Envy

You are listening to a message from Thrive Community Church, a church located in Southwest Florida. For more info, visit us at thrive-fl.org. We're in a series on the seven deadly sins. It's not really necessarily something that you find them listed as such in the Bible. There's a passage in Proverbs about how God hates seven different things, but they're not the seven deadly sins there. It's kind of something that developed over time, but it's not a bad list in terms of what they are. We're exploring these things because not so much that I'm trying to shame or guilt anyone, don't even think about envy, but it's much more of this is the human heart, this is what I'm like, this is what happens, and this is how deadly it can get. But thanks be to God, we have a God who understands, who knows, and who provides. And he is able to handle death like no one else can. So nothing can get in his way, he is the resurrection and the life. That's kind of the focus of it, but it's a way to explore how our human heart can be kind of twisted up. So we're going to be exploring envy through one of my favorite Psalms, Psalm 73. We'll read some of these verses today. Truly, God is good to Israel, to those who are pure in heart. But as for me, my feet had almost stumbled, my steps had nearly slipped, for I was envious of the arrogant. When I saw the prosperity of the wicked, for they have no pangs until death, their bodies are fat and sleek, they are not in trouble as others are, they are not stricken like the rest of mankind, therefore pride is their necklace, violence covers them as a garment. Behold, these are the wicked, always at ease, they increase in riches. All in vain, I have kept my heart clean and washed my hands innocent, for all the day long I have been stricken and rebuked every morning. If I had said, I will speak thus, I would have betrayed the generation of your children. But when I thought how to understand this, it seemed to me a wearisome task, until I went into the sanctuary of God, then I discerned their end. When my soul was embittered, when I was pricked in heart, I was brutish and ignorant. I was like a beast toward you. Nevertheless, I am continually with you. You hold my right hand, you guide me with your counsel, and afterward you will receive me to glory. Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you. My heart and my flesh may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. So according to a lot of scholars, they categorize Psalm 73 a wisdom psalm, and Asaph is the one who's ascribed this psalm at the beginning, and it seems that Asaph is exploring the idea, why it's a wisdom psalm is he's puzzled, he's struggling to figure out why is it this way in this world, why does it seem that those people, he says the wicked, the wealthy, why do they have it all, why not me? Now part of the difference of why wisdom is spoken of here is the fact that you can know a lot of facts, and you're not necessarily wise. Wisdom deals with the fact that Asaph will come to understand in the psalm, not only the situation in this world in a new light, but his own human heart, his own heart itself, and how easily he got enmeshed in envy, and how he got out of it. And so knowledge is just knowing a lot of stuff and information. Wisdom is living into the things of God, and understanding the world from God's perspective, and I think that's what is going on in the psalm, and so we're going to study how to become more wise about that deadly sin of envy, so from this psalm we're going to learn, first of all, A, how to understand envy, B, why we must deal with it, and C, where to take it. So how do you understand it? This is how Psalm 73, how Asaph says it, For I was envious of the arrogant, when I saw the prosperity of the wicked. Now the word envy here in the Hebrew is kanah, and I kind of looked and said, okay, where else is this used, this word? It can mean jealous or envious, depending on the situation, and we'll clarify the difference between jealousy and envy in a little bit. But the best example I found was actually in the book of Genesis, and it happens between two sisters, Rachel and Leah. You may know this story, you might not. Both were married to Jacob, and boy, that's another whole story about polygamy in the Bible, and how that even happened. But Rachel couldn't have children. Leah was fertile myrtle, man. She was just popping them out left and right. And it says Rachel was kanah towards her sister Leah. So the best example, maybe in your life as well as mine, is what we call sibling rivalry. Any of you ever experienced that? Marsha, Marsha, Marsha. Do you know where that's from? The Brady Bunch. Yeah, Jan always felt like the weaker sister, always not getting it, and now you start to understand what envy is really about. So the psalmist here, Asaph, says he was envious of the prosperity of the wicked, and he described their prosperity that their bodies are s...