Latest / Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive / May 1, 2022 | More than a Feeling - Envy

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May 1, 2022 | More than a Feeling - Envy · Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Good morning, everybody.
• 0:02
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_00: So glad that you could be with us here at TBC.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: Last week, Jim got us started with a new sermon series.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_00: We are talking about more than a feeling.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_00: And the idea behind this series is that, first of all, we are all made in the image of God.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_00: And if you've read the Bible at all, you know that God displays some emotions.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_00: And being made in the image of God, it means that sort of as his image-bearers, we carry forth a component of those emotions.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_00: The problem is that sometimes we are prone to sin, if you didn't know already.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: And so these emotions can sort of be twisted and misconstrued into something that is wholly unhealthy and oftentimes going against God's will.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_00: And so the idea behind more than a feeling is we would see our emotions as being more than just a feeling, more than a fleeting sort of idea or thought, but we would get to the root cause of it, see how we can live these emotions out in a glorifying way to God, and furthermore, become people who are Bible-driven and not emotionally driven.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: There are many things that emotions are good for, but when they get out of hand, it can be a huge problem.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_00: This morning we're talking about a different sort of emotion, and we'll be discussing envy.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: Envy, uh, jealousy, covetousness, I'm going to be using these words quite a lot, but really what they boil down to in the text is a desire for something that is outside of the providential boundaries that God has set up for our lives.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: He has provided for us, he's given to us, he's done great things for us.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_00: And when we sort of step outside of those boundaries, when we cast our gaze beyond the sort of providential fences, then we begin to grow in these desires of envy.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_00: Specifically, the problem is when we begin to desire things, like I said, that God has not given to us and are not ours already.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: See, the Bible, what you perhaps might be tripped up when reading is that you see that God describes himself as a jealous God.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_00: He says, I am a jealous God.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: I desire for my people to worship me.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_00: See the difference though, and here's where the God-given emotion can become twisted, is that God desires and is jealous after our affection for him because he deserves it and it should already be his.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_00: We should be people of God.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_00: We should be people who worship God.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_00: We should be giving our lives to God as he is our Lord and Savior.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_00: And so it makes sense and is okay for our God, lest I, you know, give the declaration that it's okay for God to do something, but it is okay for God to be jealous for us because he desires something that already belongs to him.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_00: Okay?
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: The problem for us is when, like I said, we step outside of those bounds.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: Now, envy, it's a small word that can have huge ramifications, and you don't have to go very far to see it, probably in your own homes.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: In our home, this is uh one of our two dogs.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_00: Her name is Millie, and Millie is, let's just say, envious.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_00: This is uh a picture of her holding four toys at once, and Millie's favorite toy is the one that is in her sister's mouth.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_00: We have two dogs.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_00: Her favorite toy of all time is whatever one she does not have.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_00: And so if she, her sister Winnie is holding another toy, um, that's the one that she needs to have.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_00: She needs to go and get it because it's hers, if you didn't know already.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_00: And if she doesn't get it, then she barks and I don't know, whatever dog yells at us.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_00: She gets really grumpy.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_00: This is Millie.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_00: She is not a good sharer, and she is the personification of envy, frankly, in many ways.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_00: But we don't have to go very far beyond dogs to see it in our own lives, right?
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_00: Because envy and jealousy is something that is very well known to us, both in very extreme cases and in the mundane of life.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you might be a woman who has sought out makeup tips on social media and following these posts every single day of somebody whose face looks flawless, you begin to become covetous of their skin or their appearance or things like that.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe you're a man who is burdened by needing success to feel fulfillment, and you see a coworker or somebody that is nearby to you in another business just close by across the street that is doing far better than you in their career and their success.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_00: And so you begin to become envious, not of so much the money, but the fact that they are doing better than you.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_00: We begin to desire something that God has not given to us.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe you're a husband or a wife who gets the endless deluge of Christmas cards, right?
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_00: And you see family after family with apparently perfect little cherubic kids who have all gotten in the exact same outfit.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_00: And wouldn't you know it?
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_00: It looks like they did it in one take, right?
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe you are a husband and wife who, in the Lord's timing, he has not provided children for you as of yet.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_00: And that struggle becomes more painful when you see the individuals around you who you love dearly, you see them growing their families.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_00: Envy can creep up in these very sinister ways, but it can be more mundane, too.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_00: You make a casserole and it doesn't look like the picture the pioneer woman had in her cookbook, you know, and you say, like, why can't my casserole turn out like this?
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_00: Your neighbor's yard looks a lot greener than yours.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_00: His grass is coming up sooner, and so you look at that and you become dissatisfied with your own.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_00: Or maybe remember, I was a student pastor before I was in this role, and you're a middle school or you're a high school student walking through the fickle world that is sort of that age and school age, and a bunch of your friends get invited to a birthday party, and you were not the one, you were excluded from that, and so you become envious of that invitation of their relationship.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_00: It's probably not hard for you, as it's not hard for me, to think of ways in which our desires have sort of gone beyond the boundaries that God has set up for our lives, where we have sinfully approached these things as something that we deserve and we need and we should get because God has not provided for us.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_00: And my friends, that is that is a huge problem that we have got to wrestle with because having envy in our hearts can hamstring our faith and make it so we are unable to have a greater and deeper relationship with God because we are so focused on what he has not done for us.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: Now, you might be wondering, why does God care so much about this?
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_00: Well, actually, the answer is he cares about it a lot.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_00: In Exodus 20, verse 17, it says, Do not desire your neighbor's house, do not desire your neighbor's wife, his male or female servant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_00: This is the end of the decalogue, the Ten Commandments.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_00: This is the tenth commandment.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_00: Your Bible might say something like, Do not covet your neighbors, or do not be jealous of, or do not envy.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_00: But the root word in Hebrew is desire.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_00: And as we go forth this morning, that is gonna be the thing that we focus on, is really desiring.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_00: Envy is the emotion for sure, but the action that we are able to address and get to the root cause of is desire.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_00: And so do not desire these things that belong to your neighbor.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_00: Now, there are some of these things that you're like, no problem.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_00: Do not care if my neighbor has a donkey or an ox.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_00: That is not my concern.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_00: Some of you who live more in rural Kansas, you might be like, actually, but then there are some here where these ideas of, oh, a neighbor's house, yes, okay, now I understand.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_00: I understand it is my neighbor's success, my neighbor's relationships, my neighbor, the things my neighbor has, and you're looking over and you're seeing what they have that you don't have, you are comparing and contrasting, and you don't like really what came out in the wash.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_00: And so we begin to desire and seek after these things.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_00: But you might even be asking, though, I mean, okay, the Ten Commandments, right?
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_00: Like, you know, do not worship false idols, do not murder, do not steal.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_00: Coveting does not normally come up when we're making that list off the top of our head.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_00: Why is God's care so much about our desire for things that do not belong to us?
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_00: Let's go back to the garden.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_00: The woman saw that the tree was good for food and delightful to look at, and that it was desirable, same word as Exodus, for obtaining wisdom.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_00: So she took some of its fruit and ate it.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_00: She also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate it.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_00: That's probably why.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_00: We go to the garden, we see that the fall of humanity, sin entering the world in Genesis 3 began with a look.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_00: Didn't even begin with picking the fruit off of the tree.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_00: It began with Satan going to Eve and saying, Hey, Eve, this God, he's kind of a stickler for the rules.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_00: What if you could have something you don't have right now?
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_00: I know he has given you everything you could ever need, and that's true.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_00: If we read in Genesis, we see that they had all of their needs provided for.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_00: Adam and Eve did not want for a single thing.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, ironically, perhaps here, Eve ends up wanting something, but when we talk about what they actually needed, they had all the food, they had all the water and pro and you know provisions that they could desire.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_00: They had shelter, most of all, and the thing that was the greatest lost was they had an individual and special relationship with God as he was walking in the garden with them.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_00: And God says, Hey, but there's one thing you can't do, and it's eat from that tree.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_00: And Eve is like, but maybe, right?
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_00: I love it.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_00: I want it.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_00: You said I can't have it, so now that is the thing that I want.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_00: And this gambit of Satan, which he is still plying today, is that, oh, Eve, if you only realized that that thing that you can't have is going to bring you satisfaction.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_00: It's going to bring you everything that you needed.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_00: It is going to make you feel whole and happy.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_00: Because right now, Eve, oh, you're not feeling it.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_00: The things which God has provided for you in his mercy, they are not enough.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_00: You must have more.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_00: I wanted to hit this passage here.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_00: I wanted to sort of sit on it because there's a couple important things that we can get out of it.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_00: The first is one that I've already mentioned, which is that when we're talking about envy and desire, these are not things based on contentment.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_00: The Lord knows what you need, He provides for your needs.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_00: When we talk about desire for something else, it is beyond the scope of need, and it is into clearly into the want category.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_00: Oftentimes there are painful things that we might desire after, but nevertheless, or rather, there are painful things we wish to escape and we desire after.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_00: I was talking to a brother last service who was talking about a sick family member.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_00: And so it is not that everything that we envy and desire after is in and of itself sinful, because the health of somebody is beautiful and desirous for us, because we live in a fallen world.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_00: Yet when that desire goes outside of what God has provided, saying, Lord, you are not enough.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_00: I need more than what you are giving, that is when it becomes a problem.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_00: The other thing I wanted us to see is that Satan's scheme here is the same one back then as it is today.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_00: This gambit that he's playing is the same kind of thing that is going on in our own homes and on our phones and in our minds when we look at the world around us.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_00: We not only see our neighbors immediately, but because of the internet and social media, we see our neighbors everywhere.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_00: And so it is very easy for us to fall into this trap.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_00: But the last thing I wanted us to see here before we move on to our main text for this morning is that when we go to the book of James, chapter four, which is where we'll be, um, James is gonna use some very, very strong language to talk about the effects of sin and envy in our life.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_00: And if you're not ready for it, it's gonna startle you because it's gonna sound like he's being overdramatic.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_00: He's gonna start talking about death and wars and how that is a result of envy.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_00: And you might be looking at this sort of thing and you say, okay, well, but what was the problem with a look?
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_00: What's the problem with a look?
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I just glance over.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_00: I don't have the nicest car and they have a better car.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_00: My best friend's husband is very attractive.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_00: Their business is doing a lot better than ours or has during the pandemic.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_00: It was just a look.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_00: What is the problem with just a look?
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_00: Well, God gets to the point when he says that these things, they draw up within us a lack of contentment.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_00: And the problem is that when we desire those things that are not of God, then it can lead to death.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_00: James gets to it in chapter two, or this is chapter four, but two chapters earlier, he says, Well, if you did not know, there is such a thing as desire and temptation.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_00: And let us net let it never be said that temptation is coming from God.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_00: Temptation is coming from your own desires.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_00: And when that desire, it gives it comes sort of fully formed, it gives birth to sin.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_00: And when that sin it sort of grow up, grows up and graduates and leaves the house, it gives birth to death.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_00: You don't have to go far to find this.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_00: Cain, right, killed his brother Abel because he was envious of the attention that the Lord gave him and his sacrifice.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_00: David killed Uriah because he was envious of his wife, bat wife Bathsheba, and wanted her for himself.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_00: Ahab was envious of another man's vineyard, and he would not sell it to him, so he killed him.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_00: You might say, Well, I have never killed somebody because of my envy.
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_00: Brother, sister in Christ, that is the road we are on, though.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's just me.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_00: I've never killed somebody, let me tell you, but there are times in my head where I've had nasty thoughts about people because of envy in my heart.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe I'm alone in that, but I know that what the Bible says is that when we walk this road of envy, it leads to death.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_00: So then we get to James 4, and he says, What is the source of wars and fights among you?
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_00: Don't they come from your passions that wage war within you?
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_00: You desire and you do not have.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_00: You murder and covet and cannot obtain.
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_00: You fight and wage war.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_00: You do not have because you do not ask.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_00: You ask and don't receive because you ask with wrong motives, so that you may spend it on your pleasures.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_00: You adulterous people, don't you know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God?
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_00: So whoever wants to be the friend of the world becomes the enemy of God.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_00: James gets right at it here.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_00: And he begins in verse 1 when he says, What is the source of wars and fights among you?
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_00: Here is the source.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_00: Don't they come from your passions that wage war within you?
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_00: He says, Don't blame them.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_00: Don't blame, you know, your friend who is being successful.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_00: Don't blame your friend that has perfect kids.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_00: Don't blame the family that you see on the internet that apparently has everything you want, or the house on Zillow that would just be perfect.
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_00: He says, Don't blame those things.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_00: He says, the war is going on within yourself.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_00: It is your passions and your desires, my passions and my desires that are leading to envy.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_00: And so when these things draw together, he says a war is happening.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_00: Now, as Brother Jeb mentioned earlier when he was talking about the Gideons, it is not hard to picture war in the world today.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_00: On the news feed that I follow, it just has a standing, sort of a penned article that says, What happened in Ukraine today?
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_00: It is so normalized to us, so easy for us to access, so painful that we become numb to the images.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_00: It is not hard for us to imagine war.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_00: And James is saying, now take all of those things and it's what's happening inside your life.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_00: It's what's happening on the inside of your heart.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_00: That is where the battle for envy is waged.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_00: It's not out here.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_00: And if we address it out here, if we look without instead of within, it's just like chopping off branches off of the tree.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_00: He says, where it's growing from is within us.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_00: And we have to fight that battle for God's kingdom within us.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_00: If we don't, if we abdicate our role to recognize the fight that is happening within us, if we say it's nothing going on, it's trivial, it's not that big of a deal.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_00: It was just a look, we have taken away our opportunity to fight for God's kingdom as a soldier in a spiritual battle.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_00: See, Satan is still trying to wage war with God today, and he knows that he's going to lose in the future.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_00: And so the same scheme that he was exercising in the garden is the same scheme that he wants you and me to fall prey to, which is it's not that big of a deal.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_00: Your sin, it's not even really something to consider.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_00: Furthermore, is God really providing for you?
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe he's not.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe you need something else.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_00: That is a war that has to be fought within us because of our passions.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_00: As he goes on in verse 2, he says, You desire and you do not have.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_00: You murder and covet and cannot obtain, you fight and wage war.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_00: Now he says, the things that are within us, because we are unable to control them, then they spill out into the world.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_00: Then they begin to affect our relationships and our families and our lives, our relationship with Christ, because they have failed, we have failed to contain the war within us, failed to fight it for God's kingdom, and allowed it to spill out.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_00: He goes back and says, It is your desire for things you do not have.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_00: And again, to this statement that is so strong, he says, You murder and covet and cannot obtain.
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_00: You will do whatever it takes to get whatever it is you want.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_00: We don't have to go far in the Bible to see that when the apparent consequences of sin are removed, the apparent consequences of judgment are removed, that people act in a very depraved manner.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_00: And frankly, the question I think is fair for us to say if there was no social pressure, if there was no legal pressure, right?
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_00: If the only thing that affected your decision was what God thought about it, would you act differently than you do now?
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_00: Or some of the things that is holding us back and holding us within is we don't want to feel like other people see us in a certain way.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_00: We don't want to face the legal ramifications of what we've done.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't really have as much to do with God as everything to do with our kingdom and not his.
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_00: Now, the other thing that I want to talk about here that is so pervasive that I think just about everybody understands it is social media.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_00: And I want to talk about this for just a second because I know not everybody's on social media, but social media has affected our entire world.
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_00: And whether you're on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat, something else, you are still being influenced by a world that is being affected by the fact that no longer is it just your neighbor that we're looking at.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_00: We're looking at our neighbors in Beverly Hills.
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_00: And we're comparing ourselves to their houses, their lives, what they're putting forth.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_00: We're looking at the families where we don't know a single person in them, but because they have said that they are, you know, Christian men and women, we desire the life that they have.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_00: This is a problem for us.
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_00: Makes it so much easier for us to fall into the sin of envy because it is so much more readily apparent.
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_00: We don't blame that it's apparent, but we do have to be more on guard against it.
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_00: There's also a problem if we're somebody who is adding to the fire on social media.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_00: Because we desire and feel satisfaction when other people have envy for us, when they see our perfect family, our perfect lives, our perfect schedule in the corner of our house that we have staged for the photo so that no dust is visible.
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_00: When we have, when we desire these things, it can be a problem as well.
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_00: When I was uh, Hanna and I went to San Francisco a couple weeks ago, and I had mentioned, oh, about a month ago, uh we had visited Alcatraz Island, and I kind of had a story about that.
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_00: But another thing that I was doing on Alcatraz Island, I picked up a new hobby, and it was taking photos of people who were taking photos for social media.
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_00: So this is like a boyfriend, right?
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_00: It's usually a boyfriend, not always, but a boyfriend who is taking photos of his girlfriend, and as she's like, you know, posing, doing her whole bit there, and then like walking over to her boyfriend and going through the photos and going, that's not enough.
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_00: Like, we need more photos, and then going back and taking it again.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_00: I felt like this was such a perfect photo to illustrate what is going on because I don't know if you noticed, but the bathroom, the trash cans, and a bird poop covered dock are all in the immediate vicinity of what's going on.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_00: Yet that is not in any way what people are going to see of the like 67th photo that was taken and filtered and shown what the experience on Alcatraz looks like.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_00: It's a problem.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_00: But it doesn't have to be on social media, though.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_00: This same kind of thing affects our world where we are just putting forth our best effort to sort of be this facade that other people see, and then we fail to recognize that like everybody else around us is doing the same thing, putting forth their best foot to create this fake veneer of competency, and then we judge ourselves based on their best foot.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_00: That is not what God has for us.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_00: He has something deeper for us.
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_00: And there are some people who are trying to find a solution by just editing the problem.
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_00: See, one of the most popular social media apps that has come out in the last few years, it's been in the top 10 for a long time, is Be Real with the tagline Your Friends for Real.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_00: What happens on Be Real is once a day, at a random time, it prompts you, and you have two minutes to take a photo, and it takes a photo from the front and from the back of your phone, which is very dangerous.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_00: But anyhow, that's what happens.
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_00: And so the idea behind it is oh, we get people in their shampoo, you know, mohawk shampoos and their crumbs on their face and without makeup on, and oh, it's it's real.
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_00: But it's not.
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_00: And furthermore, fixing this, finding a better social media app, is not going to be how we actually fix the problem.
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_00: Moving away from a neighbor that we feel envious towards is not going to fix the problem.
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_00: Disconnecting ourselves from a relative who only seems to be able to talk about their success and creates feelings of envy within us is not going to fix the problem.
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_00: The problem, my friends, is that we desire things that God has not given to us in his providence, and within that boundary that he has given to us, we want the stuff that we can't have.
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_00: God in his wisdom has delivered it to us, and we said, Lord, it is not enough.
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_00: And so we envy the things of others.
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_00: This is the problem.
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_00: What is the solution?
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_00: James says in the end of verse 2, he says, You do not have because you do not ask.
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_00: Oh Lord, I didn't realize it was this easy.
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_00: Father, may I have a Maserati.
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_00: God, I did not know that all I had to do was ask you, and whatever my desires, you bring them to me.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_00: God, this is amazing.
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_00: If only I had realized.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_00: This is what I call a coffee mug verse.
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_00: Because we're going to take this and we're going to slap it on coffee mugs and on t-shirts and sweatshirts and on bumper stickers, because it fulfills the vision that we have that God is our genie and that his only purpose in life is to serve our needs.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, we're going to do a sermon series at some point on all the coffee mug verses.
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_00: But this one today, it is only special for us in this sense if we take it out of context.
• 25:00
  SPEAKER_00: Because we recognize that we have often asked for things and God has not brought them to us.
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_00: Why is that?
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_00: You ask and don't receive because you ask with wrong motives, so that you may spend it on your pleasures.
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_00: Oh.
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_00: That's why.
• 25:17
  SPEAKER_00: God, you desire for us to pray to you in a way that is honoring to you.
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_00: And oftentimes we don't do that.
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_00: Now, this does not mean that every single thing we pray for that affects us is bad.
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus Himself and the model prayer prayed for his daily bread.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus knew, being God Himself, that God provides for the needs of all of humanity.
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_00: He says, Look at the sparrows of the air, are they not well dressed?
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_00: Look at the lilies of the field.
• 25:52
  SPEAKER_00: Does God not care so much more for you than for one of them?
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_00: He says, God knows your needs.
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_00: The prayers that get us in danger are when we start praying with wrong motives so that we might benefit.
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_00: It does not become his kingdom any longer, it becomes our kingdom.
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_00: It does not become his will, it becomes our will.
• 26:11
  SPEAKER_00: You can see this sort of sinister movement.
• 26:13
  SPEAKER_00: And among the multifaceted reasons why God sometimes does not answer our prayers in his wisdom and holiness, this is one of the top reasons.
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_00: Because we are not praying with correct motives.
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_00: And so I know that's kind of hard to say, well, what does it mean to pray with correct motives?
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_00: Let me show you.
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_00: The Bible gives us an answer.
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_00: In 1 Kings chapter 3, we've got Solomon, right?
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_00: It's Saul, David, and then David's son Solomon, king over Israel.
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_00: The Lord goes to him at Gibeon.
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_00: At Gibeon, the Lord appeared to Solomon in a dream at night.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_00: God said, Ask, what should I give you?
• 26:49
  SPEAKER_00: Pause here.
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_00: How would you answer that question?
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_00: God gives you a blank check and says, What do you want?
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_00: How would you answer that question?
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_00: There we go.
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_00: How does Solomon answer it?
• 27:05
  SPEAKER_00: Lord my God, you have now made your servant king in my father David's place.
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_00: Yet I am just a youth with no experience in leadership.
• 27:13
  SPEAKER_00: Your servant is among your people you have chosen, a people too many to be numbered or counted.
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_00: So give your servant a receptive heart to judge your people and to discern between good and evil, for who is able to judge this great people of yours?
• 27:26
  SPEAKER_00: God, I can't do it on my own.
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_00: You have placed me as the king over your holy nation, Israel.
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_00: I do not have the strength to rule over them, Lord, as you've asked me to, I can only do it with your help.
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_00: Father, your will be done, not my own.
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_00: God, what you want, not what I want.
• 27:43
  SPEAKER_00: God says, Solomon, what do you want?
• 27:45
  SPEAKER_00: Solomon says, God, what you want.
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_00: And so this is how Solomon answers it, and God is so pleased.
• 27:52
  SPEAKER_00: It pleased the Lord that Solomon had requested this.
• 27:55
  SPEAKER_00: So God said to him, Because you have requested this and did not ask for long life or riches for yourself or the death of your enemies, but you asked discernment for yourself to administer justice.
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_00: I will therefore do what you have asked.
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_00: I will give you a wise and understanding heart, so that there has never been anyone like you before, and never will be again.
• 28:16
  SPEAKER_00: Lord, is the death of Israel's enemies not something good?
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_00: No, it is good.
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_00: Israel not having enemies would have been a good thing.
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_00: But the Lord in his providence knew that if Solomon would have been praying for these things, it would have been self-seeking.
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_00: And furthermore, he had plans the enemies that Israel was going to face was to prepare them for greater war.
• 28:37
  SPEAKER_00: So God is so pleased with what Solomon says here.
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_00: But notice that he says, if you had prayed, if you basically had taken the test of what do you want and put something on that check that I was not willing to cash, then I would have not given it to you.
• 28:52
  SPEAKER_00: He says, if you had asked for riches, if you had asked for a long life, if you had asked for the death of your enemies, I wouldn't have given it to you, Solomon.
• 28:59
  SPEAKER_00: But because you prayed for something that was for my kingdom, and it was unselfish and it was wise, now I will answer your prayer.
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_00: Now, because you have prayed with correct motives, I will do what you have asked.
• 29:14
  SPEAKER_00: But it actually goes on for two more verses.
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_00: See, God says, In addition, I will give you what you did not ask for, both riches and honor, so that no king will be your equal during your entire life.
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_00: If you walk in my ways and keep my statutes and commands, just as your father David did, I will give you a long life.
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_00: Now the problem is Solomon did not hold up his end of the bargain.
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_00: Solomon ended up not living actually for God and using his wisdom for all the goodness that God had intended.
• 29:40
  SPEAKER_00: But nevertheless, he wrote the book of Proverbs, Song of Solomon, and he ended up being a fantastic king.
• 29:45
  SPEAKER_00: But the greater point here is that God says, Oh, because you have prayed for something that I desired, Solomon, I'm happy to give it to you.
• 29:52
  SPEAKER_00: And because I am a good God, I often give you things you don't need, blessings upon blessings.
• 29:59
  SPEAKER_00: And if you would recognize that, oh, if you would see it, how much joy you would find.
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_00: Let me tell you why this is ironic, though.
• 30:08
  SPEAKER_00: The divine irony of this statement.
• 30:13
  SPEAKER_00: If you try and pray to God, according to his will, according to his motives, so that this is what happens, it's not gonna work.
• 30:26
  SPEAKER_00: If you pray for things and it sounds like you are going to God and praying, you saying, Oh Lord, I want what you want, I want what you want, but out the side of your eye, you're like, But are you gonna bring me the other stuff that I'm desiring?
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_00: That's not how God works.
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_00: This isn't a game to be played.
• 30:40
  SPEAKER_00: Here's the divine irony of all of this.
• 30:42
  SPEAKER_00: Solomon, at this point, with a heart pure before the Lord, because he cares so much for the things of the Lord, the things for his kingdom, his selfishness, those things don't matter as much to him.
• 30:55
  SPEAKER_00: So God gives him something that he actually doesn't care that much about because he is so focused on God's kingdom.
• 31:01
  SPEAKER_00: This is the ironic part.
• 31:03
  SPEAKER_00: Because he desires the Lord, he stops desiring the things of this world.
• 31:07
  SPEAKER_00: Because he's praying genuinely, able to truly ask God that his kingdom would be furthered and he would just be a good king for the nation of Israel.
• 31:16
  SPEAKER_00: God says, Oh, I will give you the things that you actually don't care about that much, but will make your name great.
• 31:22
  SPEAKER_00: Because I want to lift up the people who are truly living for my kingdom.
• 31:27
  SPEAKER_00: That's not a prosperity gospel.
• 31:28
  SPEAKER_00: Don't hear me saying that.
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_00: It's not if you are faithful to God, he will give you these things, but it's rather when we are truly able to look at God, the things of this world that we have been desiring become far less important.
• 31:40
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 31:40
  SPEAKER_00: That right there is not the prosperity gospel.
• 31:43
  SPEAKER_00: But the things of this life become far less important, and God in his mercy might give them to us, but whether he does or does not, we are filled with contentment and joy because we have Jesus as our desire instead of the world stuff.
• 31:58
  SPEAKER_00: And so this is the end of Solomon's story here, or rather, his story keeps going, but this is the end of his faithful prayer.
• 32:07
  SPEAKER_00: But James has one more verse for us, and it is a heavy one.
• 32:11
  SPEAKER_00: I know this morning has been kind of heavy, but sometimes that's good.
• 32:14
  SPEAKER_00: You adulterous people, don't you know that friendship with the world is hostility towards God?
• 32:19
  SPEAKER_00: So whoever wants to be the friend of the world becomes the enemy of God.
• 32:24
  SPEAKER_00: Whoever wants to be the friend of the world becomes the enemy of God.
• 32:27
  SPEAKER_00: Here's what I want you to see from this.
• 32:30
  SPEAKER_00: You can't become a friend of the world and pursue God at the same time.
• 32:34
  SPEAKER_00: They are diametrically opposed to each other.
• 32:37
  SPEAKER_00: Brother, sister in Christ, you are walking on one of those roads.
• 32:41
  SPEAKER_00: You are either being a friend to God or a friend of the world.
• 32:44
  SPEAKER_00: One of those things is happening.
• 32:46
  SPEAKER_00: And if you don't know that it's happening, it might be time to assess which of those things is happening.
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_00: See, God desires for you to be a part of his kingdom and his will, not your kingdom and your will.
• 32:58
  SPEAKER_00: And I know the allure of the world is so captivating.
• 33:01
  SPEAKER_00: I get it, I'm a part of that world too.
• 33:04
  SPEAKER_00: I'm captive captivated by the world at times.
• 33:07
  SPEAKER_00: I'm envious of things around me.
• 33:09
  SPEAKER_00: I look beyond the sights that God has providentially set for my life and desire things that He has not said should be mine.
• 33:19
  SPEAKER_00: But I'm telling you, and this is how how I want to close with you, if you are able to walk in this space where you seek after God and His kingdom first, if you are able to genuinely get yourself to a place where you attack the root of envy, you pray for God's kingdom, and you seek His kingdom, you will find that all of the things that you have desired were actually something that God provided anyway.
• 33:48
  SPEAKER_00: This is what Adam and Eve failed to see.
• 33:51
  SPEAKER_00: Everything they needed was already there.
• 33:54
  SPEAKER_00: They didn't actually need the tree.
• 33:57
  SPEAKER_00: You don't actually need those things that you're casting your glances at.
• 34:01
  SPEAKER_00: God has satisfied you here where he is.
• 34:04
  SPEAKER_00: Perhaps you and I just have not realized it yet.
• 34:08
  SPEAKER_00: And furthermore, that the scheme, the gambit of Satan, that God does not provide, that he is not good, that his will and his might is not sufficient for you, that that is still a scheme that the crafty, wicked devil is playing in our world today to tell us that God is not our provider.
• 34:30
  SPEAKER_00: So I want to leave you with three very quick reminders, things I've already talked about, so that you might be able to review these things and see these things, as I believe God's word is telling us.
• 34:43
  SPEAKER_00: The first is that we should fight for God's kingdom.
• 34:47
  SPEAKER_00: We have a war that we're fighting, and it is internal.
• 34:50
  SPEAKER_00: We have an internal spiritual battle with God's kingdom and against the forces of evil, and the power to fight that battle is the Holy Spirit.
• 35:00
  SPEAKER_00: You must fight for God's kingdom.
• 35:02
  SPEAKER_00: Second is that we are to pray for God's kingdom.
• 35:05
  SPEAKER_00: Only if we pray for God's kingdom, the genuine prayers, the prayers of Christ in the garden, Lord, not my will but yours be done.
• 35:12
  SPEAKER_00: Only those are the prayers that God is going to look at and say, like he did to Solomon, because you have prayed for the things that I desire, I'm going to answer them and be faithful to them.
• 35:21
  SPEAKER_00: It is not always the key.
• 35:23
  SPEAKER_00: This is not unlocking some sort of secret for God and our relationship and prayer to him.
• 35:28
  SPEAKER_00: But when we pray for God's kingdom, we begin to become much more concerned about him than what we have going on in our lives, and we become more faithful stewards of what he has already given to us.
• 35:39
  SPEAKER_00: Third and finally, we must seek God's kingdom.
• 35:42
  SPEAKER_00: We must recognize if we are chasing after this world and being a friend to it, or chasing after God and being a friend to him.
• 35:49
  SPEAKER_00: Our Savior, the one who has paved the pathway of righteousness for us by his blood on the cross, that is the road we are supposed to be walking.
• 35:57
  SPEAKER_00: That is how we go overcome this root of bitterness that is within us, because we desire the things that God does not have for us.
• 36:05
  SPEAKER_00: And if you pursue those things, you will find satisfaction and peace and joy that you did not know were there because we are so focused on everything else.
• 36:16
  SPEAKER_00: Let's pray.
• 36:18
  SPEAKER_00: Heavenly Father, we thank you for today.
• 36:21
  SPEAKER_00: And God, I my prayer is for, Lord, myself included, as the whole church, that your Holy Spirit would reveal to us the areas of our life, Lord, where our eyes are looking beyond the fences you have set around us.
• 36:38
  SPEAKER_00: Father, you have given us everything we need.
• 36:40
  SPEAKER_00: You care for us, you love us, you have saved us from our sin.
• 36:44
  SPEAKER_00: And Father, yet we so often desire things that are not ours.
• 36:48
  SPEAKER_00: And so, God, might you help us by the power of your spirit to overcome this envy, this covetousness, this jealousy, this desire.
• 36:59
  SPEAKER_00: To seek your kingdom, to fight your war, and to pray for your furtherance.
• 37:05
  SPEAKER_00: Father, we love you and we thank you most of all for Jesus Christ.
• 37:08
  SPEAKER_00: It's in his name we pray.
• 37:09
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.