Overcoming Jealous Feelings

Welcome to One Church.

Want to say hello to everybody who's here in the house today and then everybody online.

Thank you for joining us.

My name is Greg.

This is Shaylen.

Hey.

My bride.

And this is our firstborn Ella.

And uh do you remember you remember when she was born?

Vaguely.

It's crazy, right?

I mean, we did a lot of work that day.

We?

Yeah, we did.

Honestly, I mean, don't feel bad.

You you did all you did about as much as I did.

I mean, it was probably 50-50?

It was probably a solid 50-50, I would say.

Do you remember?

Actually, I Vividly, yeah.

And they were just like the nurse was like flipping you around.

My favorite memory of that day was they put Ella under a heat lamp to keep her warm because she was shivering and you were worried she was gonna get burnt from the heat lamp.

And so you went in and put your hands over her between the her and the heat lamp to try to keep her from getting shot.

Actually, my hands were my hands were cold, but no, it has to be.

The story has been twisted over the years.

So um before we get into the message, we're doing a series called Dialogue, which is, you know, in Ecclesiastes it says, two are better than one, for they get a good return for their labor.

Churches usually you come in, it's one person talking to you, and we thought, hey, we'll we'll mess with it a little bit.

Uh so we're gonna do that in a second, but I want to take a moment and just um sort of piggyback on the video that you just saw inviting you to Easter.

Um, one of the cool dynamics the last couple years is our church has really expanded and grown, not just uh physically in terms of people coming to the church, but we've been able to reach parts of the country and around the world with our our live stream and not just the live stream but the community.

We have people in groups literally internationally, and so that's awesome, and we're gonna be able to share that no matter where you live.

But if you live in physical proximity to Columbus, I want to invite you to come here be up in person, even if you primarily uh join via live stream, most of the time.

It's kind of like you know, with your family, you face time quite a bit, but like there's a time everybody get together.

Like, let's come in.

And so I think Easter uh is one of those times.

We're gonna do our best to create a lot of different environments to really be ready for that day.

So I want to invite you to be here in person, one of our four services, and uh bring your family, bring friends with you.

Uh it's gonna be a great time.

All right, dialogue.

Um Ella and I were in the car the other day, we were driving.

I wasn't exactly sure what we were gonna do with this series, I just knew the concept.

And I was like, Ella, if if you were to uh co-teach uh in this series, what what would you want to talk about?

And you said jealousy.

Jealousy.

All right, what led you to that?

What made you think that?

Well, I think everyone struggles with it, um, especially with social media like kind of on the upright right now.

I definitely think it's something that people deal with because you see other people's lives all the time.

Yeah, and you know, El Ella uh is 13 in seventh grade, and I think you know, Ella, you're coming into a time right now which is probably for the first time really starting to have that dynamic happen, right?

So you're you've got the social end of school, you've got uh athletics, you have academics, okay.

People are getting better grades than other people, or whatever that might be.

But the reality is it's starting now, it's something you'll deal with for the rest of your life.

Yeah, it doesn't matter how how old you get, like you will have different things to be jealous of people for, and it's something that you'll have uh people will be jealous of you, you're jealous of them, they're it it's inevitable that you're gonna have have those feelings.

It seriously doesn't end in adulthood.

I mean, there's probably people in the nursing home that are jealous because somebody else's dentures are better.

I mean, it just it never it never stops.

Like we all and and here's the thing that really stinks about jealousy is it's kind of a double whammy because you already feel crummy about yourself because you're jealous of this other person.

And then when you have to admit to yourself that you're jealous, then that feels really you're kind of ashamed.

It feels you feel stupid for feeling jealous, right?

So it's like, uh, now I want what they have, or and and I'm I'm feeling that towards them, and I'm feeling this thing towards me.

Yeah, it's an ugly trait, it's an ugly feeling.

Nobody wants to admit they have it.

That's what I'm saying.

That's why I live in denial.

Yeah, I like to live in denial, you know.

No, I'm not jealous of it.

That's harder to.

That's true though.

That is the hardest part, I think, is admitting that you're jealous of someone.

It's it's a it's a tough thing to swallow and look yourself in the face.

Like every single person in this room, if we're being intellectually honest, and I asked for a raise of hands, would have to, which I won't make you, I promise, would have to raise their hands and say, I've been jealous of somebody at some point.

But that's like kind of the ickiest thing that we don't want to have to admit.

Yeah, so let's start with this.

Let's let's start with the fact that jealousy is an ugly trait.

Um we all inevitably will have feelings of jealousy.

You're gonna have a twinge of jealousy when you uh see somebody else or whatever.

You're gonna have that.

We have to deal with it, and we don't like it, but let's go to God's word and figure out what to do with it.

First, let's start with this question is why do I feel jealous?

All right, what are what are some reasons why you might feel jealous of someone?

If someone is intelligent, that's a good one.

Yeah, personality, yeah.

Personality is a huge one.

Somebody attracts other people easily because of their personality.

I I would say um somebody who's super athletic or maybe really artistically creatively gifted.

What about people with good metabolisms?

Oh man.

I I have a hard time not going past jealousy into straight hate of those people.

Like I know people who It's awful.

We're talking about being honest about our feelings here.

So I I love that you're sitting in judgment of me like you don't have that problem.

That you're the one that'll ever get jealous of someone.

Oh, I was about to say I thought you were saying I have a good metabolism because I don't.

I sniff a tortilla chip, I gain three pounds.

You see somebody, they're like three percent body fat.

You're like, what do you what do you eat, man?

And like donuts.

I have friends that have big brownies and ice cream every night, and they're like, look at these abs.

Yeah, curses on you.

And the horse you rode in on.

Yes.

Moving on.

That's obviously not an easy.

I don't want to stay there, to be honest with you, but we can move on.

You know, here's people with success and accomplishments.

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

I like I think for me, uh if I'm being totally uh self-aware and honest, I think I think it's people who uh get somewhere that I'm trying to go and they get there faster, or it seems to come easier, like I'm working, working, working, grinding, grinding, and they just like, you know what I mean?

Or nothing worse, like someone, I've been doing it for a long time and I'm not there yet, and then they just they just blow up on the scene in five minutes and they're like, you know, whatever.

Yeah, and I mean to be honest, like that that that drives me nuts.

Did you have any more that you thought of?

Um, I think like if someone is really good at teaching, or someone who's like, yeah, like good at communicating with people, yeah.

Yeah, you know what's gonna happen is you you you graduate, right?

You're gonna graduate and then everybody goes in these different directions, and you can't help yourself, although we start in the same place, we're gonna end up in different places.

So throughout life, you look and you're like, well, this person, uh, you know, I'm jealous of their marriage, or I'm jealous of their money, or I'm jealous of their their title or their success or whatever it might be.

And so I think to look at that, what what we need to really think about is a lot of the things we just mentioned, uh, that are areas that we are prone to jealousy in other people are actually often areas where God has gifted them.

Yeah.

Right?

If you look in Romans 12, 6 and 7, it says, in his grace, God has given us different gifts for doing certain things well.

In other words, some people just naturally do something really well.

It's easy for them.

It comes, like you mentioned, creativity or intelligence, IQ, EQ, social uh environments or physical things.

Like they come to people naturally.

But what I love about Romans 12 is Paul goes to the next level to say, hey, look, here's what you ought to do with those natural talents.

He says, if God has given you the ability, and then he starts mentioning specific things, he says, the ability to prophesy, like go all in, speak out with as much faith as God's given you.

Verse 7, he says, if you have the gift, the talent of serving, serve them well.

If you are a teacher, teach well.

He just keeps going.

He's like, if you're a leader, you know, lead your heart out.

Uh if you're a good encourager by nature, you know, do that well.

Like he mentions one thing after another, and it's not a comprehensive list, but what he's doing is saying, hey, look, God has given you the ability to do some things easily or do some things well.

Those are natural talents.

What we do is we give back to him in an act of worship.

We turn those things into skills.

So it's worth saying out loud that the areas where we feel jealousy are often areas where God has given someone a gift.

I think we should say that out loud.

Like that it's an area God has gifted them because uh then I start to go, wait a second, why am I uh coveting a gift God's given somebody else?

And maybe there's a better response.

Well, I think the better response is is twofold.

Number one is realizing I have my own gifts from God.

And then number two, spending time cultivating those gifts.

If I spend my time managing them, developing them, turning it into a skill set, I don't have time to be sitting around and looking at what you've got and being jealous of it.

And it's I don't say that in a way of like be self-centered and be arrogant about what you have.

You should also be recognizing this is not something I made, it's something God put in me.

I'm just helping to develop it further.

But it will occupy my mental space in such a way that now I can appreciate the gift I've been given.

I'm I'm able to be proud of it in a healthy way, right?

And not compare it to other people.

And then now I can just appreciate the gift that you have.

I'm not jealous of it anymore because I'm going, yours is just different than mine.

It's not better, you know, that you have one thing and I have another.

We're just gifted differently.

Well, I think this probably goes without saying, but I'm gonna say it anyway.

Um, I I think at best, social media, right, at its best, it allows us to be connected to people we aren't currently with.

So if I'm scrolling through and I see my friends or family or whatever, and I'm like, oh, that's so cool.

This, you know, this good thing happened to them.

Like, oh, that's so great, this happened.

Okay, at its best, it does that.

You know, we were just in Houston and we saw some friends we hadn't seen, some of them in years, some of them uh for a year, but we we saw them there, and it was funny.

I saw, even though I had not physically been with them in a year, I felt more connected.

And I was like, oh hey, congratulations on this, because actually I had seen things happen in their life, and so I feel connected to them.

That's at its best.

At its worst, it becomes a jealousy pit.

You know what I'm saying?

You're flipping through, like, oh not again, you know.

They went to Cabo again, you know, another cruise, okay.

Like, are all your steaks perfectly hooked?

Like, you know, like you see what I'm saying?

Like, oh, okay, cool.

Another ab.

Oh gosh, no way.

Another singular ab.

Yeah, so it's it's like that's it at its worst.

So I think we have to pay attention to some of the warning signs inside.

And and it may be, you know, I see people sometimes like, I'm gonna get off of this because of what it's doing in my heart.

Because that's what a jealousy is, an attack, it's an attack on your heart.

It is, and it may be that you gotta go, hey, I've got to create a buffer in my life where I'm not gonna be there.

Or maybe I need to reframe a little bit uh and actually, instead of allowing myself to get drawn into that, I'm going to uh actually use it to be more connected.

Other people actually celebrate that.

Yeah, I think when you learn what your triggers are, when you do a little bit of self-investigation and you understand what are the things that tend to make me lean into those jealous feelings and let them develop into something further, now I can understand how to protect myself from falling deeper into that change.

Which reminds me of the old abacus that we stole from Miley.

Did you guys not know that?

I was actually, I was running through this message with someone earlier in the week.

I'm like, I'm trying to find a good illustration.

They're like, What's an abacus?

I was like, watch your mouth.

And then I looked it up.

I was like, oh, one of those.

Okay, I got you.

So this is an abacus, by the way.

Um, and uh, okay, so this is a little an old school math tool, whatever.

But let's let's like use it for like to think about like our gifts.

Like we'll call this side, okay.

We just listed a bunch of things, whether it's um your your brain, you know, your mind, your physical appearance, your uh athletic talent, your social prowess, whatever that might be.

And so within this, we have our own perception of our reality in terms of how we've been gifted and we see ourselves, and then we see other people.

And and throughout life, again, this is where where we look and we have a tendency to look at somebody else.

You know, if I'm if I'm here and I see somebody here, you know, I'll have impulses around that, whether I want to take away from them or you know, I'm I'm in development in one of these areas or another, and uh, you know, I I feel some kind of way about you know all of these different areas and how I measure up the different people.

Yeah, and like, okay, so for instance, I'm not a musician, so I'm not really jealous of people who are musicians, but in areas where I really care about, I tend to feel a rivalry with people because I want to be where they're at.

I want to be good at that thing.

Yeah, and and actually I think you you bring up a good point about let's say there's an area, okay, where okay, you're about here and somebody else is about there, right?

Like you said, if if you're like, if you're in terms of music, you're like, I don't really see myself that way, so whatever, I can just enjoy a good singer and not be like, I wish I was them, or I wish I had what they had.

But in an area that you're like, this really matters to me, there's nothing wrong with something mattering to you.

The problem is what is it doing to your identity?

Right?

So let me real quick, I'm gonna write these two things.

Why do we feel jealous?

Well, one reason is insecurity, like we said, we we look at somebody's God-given gifts, and we maybe um it feels it intimidates us, or we wish we had more of that.

But the second is is identity, which is essentially the gifts God's given me, are no longer these things outside of me.

They become too close to my heart, they become too close to how I see myself and how I define myself.

It actually uh reminds me in the book of 1 Samuel uh 17 is the famous story of David and Goliath, right?

So David is um, you know, this shepherd boy, he's a teenager, probably like 15, 16 years old.

And Goliath is this massive warrior.

He's intimidating all of the fighting men in Israel.

You know, he's out in this valley, he gets out every day and taunts everybody.

He's like, Who wants some?

And they're like, Not us, so they're all hiding out.

David shows up as a young man and he's like, Why is nobody doing anything?

This guy's standing on God's battlefield, taunting God's people.

Like, who, like, which one are you gonna man up and fight him?

And they're like, Yeah, right, why don't you do it?

He's like, I'd be glad to.

So he goes to the king, King Saul, and he says in verse 32, Don't worry about this Philistine, don't worry about Goliath, I will go fight him.

Verse 33.

Here's Saul, the king, who is also being intimidated by this giant who's hiding out.

He goes, Don't be ridiculous.

There's no way you can fight this Philistine and possibly win.

The odds are impossible.

You're only a boy.

He's demeaning David.

You're only a boy, you have no shot.

He says, You he's been a man of war since his youth.

Well, what David understood was I'm bringing a projectile weapon, and this guy only has a sword and a spear.

And he's like, he's bringing a knife to a gunfight.

It doesn't matter how big he is, I'm taking him out.

David knew exactly what he'd been doing in the sheep field and how accurate he was.

And so he's the only one that thought he was gonna win.

David knew he was gonna win.

He knew he was gonna win.

So he goes out on this field, and you know the story, man.

He slings it, hits the giant, kills him, takes Goliath's sword, cuts his head off.

David goes from being just a boy who everyone's like, watching, we're gonna watch him go out and get you know killed, to actually now he's a household name.

He goes viral.

Everyone's like, Who is this this guy?

To where even as a teenage boy, he ends up being put in a position of authority over fighting men.

Alright, so so his profile goes up quickly.

It says in 1 Samuel 18, verse 6, when the victorious Israelite army was returning home after David had killed Goliath the Philistine, the ladies came out.

1 Samuel 18:6

The ladies, the women, they came out from all the towns of Israel.

They came out to meet Saul.

Kinda, I mean, you can see here.

It says, and they sang and danced for joy with tambourines and cymbals.

They did tambourne.

What do you think you do with the tambourine?

That's what you look like a tambourine book.

That's exactly what you this is the symbol.

Oh, oh.

And the tambourine.

Okay.

It's in the text.

I don't see, I don't see it in the text.

Blame it on the word.

I'm getting here.

Okay.

Blame it on the word?

Yeah, but you keep reading.

Keep reading.

It says, listen to this.

This was their song.

This was their song.

Saul has killed his thousands, and David has killed his ten thousands.

So not only are they out there with the tambourines and the cymbals and whatever, and they go up to Saul.

They're singing, they're singing essentially, hey Saul, David's ten times the man you are.

That does not go well with the male ego.

Verse 8 says, This made Saul very angry.

What's this?

He said, Look at this.

They credit David with 10,000 and me with only thousand.

Next, they'll be making him their king.

So from that time on, Saul kept a jealous eye on David.

What was Saul afraid of?

Losing his title with his king.

Losing his title.

He was afraid of his identity.

He lost track of the fact that, first of all, being king, the role of king or the position and the responsibility of king was a gift.

He didn't give it to himself.

God gave him that role.

He was called by God to do that.

And so no one can take away a gift from God except God himself.

So you have Saul who's been given this, but he lost track of the fact that he saw.

And he he was totally committed to the fact he was King Saul.

So in his mind, he's going, Who am I if I'm not King Saul?

And they decide they like him better.

Okay, who am I?

Yeah, who who am I outside of my title?

I think a lot of times people lose track of what's me and what's my role, and they they get the two enmeshed.

Yeah.

Yeah, and and and so because of that, what does it do?

It creates a seed of jealousy.

It be it becomes something that that that now, you know, he's open to anybody who poses a threat.

He he he's not able to actually uh befriend them, essentially.

He's not able to move on into the next phase of his own life and enjoy it for what it is, enjoy his own journey because he's so terrified of that being taken away.

Yeah, so think about this.

Jealousy is often a red flag that something is trying to take over my identity.

Jealousy is often a red flag.

When you have a feeling of jealousy, a twinge of jealousy, sometimes it's just a warning to you that your role, your position, your responsibility, your accolades have become too closely connected to how you see yourself.

And that if it's taken away, I don't know who I am, that I'm having an identity crisis, if they no longer salute me or I'm not the manager anymore, or whatever.

Or if you're not the quarterback anymore, Tom Brady.

I mean, there's there's still life after this.

Listen, I'm not I'm not hating, I'm just saying sometimes you have to let go of the role.

Tom watches the podcast.

He totally watches the podcast.

I'm just saying this message is maybe for you.

That's all I'm saying.

Moving on.

Back to Saul.

But no, I I I really think, and again, I could speak, me personally, there are times where the whether it's things I've accomplished or roles or positions I have, when I start to feel that, it feels like it's under threat in some way, which it's much easier for me to project on them and to go, oh, there's something wrong with them, instead of maybe there's something I need to pay attention to, there's an assault on my heart, and I need to refocus and go, I need to detach who I am from what I'm doing or who I am from the responsibility that I've been given.

And I think the irony is that people can be jealous of each other too.

So if in one area you feel like somebody is a notch ahead of you, that's a place where you can feel jealous.

But I think the same is true for two different things.

So if someone is really good socially and the other is really good academically, they can both be jealous of each other and want what the other has.

That's that's a really good point.

That sometimes people we're jealous of, they're jealous of us for something else in a different area.

I think that leads us to, I like what you said about a notch above.

I think sometimes we feel like we need to take people down a notch.

So we start subtracting from people.

And sometimes it's to their face and sometimes it's behind their back.

But we feel like somehow, if I can just take them down now, we're equal, or maybe even I've got a little bit of a leg up on them.

So, you know, maybe I'm sure you've all experienced this at some point where somebody gives you a backhanded compliment, right?

To your face, and you're like, I know the words that came out of your mouth and the smile I see, but why do I feel like you slapped me with that?

Like it's it doesn't feel good.

Or or sometimes people will out and out mock you, they'll attack you, they'll say something really derogatory to your face, or we've been guilty of doing that ourselves.

You know, sometimes it's behind people's backs.

And you know, of course you'll have that classy shade.

Yeah, well, I mean, of course, you're not gonna you're not gonna.

I love them to death I love them to death, but I don't I mean uh the Rumors might be true.

I mean, I don't know.

Well, I can't confirm or deny.

I love them to death.

Yeah, I I can neither confirm or deny.

I'm just telling you what I heard.

Yeah, I mean, I mean, I'm not sure.

There's a classy way to go about it.

I'm not saying they didn't put somebody down.

Yeah.

And you know, I'll I'll say this like I I think deflecting on this because like what you said at the beginning, it's an ugly trait, no one wants to admit it.

It's so so much easier to to put it on them.

Yeah.

And even deceive your own self.

Yeah, you you can kind of put up a smokescreen and and fool yourself and go, well, you know, they're so arrogant or they're so full of themselves or whatever.

Maybe they are, but maybe they're really not.

And you're just projecting that on them because then it's you don't have to focus on the fact that it's an ugly feeling inside of you that you have about them.

Yeah, so I like the fact too that you know you're talking about essentially jealous feelings.

Because I think sometimes, like, I know I do, I will have shame for having a feeling.

So it's like if I feel jealous, I'm like, what's wrong with me?

Something's wrong with me, I'm a bad person.

But feelings are just feelings.

Yeah.

We've talked about that before.

Feelings are amoral.

Feelings are not good or bad, they just happen to you.

You can't control the fact that something is triggered inside of you and makes you feel something.

What you do have control over is the choice you make based on that feeling.

That's where it gets moral and immoral.

That's where you can do the right thing or the wrong thing.

And so sometimes I think we get caught up in feeling ashamed for feeling guilty.

And so then it kind of starts us down this negative rabbit hole where it's like, I feel ashamed that I feel jealous of someone, but also I have the jealous feeling, so I start lashing out, which makes me feel worse.

And I and it just keeps cycling down.

And even there, I mean, you can still come back from that.

I I think sometimes we start feeling like, well, I already said what I said, now it's now it's done.

You can walk it back.

I've had to do that before.

I mean, I'm not proud of it, but I there have been times I've had to go back to friends of mine and go, I should not have said.

I'm I'm really sorry I drug you into that conversation.

I should not have said what I said about that person.

That wasn't right.

I mean Yeah, I I agree.

I so I I think when we think about decisions that we make, probably most of the impulses that come with jealous feelings aren't going to take us anywhere that's we want to go.

Right?

I don't want to go because we think we're reducing them, we're actually reducing ourselves.

Yes.

So I think in general, we go more than ever, we need to outthink this impulse and make decisions that we go, this is the right decision regardless of how I feel.

It's not enough to just go, don't be jealous, or even to say that to yourself, don't be jealous.

I have to like if you think about that, if you have a cup that has dirty water in it, you have to fill it with something else.

I fill it with soap and water and flush out with, you know, so so we we we don't want to live with insecurity or with misplaced identity.

So what how would we overcome it?

We overcome it by putting good things in.

So I'll give you give you the first one.

The first one is actually what I think jealousy often robs us of is gratitude, thankfulness, right?

When I'm jealous or I feel jealousy, I'm not thinking about all of the blessings I have in my life.

I'm not thinking about the gifts that God's given me, I'm not thinking about what I'm thankful for.

I'm actually robbed of that, and now I'm focused on what I don't have, what they have that I wish I had, or whatever.

I'm consumed by what I lack.

And it doesn't put you in a good frame of mind.

You know, in fact, if we go back to this same text in 1 Samuel 18, if you kind of compare and contrast David's attitude to Saul's, we see Saul unraveling.

He eventually tries to kill David, right?

He throws a spear at him, he tries to kill him, then he goes subversively behind his back and tries to plot behind his back to have him killed.

So we see Saul unraveling.

But look at David in 1 Samuel 18, 18, uh, when he's actually getting ready to marry into the king's family.

He says, Who am I and what is my family in Israel that I should be the king's son-in-law?

David exclaimed.

I I just love that sentence because the way he says it, he is really just in awe of what God has done in his life.

He's in awe of his blessings.

And that is an attitude you choose because a lot of times we think, well, for me to have that much, you know, gratitude, I need to, you know, be ahead of everyone.

You know, like I've got to have more.

And yet often it's it's not necessarily how much you have.

David could have certainly made a case of things that were wrong in his life.

You know, when you read in between the lines, he came from a dysfunctional family.

When he's even an anointed king, his dad overlooked him, you know, put all of his brothers up first, was like, oh yeah, David, he's out in the family.

Oh, that's right.

I have another kid.

Yeah, his his brothers treated him like garbage.

Even when he went out to kill Goliath, they were uh, you know, trying to reduce him.

He had the powerful people after him.

And yet in the middle of that, David has this attitude.

He's like, Man, who am I?

What is my family?

That's an attitude I choose.

How do I do that?

Well, it does when I have a heart of gratitude, and I start looking and going, okay, I know the gifts I don't have.

All right, I know the metabolism I don't have.

But where am I going to look and go, but God, you bless me with this uh relationship.

And God, you've given me this opportunity.

I know the opportunities I don't have.

Lord, here's the opportunity you do.

I know the influence I don't have.

Lord, thank you for the influence you did give me.

And that's a willful choice to pick that.

Yeah, and I think we need to circle back to the concept of gifts because we get so wrapped up in everyone else's that we forget that we have them.

And like, so think about the nature of gifts.

What are some things that you feel when you first receive a gift?

I'm thankful.

Yeah, you know, it's like I'm excited about it because it's new.

Exactly.

You unwrap it, you wanna you wanna spend a lot of time on it, time with it, play with it, you know.

You you want to make it a part of your life.

Yeah.

But as time goes on and dust settles on it, you don't feel that way anymore.

And that that feeling kind of fades away and you forget where it came from and how you felt when you first got it.

And I think the same is true with our human gifts, the things that we were given by God.

Um, and I think sometimes we need to like brush the dust off our gifts and remember them as well.

That's really good.

I mean, you you think about this like actually a lot of gifts over time gain value.

Yeah, and yet maybe we're not valuing them the way that they're supposed to be valued, right?

Not because they've lost value, but because we're we're so familiar with it, yeah, that it becomes ordinary to do it.

Exactly.

That's why you know Paul says to Timothy in 2 Timothy 1 6, he says, uh, this is why I remind you, fan into flames the spiritual gift that God gave you.

I love your analogy of like brushing the dust off the gift and valuing it properly.

Paul uses another one, he's like, think about a flame, right?

You you light a fire, if you leave it alone, you're not actively working on it, what happens to it?

It goes out.

Yeah, it goes out.

It like burns out.

So he's saying when it comes to your gifts, you actually have to be willful in going, I'm gonna fan into flame, passion, because if I don't, eventually it it just, you know, the the new car smell wears off.

I don't value it as much, it starts to die down.

And so Paul is giving wisdom to Timothy, he's saying, No, I I think you should actually be assertive about this, proactive, um, you know, about how you do this.

Um you have any any thoughts to add to that, or you want me to go to the next thing?

No, I I I mean I think you you hit the nail on the head that sometimes it becomes so normal to us that we forget that we have gifts or or how spectacular they are.

I think a lot of times the fact that something comes easy to us makes us almost immune to the realization that it is a gift.

Because to you it just seems so natural, right?

It's like, well, that's that's not hard, but that's just that, and it's like, but no, that's not, it's easy for you, it's not easy for everybody.

And it's that's maybe a signal to you that it's an area where you have kind of a latent gift and you haven't even fully developed it yet, and you can spend some time and energy on that.

Yeah, so the other one, okay, so gratitude reminds me of the gifts God's given me, and I can focus on those.

And the second is generosity, which is essentially adding to other people, not subtracting or taking away.

Like you said, the impulse of jealousy is in some way, you know, they they're they're ahead of me, so I gotta take, I gotta take from them uh verbally or you know, otherwise.

Um there's a character in this 1 Samuel 18 that I think is probably the most beautiful part of the story, in my opinion.

Uh, in verse 1, it says, after David finished talking with Saul, he met Jonathan the king's son, so the prince.

There was an immediate bond between them, for Jonathan loved David.

From that day on, Saul kept David with him and wouldn't let him return home.

Quick pause.

I want you to think about this.

We know why Saul was jealous of David because he saw David as a threat to him as a king.

If anybody in the text should have been jealous of David, it was probably Jonathan, the prince, because he was the guy who was next in line to be king.

David was his peer.

Saul really, probably, really wasn't under threat.

He was in power.

It was Jonathan's future that was really on the line.

So there's that threat that I'm sure you would see right away, like, wow, this peer, you know, is probably a little better than me in this space.

He are are people gonna want him?

But the other thing is, it says that Saul kept David close, kept him around.

If you're Jonathan, you might feel threatened by that.

So now my dad is, you know, paying attention to this David guy, even as a son, feeling like you've been replaced.

Verse 3, here's how Jonathan responds.

He said he made a pact with David, a solemn pact, because he loved him as he loved himself.

Verse 4, Jonathan sealed the pact by taking off his robe and giving it to David.

Don't miss that.

As he's giving him his robe, he's giving him his princely robe, he's giving him his royal robe, he's giving him the very thing that it would have been easy for him to be afraid of losing.

He says, he's looking at David, he's going, wait a second.

My identity isn't in whether I'm the next king or not.

What's mine to do?

What's God put me here to do?

And he looks over at David and goes, you know, actually, I think this robe might fit you better than it fits me.

Who does that?

Nobody does that.

We are so busy trying to protect ourselves, okay, that we miss sometimes what God's doing on a macro level.

Jonathan incredibly does that.

And then it says, he not only gave him his robe, but he also gave him his tunic, his sword, his bow, okay, all of his weapons, his belt that held everything together.

He he made himself completely vulnerable to David when his instincts or his impulses would have been, here's the threat, what's up with how this is gonna affect my identity?

But instead, love won out, and he was able to actually say, David, I want to give to you, I want to add to you instead of takeaway.

Yeah, I was gonna say, I think that's where we see the opposite of our desire to subtract from someone, and it brings it into addition instead.

He won't he was so grateful for the friendship that he had with David that it led to him having a generous spirit.

He was so secure in who God had made him to be that he didn't need the title to be who he was as Jonathan.

And I it enabled him to have clear, open eyes.

And and what I love is that he didn't even just see that what everybody else saw, which was that, okay, yeah, we have to admit David was more than just a shepherd boy, he's actually really a good warrior, and and he killed this Philistine and led the armies, but no, Jonathan saw a layer deeper, and he was like, You're not just a really good warrior, you're an amazing leader.

Like you have the capacity to lead an entire country.

And so he was comfortable placing that on him because he didn't need it to validate who he was.

And I think when we're in that place where we find that kind of security and we're not finding it in outside external things, but we're comfortable in our own identity, then we're at this place where not only are we not subtracting, but we're adding and we're seeing a layer deeper into people.

How many times have you heard somebody say, you know, I was 10 years old, 27 years old, 35 years old, and and this person said this to me, and it changed my life.

It changed the way I saw myself, and then I was able to pursue X, Y, and Z.

Somebody called out greatness in them.

You can't call out greatness in the person next to you unless you have that kind of security within yourself.

Yeah.

If we circle back to the Romans 12 text where he's saying, hey, if you do this, do it your best.

If you do this, develop it.

Here's your gift.

You do certain things well, okay?

And then in the next few verse, it says in verse 10, love each other with genuine affection.

And look at this, and take delight in honoring each other.

Yeah, take delight in honoring each other.

I can't see the difference between living a life of rivalry or unity.

Yeah, exactly.

I can I can't take delight in honoring someone if I'm giving into my the jealous impulses that I have.

And I have to say, even just like a kind of a refresher on this text, reignited in my heart, I want to be the type of person that adds that people doesn't take away.

And and you know what, there have been times for one reason or another, uh I cut somebody down.

It might have been jealousy, or it might have been I wasn't jealous, but I thought, you know, hey, they got a big head.

It's my job to cut them down, cut them down.

And sometimes I speak before I think, you know, I I actually when we were studying this, I went back and apologized to somebody.

I I wouldn't say I'm necessarily jealous of them, but it's somebody who is a younger person, and a lot of times they talk when I think they should listen.

And and so I I have gotten caught up with some behaviors I don't think are productive.

You know what I mean?

It's still judgmental.

This is judgmental, it's cutting them down, it's being sarcastic, it's reducing them, and it's like, you know what?

I can pull them aside in private and speak to them, speak life into them, and actually call out the the giant killer or the king inside of them and go, what kind of person do I want to be?

You know, I can't control everybody else, but what kind of person do I want to be?

I want to be somebody who's adding through encouragement, through seeing the best in them.

So let's do this.

Let's take a moment and pray.

But let's think through, let's think through what this would look like, right?

We can we can let our uh jealous feelings blindside us.

Uh we can be in denial of them, or we can be proactive about how we deal with them.

Here it is.

Be grateful for your gifts, be grateful.

I want to be grateful for my gifts.

Be grateful.

Maybe the Lord brought you to this message today because just to refocus you to take the dust off of your gift and go, man, I God thank you for this valuable gift.

Be grateful.

And then worship God by developing your gifts and using them for his glory.

And then third, acknowledge other people's gifts.

Acknowledge God's gifted them and then be humble.

Fourth, be humble enough to enjoy them in their gifts.

Wouldn't you rather have a life that every time you see somebody flourishing in their gift, instead of it making you reduce or want to reduce them, that you could actually bond with them in that gift that you would sit there and you would enjoy and you go, God, good job, God.

You know, you did it again.

Oh, look what you get.

Thank you, Lord, for giving them.

And it and it wasn't a subtraction from you, it was actually something that brought you together with that person and even uh brought you closer to the Lord.

So let's just take a moment and allow God to speak personally to each one of us on this topic.