Sermon Title: "Seven Deadly Sins: Envy" Part 2 of 7
Author's Name: Rev. Alex Knight
It has been my experience that people who are not being transformed into the likeness of Christ, - - - where it is hard to see evidence of Christ's likeness in their life, - - - where they are not becoming more gentle, more forgiving, more kind, more generous, . . . it is either because they are not participating with the church in worship, they are not in a small group, they are not claiming their spiritual gift and working in the kingdom with God, or . . . they are letting their life be controlled by one of these seven sins. In many occasions, it is both.
We need to be aware of the things that pull us away from God as much as we are aware of the things that call us closer to God. That is why we are studying these seven deadly sins. Last week we looked at pride. Today we are going to look at envy. Hear the words of Jesus:
"God's kingdom is like an estate manager who went out early in the morning to hire workers for his vineyard. They agreed on a wage of $1.00 a day and went to work. Later, at about 9:00, the manager saw some other men hanging around the town square, unemployed. He told them to go to work at his vineyard and he would pay them a fair wage. And they went. He did the same thing at noon and again at 3:00. At 5:00 he went back and found still others standing around and he said, why are you standing around all day doing nothing? And they said because no one hired us and he told them to go to work at his vineyard. When the day's work was over, the owner of the vineyard instructed his foreman, call the workers in and pay them their wages. Start with the last hired and go on to the first. Those hired at 5:00 came up and were each given a $1.00. When those that were hired first saw that, they assumed they would get far more, but they got the same. Each of them $1.00. Taking the dollar, they groused angrily to the manager. These last workers put in one easy hour and you made them equal to us who slaved all day under a scorching sun. He replied to the one speaking for the rest. Friend, I haven't been unfair. We agreed on a wage of $1.00, didn't we? So take it and go. I decided to give to the one who came last, the same as you. Can't I do what I want with my own money? Are you going to get angry because I am generous? And then Jesus said. Here it is again, the great reversal. Many of the first ending up last and the last, first."Matthew 20:1-16
As we think about this parable, we don't want to add too much to it and try to justify what the manager did or to speculate on why some of the people were not hired early in the day. The parables are meant to be understood in their simplicity. Jesus interprets the parable for us at the end when through the eyes of the manager He says "it's my money, I get to do with it what I want."
The workers who grumbled were looking at what other people had and comparing it to what they had. That's the heart of the sin of envy. Comparison. You are looking at what other people have and you are comparing it to what you have and you are trying to see if it measures up. If you believe that somebody else has more than you do, or better than you do, then you become angry or you become bitter or you become jealous. You see the kind of attitude that these workers had. They thought that they were being made equal because of the pay to somebody who had worked less than they.
Sometimes we compare in ways that are harmless, or in ways that encourage us to try harder. Many times we compare in ways that are destructive.
It may be that we are looking at financial matters or how somebody else dresses or how their children behave compared to how our children behave. We have to be careful about this, because in one sense, when we begin to look at other people and what they have, it we reach the conclusion that we are better off than they are, then the sin of pride can creep right in our lives. If, on the other hand, we reached the conclusion that we are not as well off as they are, that they are better somehow, then the sin of envy can take hold of us. Now, this sin of envy tends to manifest itself in a couple of ways.
One way is an overt sin. You actually look at specifically what other people have, or what they are doing, what they have accomplished and you compare it with what is going on in your life. I know people who have become dissatisfied with the relationship that they have with their children because they look at the relationship that friends may have with their children and they wish their children could be as accomplished or as successful or as well-behaved or as doing as well in school. Other people look at material positions. They wished they had those same kinds of material possessions. They become jealous and envious of that other person.
There is another type of envy that I think is more insidious. In our mind we tend to have an idea of what something should be like or what somebody should be like and we compare our life with this imaginary speculative idea. I remember one time a woman wanted me to pray for her husband. "Is he sick or is there a problem?", I asked. She said, "No it is just that...," and then she began to list all the things that he was not. He was not as spiritual as she would like him to be. He did not read the Bible as much as she would like him to. He would not volunteer to lead prayer in certain settings. She had this vague kind of an idea of what a spiritual head of the household ought to be and she was comparing her husband to it and he came up short. She wanted me to pray for him so he would be like this imaginary person that she had in her mind.
Are you going to get angry because I am generous?
We shared together for some time and realized that the person we needed to pray for was her. This man was very faithful to his family, worked very hard to provide for his family, and was in the church just about every time the doors were open. He held leadership positions within the church, understood the gifts that God had given him and used those gifts to the glory of God in the church. But he just didn't measure up to this imaginary person she had conjured up in her mind. She was envious of something that didn't even exist, but it caused a temporary break and rife in their relationship. But God is faithful and with prayer and with insight we were able to work through that situation.
Sometimes we can think that way as a church. We might be thinking that there is a model church somewhere else that can do programs, that we cannot do and we wish that we could be like them. The danger in all of this envy is that it takes our eyes off what God has done for us. What God has given us. Every one of us is a uniquely created child of God. In you, God through His Holy Spirit has placed some very specific gifts. God's desire is that you would claim those gifts and work within the kingdom of God as you use those gifts to the glory of God. God wants you to see what He has done for you and to give thanks to Him for what He has done for you in giving you these gifts.
Each of us, in addition, have been brought to this church for a reason. The Holy Spirit of God leads us to this church and makes us a part of this body of Christ. God's desire is to get a group of people together with a diversity of gifts that can accomplish a specific mission for His kingdom. God wants us to look not only at what He can do through us, but He wants us to try to become aware of what He can do through our neighbors and through our friends as we affirm within one another, the unique gifts of God in each of us.
In addition God has placed you in places of work. God has placed you in communities where you live, in neighborhoods where you are in a circle of friends, . . . all of this has been done by God so that you can be light for God, so you can bring the kingdom of God where you are. Sometimes we tend to focus on being somewhere else. The grass always seems greener somewhere else. But, God has placed you at a certain place, at a certain time so we can reveal the kingdom of God, the love and acceptance of God in this unique surrounding where God has placed us.
Do you see that if the sin of envy gets hold of us, we are not looking at our unique environment, our unique gifts, our unique family, . . . we are looking at what somebody else has. Or we're focusing on what we don't have as opposed to celebrating the goodness of what God has done for us in our lives.
Sometimes this envy can seem silly. Let me give you an example. I love praise and worship music. I listen to it in my office, I listen to it at home, I listen to it in the car. I just love it. It energizes me. Sometimes when I am listening to that music, I can just visualize what it must be like to be in the sanctuary where they are having this music recorded. I can see the musicians. I can see the worship leader. And, I wish I was the worship leader.
God has placed you at a certain place, at a certain time so you can reveal the kingdom of God, the love and acceptance of God . . .
Now I cannot carry a tune in a bucket. I can't sing, I don't have a lick of a sense of rhythm. I remember one time I was on a spiritual retreat. One of the workers was a pastor's wife from an AME church and she got to laughing at me because they were singing some song where you clap your hands along with it and I was totally out of beat. So she came up and she took my hands and she tried to get me in the rhythm and the beat. Finally she just threw her hands in the air and said "You are hopeless." God has not gifted me with the gift of leading music or singing music. I appreciate music. I enjoy music, it energizes me, it is a vital part of my life, but a worship leader I am not. If I'm not careful, I'm sitting there thinking that it would be exciting to lead worship, I wish I could be that person, . . . and if I'm not too careful, I start being envious of people that I know that can. I might try to step out into the flesh and do something that I'm not gifted to do and that would be a disaster. Because God would not be with me, He would be too busy laughing at me making a spectacle of myself.
Sometimes we look and think the gift that another person has is greater than the gift that God has given me. That might be our judgment, but that's not God's judgment.
One of the biggest difficulties I encountered is living a life of grace with God and trying to unlearn many of our cultural values. I had been taught most of my life to perform to be successful. I have had it hammered into my head what success measurements are. And so it's difficult for me a lot of times to be in a leadership position in a church and to offer programs and if nobody comes, . . to trust that God is at work whether the program seems successful by the world's standards. It is hard not to feel as it is a rejection of me or that I have failed in some way. If I start feeling rejection it becomes easy to start looking at other people who are having success or what I think is more success in their ministry than I think I am having.
I sometimes become caught up in this imaginary idea of what a church would be like if Jesus were leading the church. I tend to measure myself against that. If things don't go the way that I think they ought to go or people don't respond the way I think they ought to respond when they ought to respond, . . . if I'm not careful, I can get myself into some serious trouble with feeling failure and rejection.
Can you see that the real danger in this, is you take your eyes off God and what God has done in you and through you. You lose the sight of the gifts and the graces that are present in our midst right now. This is the deadly sin of envy. Taking our eyes off of God and comparing our lives to other people. Loosing sight of that which God has done is us as we wish we had what we see in other people. Let us pray.
Heavenly Father, we thank you this morning for the gift of your Word. Because in that simple little story about people working in the vineyard, we see how easy it is to compare our lot with other's. Sometimes we think we are better off, sometimes we think we are less. I see how easy it is Father, to be involved in the performance-based way of thinking. Measuring my life against some arbitrary standard. Father, I share with you the only thing that I want for my life and all I ask for this church is that we can live in grace, that we can live and work together in grace. Where it is not performance, but it's grace, your love, your acceptance, your forgiveness of each of us, enabling us to love and to accept and to forgive one another. Father, you have loved us and you have chosen us to be your own. I ask for me and all the people of this church, by the power of your grace and your Holy Spirit, you will continue to clothe us with your compassion and kindness, your humility and gentleness, your patience and your forgiveness, Bind us all together in the perfect unity of Your love, I pray. Amen.