it and a glass of whatever the year of whatever the fermented whatever. You know what I mean? It doesn't make you happy, okay? Be content. It makes you happy. Paul said, I've learned in whatsoever state I am there with to be content. He could be in prison with fresh wounds on his back from getting a beating and he's singing and partying at midnight in the dungeon singing praises to God. Some other rich guy somewhere is tossing and turning on his memory foam dialed in mattress or whatever wondering about his portfolio because his buddy that he went to Harvard with has a little more than he does or something. You see what I'm saying? You got to learn to be happy with what you have. Now another sin, go if you would to Philippians chapter one, did I have a turn there? Go to Philippians one. Another sin that's often associated with envy is seeking after vain glory. So it's not just envying money or possessions or food or advantage or whatever. Sometimes people envy fame and glory. I love how the Bible just puts these together, vain glory. Sometimes it even jams them into one word, vain glory. The vanity of seeking your own glory is so closely associated with it, it's like you just push it into one word, vain glorious, vain glory. Why? Because seeking your own glory is vain. It's an empty feeling. If you've ever been recognized for something in your life, if you've ever received an award and I don't know, maybe you're different than I am, but if you've ever received an award or received any kind of praise or gotten any accolades or something like that, for me whenever I've received anything like that, I always had just kind of an empty feeling. I don't know if you understand what I'm saying, but you know what I mean? Sometimes when people are praising me or giving me accolades, it kind of makes me uncomfortable and I kind of just get an empty feeling, kind of like this is vanity, you know what I mean? You appreciate where people are coming from and you appreciate the thought and the love and things like that, but I remember the first time I got an award, I remember I was in sixth grade and I got awarded some medal that said something about patriotism, honesty, scholarship. I got this award and I remember – to this day, I have no idea why I got this award. I don't believe that I deserve this award at all and I don't know why I got it. It was very – it was strange to me at the time. I literally – when they said they're going to announce these awards, I literally – they said, you know, and the award goes to – and I literally elbowed the guy next to me and said, Stephen Anderson, you know, just as a joke and then they're like, Stephen Anderson, and I'm like, what in the world – you know, I'm 11 years old and I'm just wracking my – like, how could I have gotten this – I didn't do anything. I did literally nothing to achieve this award. I didn't understand why I was gay, so I'm – but I was just kind of like, okay, cool, you know, whatever. So I got this little award and then I remember there was another girl because it was like one male student in the school and one female student in the school. That was back when we only had two genders and so, you know, so we got these awards and basically this girl, she was like crying and like, oh, it's so great. She was like really, really happy and I felt guilty. I felt bad because I'm like, I'm not happy enough about this award. This award should have gone to someone who would have gotten more excited, like the male equivalent of this girl who would have been crying and I love you all and, you know, thank you to my public. So I just – but I just remember just having a feeling of just like this doesn't matter. What is the point, you know, and I mean my mom was real happy about it and everything and, you know, but it was just weird. It was just kind of like what is – and you know what, the older you get and the more you go through life, you're going to experience that feeling again. Maybe it's an athletic achievement. I guarantee you there are a lot of athletes who they win the big Super Bowl or they win the NBA playoffs or they win the marathon or they win this – and I guarantee you they have an empty feeling and I'm not going to ask for a raise of hands but if you think about your life, athletic achievements you've had, work achievements you've had, accolades that you received, whatever, where you had an empty feeling when you finished what you set out to do, right? I mean, right? Maybe I will have a raise of hands. Who knows what I'm talking about where you've kind of – you've achieved something and you just kind of had an empty feeling of like what's – but you know what never has given me an empty feeling? I've never had an empty feeling after winning someone to Christ. I never had an empty feeling after a successful missions trip, right? I didn't have an empty feeling with things that were of a spiritual nature. Don't seek vainglory and you know if you're young, you might be fantasizing about winning some great athletic competition or being the greatest this or the greatest that or being a great leader or making all kinds of money but let me tell you something. As you get older, you're going to realize that stuff is vain. It's vainglory that you're seeking after. Academic achievement is a vainglory. It gives you an empty feeling once you achieve it. I wouldn't know because I never have but no, I'm just kidding. But anyway, did I have a turn to Philippians chapter 1? Yeah, and the Bible says, by the way, Galatians 5, 26, let us not be desirous of vainglory, provoking one another, envying one another. Don't be desirous of vainglory, provoking one another and envying one another. Look if you go to Philippians 1, 15, some indeed preach Christ even of envy and strife. So envy is so pervasive, even preachers of the gospel could be infected with envy. Isn't that what the Bible is saying? Some indeed preach Christ even of envy and strife and some also of good will. The one preached Christ of contention, not sincerely, supposing to add affliction to my bonds but the other of love, knowing that I'm set for the defense of the gospel. You see here, there are some people who, whether they preach from the pulpit or whether they preach out soul winning, they're actually doing it out of contention. Basically it's a competition for them and it's about putting other people down and doing better than others so that they can be the best. You see that? They're doing it out of envy. They're doing it out of strife and contention. To them it's a battle. You know what we need to understand all the time is that the other people that are out soul winning, preaching the gospel, they're on our team. We're on the same team. We're not in competition with them. You know I remember there was a time when I thought that Pastor Roger Jimenez and Verity Baptist Church were going to outgrow Faithful Word Baptist Church. In fact, for a while there, their record Sunday morning attendance was higher than ours. I mean because they were just growing really fast and really thriving and our church had kind of hit a bit of a plateau in size. I remember just thinking that it was great and just thinking to myself, this is so awesome because Pastor Jimenez is in Sacramento and his church is growing and thriving. I actually thought to myself, man, he's going to be running 500 very soon. His church is just trending or excelling. You know what? That's great because we're on the same team. We're friends. We want to see each other succeed. We want to see each other reach more people because at the end of the day it's about reaching people with the gospel. We want other churches' missions trips to be successful. We want their church plans to be successful. It's not about like, well, you know, what about our achievements? We have no achievements because it's all the work of Christ. We're just cogs in the machine. We're just part of God's plan and God's will being brought forward. It doesn't matter whether it's us or them or whoever. We should all be working together and obviously I don't mean necessarily that we're all linked up and hand in hand because obviously we do believe in being independent Baptist churches, but we should all be working together in the sense that it's all about the work of Christ and it doesn't matter who gets it done. We just want to see it get done. We just want to see the work get done. It's not about being the top dog because that's meaningless and vain. It's about the work of Christ getting done and it doesn't matter who does it just so long as it gets done and you can, you'll spot this in the ministry. Like for example, there'll be a guy who says like, oh, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm training for the ministry and someday I really want to start a church and X the town, right? And then you'll see another guy go start a church in that town before he's ready. You know what? The reaction ought to be like, great. I, I, you know, if he, if you really love the people of that town, if you really love that area and just wanted to see God do a great work in that area, you'd just be thrilled that something great's happening in that area. You wouldn't be sitting there and saying like, oh, well that was supposed to be me. Well, you know what? Why don't you just die then? Because you're not needed anymore. Somebody else is doing your job in that time. You just get a different, you just do something different. God's got other plans for you, but you can tell that kind of guy who has that attitude, he's going to the ministry for the wrong reason. Oh, you took my turf. You took my time. It's like, well, I thought we just care about the people of Sacramento or we just care about the people of, you know, Phoenix, it shouldn't matter where, and you know, we need to be careful too that we don't start seeing anybody who's outside of our so-called movement as enemies. Right. Okay. Let, let me explain something to you. Before our church ever came along, there was a lot of soul wedding going on in this world. A lot of soul wedding was happening, a lot of people were being saved, a lot of mission strips were happening. We did not invent any of these things. Nothing that I preach is original with me. You know, if, you know, if anybody wants to create a scandal about me, you should create a big plagiarism scandal, how everything I preach is plagiarized from other preachers and other people because it's true, guilty. There's nothing new under the sun. Right. I mean, we all are just taking the truths that we've learned and preach and just preaching them and so the thing about it is that long before I was born, soul wedding was happening and long after I'm dead and gone, if the Lord tarries his return, soul wedding will still be happening and so don't get this attitude that we're the only soul wedding church in Arizona or that, you know, the churches that we're friends with are the only true soul wedding church. Hey, there are old IFB churches all over America that are going soul wedding and winning people to Christ and there are even people outside of the IFB movement that are truly saved Christians that get other people saved and win people to Christ. There are other things in this world and we don't need to look at it as we're in competition with them or when we see an old IFB church succeeding and prospering and winning souls, that should cause us to rejoice, not to think like, oh man, you know, we, you know, we need to be number one. We're number one. No, we're not number one. We're not trying to be number one. We don't care about being number one. All we care about is just doing our job and just, and look, God has blessed our church tremendously. Our church is five times the size of the average independent fundamental Baptist church. Shouldn't that be enough? So, you know, I hope that someday, you know, and Pastor Jimenez had a few setbacks, you know, with that whole Orlando thing, he had a few setbacks, but you know, his church is thriving and growing and, and I believe he's running over 200 now and everything. I don't know the exact numbers, but he's thriving and growing. You know, I would love to see his church or any other church in our movement or any of our friends outpace us and, and, and, and, and you know what? Our church is not the largest independent fundamental Baptist church in Arizona. You know, you got Valley Baptist out in Mesa. Okay. That's running like 500 and you know what? I hope they run a thousand because they're our brothers and sisters in Christ and it's a great church, so we don't want to get this attitude of, of, of competition in a bad way or competitiveness. Now there could be a good, and I preached a little sermon called right and wrong competition. You know, sometimes competition can motivate us to do better, but often competition can become a thing of wanting to put other people down and wanting other people to fail when we should want them to succeed. So let me just hurry up and finish here. Go to second Corinthians chapter 10, second Corinthians chapter 10. I just want to finish with this thought, run your own race, run your own way race and look onto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith. Don't look at the guy next to you. Don't look at what other people are doing. You got to run your own race. Now I, I love running. Okay. One of my favorite athletic activities and I do love just running recreationally and I, I've, I've only entered an actual running event like once in my entire life. So I'm, I'm not into being competitive with running, but you know, I just like to go running. But let me tell you, even just with my experience with running, one of the worst things that you can do when you're running is to let someone else control your pace. You know, for me that, this is why I run by myself most of the time because one thing that can just completely derail you more than anything else is when you start running somebody else's race. Okay. One of the worst things you can do, you know, you get out there on the starting line, right? And it's like, all right, we're going to run a marathon or we're going to run 13 miles or 30 miles or whatever. And, and, and you know, pretty soon what you do, you start trying to keep up with the people next to you and maybe they're running at it, maybe they're running a little too fast for you. You're going to crash and burn, right, because you're going too fast. Or maybe they're running too slow for you. You've got to just forget what other people are doing. You know the pace that you've trained for. You know your limitations. You know the speed. And you run your own race, all right? You do your own thing. And look, again, I'm not an elite athlete. I know that there are some elite athletes among us, but very few. But yes, it's true. But the thing is, you know, when I'm going and entering a running race, I'm not there to take home the trophy or to get first place or something like that. I'm actually going there to just run my own race. So I'm looking at, okay, how fast did I go last time? I want to do a little better this time. But I don't care what the people around me are doing. I'm not hoping that they, you know, sprain their ankle or something. And you know, if you're the type of person where you're running a race and the guy in front of you sprains his ankle and you're like, yes. And even if you are an elite athlete, I think that that's a wicked attitude to have and that that's bad sportsmanship. You should never rejoice in seeing someone get hurt. You say, well, yeah, but that gave me the opportunity to win. No. You've lost your humanity, though. Okay. It's not worth winning to have an attitude that says I like to see other people get hurt because then I could pass them. See how wicked that would be? You know, you should never enjoy that, okay? We should be happy with what God has given us, run our own race, be happy with all the blessings that we have, be happy with our own spiritual achievements that have only been achieved through the grace of God anyway. God's the one who has allowed us. And we shouldn't start comparing and, well, I do more soul winning than him or, you know what, you're an idiot if that's how you think. Okay. Because the Bible says here in 2 Corinthians 10 verse 12, for we dare not make ourselves of the number or compare ourselves with some that commend themselves, but they measuring themselves by themselves and comparing themselves among themselves are not wise. Don't you dare be of that number, right? Don't you dare be that kind of person who measures yourself by other people. You compare yourselves amongst yourselves. You measure yourselves by yourselves. You know why people do that? Because they want to commend themselves. Isn't that what the Bible said? We dare not make ourselves of the number or compare ourselves with some that commend themselves. They praise themselves. And maybe this is verbally or maybe it's just in their heart where they just think to themselves, man, I'm so glad I'm better than he is, you know. These other pastors are so lame. These other churches are so lame. Faithful words, number one. You know, I go soul winning more than anybody in this church. I'm the soul winning MVP. Folks, that's wicked. How dare you? We dare not be that way. And you know what? When you see a person who brags and praises themselves and commends themselves, you know what that shows you? They're measuring themselves by other people. Because if we look unto Jesus, we're not going to walk away commending ourselves. If we look unto Jesus, we're not going to walk away saying, yeah, I'm a pretty good Christian. But if we look at some lame Christian and then be like, yeah, I'm pretty good, you know, better than him, better than brother so and so, but you know, then yeah, we're going to have that attitude. You know, it's pretty easy to start commending ourselves when we compare the size of our church to other IFB churches and say, yeah, you know, our church is pretty big. Okay, let's compare it to the church in the book of Acts. You still feeling big? Three thousand people added to the church. That makes us seem like a tiny church, right? When you start comparing to the Word of God. So this is what this ought to be the standard. Don't get all high and mighty because, oh, our church is big and oh, man, we did so much soul winning. I remember there were a few idiots who made statements, a few bozos who said things about the original soul winning mega marathon like, oh, it's the greatest achievement in the history of Christianity since the book of Acts. I mean, that's just foolish. That's such a prideful, arrogant statement to make. You don't know all the things that have happened over the last two thousand years. But even so, even just what we do know, I could point to events that have happened in my lifetime that were greater than our soul winning mega marathon that the old IFB did. So there. You just get this agile, we're the great, we did the greatest events, we're living the book of Acts in the sense that no one has ever lived it. You know, people have always been living the book of Acts if they're serving Christ, right? You don't think people in the fifteen hundred, sixteen hundred, seventeen hundred, eighteen hundred did works for God and won souls and did missions. It's always been going on. Don't get this high and mighty attitude that faithful word is just so much better than any other church. That's a stupid attitude to have. And you know what? I want you to be thankful for your church. I want you to be happy with our church, but I don't want you to get the attitude that it's the only right church, because that's weird. And false. Okay. And not only that, I want you to be happy with your life. I want you to be happy with your job, I want you to be happy with your spouse, I want you to be happy with your achievements, but you know what? I don't want you to think, hey, I'm the greatest, you know, I'm the best. Folks, we need to be just humble and thankful for what God has given us. And if we run our own race, we'd be an idiot not to be happy when we think about how much prosperity we have in the United States. We do have an amazing church to go to, right? We have great friends surrounding us here. We've got a great church. We live in Arizona. It's the best state. No daylight savings time. Everybody else is freezing and huddled in some snow. And it's not a winter wonderland. All the snow, it turns black. If you actually live in a snowy place, it gets all dirty and brown and black. That's what it gets like, right? It only looks beautiful when it first falls and it just gets uglier and uglier. I'm just kidding. But you know what? Hey, we live in Arizona. We got Faith Forward Baptist Church. You say, well, is our church the best church? I don't care if it's the best church. You know what? I like it. All that should matter is do we like our church? Is it a good church? Is it pleasing to God? It shouldn't matter like, yeah, but is it the best, though? Hey, you know, are you married to the best woman in the entire world? No, because I am now. But the point is, here's the thing. It shouldn't matter. You know, all that matters is that you love your wife. You have a great wife. Well, you know what? That should be enough. It shouldn't be like, well, yeah, but is she the greatest? I mean, do you think that I, for one second, you know, expect my wife to think that I'm the greatest husband on the planet out of 7.4 billion people or, you know, I mean, I'm the best looking guy you've ever seen, right, honey? It's stupid. But you know what? I hope that my wife is happy to be married to me, right? I hope you're happy to be married to your husband, that you're happy to be married to your wife. You know, why don't you just be happy with what you have? You have something good. Be happy. Right? Now, look, I don't know what I'm going to have for lunch today. I don't know if it's going to be the best meal I've ever had in my life. But I guarantee you that whatever my wife is serving is going to be good. And maybe it's going to be my favorite meal. Maybe it's not. But you know what? It's going to be good enough. And I'm going to be thankful. I'm going to be happy. I'm going to enjoy it. It's going to be nutritious. Folks, quit comparing things and envying other people. You have it good. Yeah, but I don't have it as good as you do. But you have it good, though. So quit looking at me. Quit looking at other people. And just run your own race. Be happy with what you have. I'm telling you, if envy brought down the devil, envy brought down the human race. This is a big deal. You better let this message sink in. And get envy out of your heart. Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer. Father, we thank you so much for your word, Lord, to teach us these things. And that we can understand the dangers of envy. I mean, wrath is cruel. Anger is outrageous. But who is able to stand before envy? Lord, help us to realize how destructive this is to our physical health, to our spiritual well-being, to our relationships when we let envy creep in. And help us to decide to be a contented person who compares ourselves with you and not with other people. And just help us just be happy and content with what we have, Lord. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.