Love Does Not Envy

Good morning.

My name is Katie.

Welcome.

So glad you could be with us today.

Welcome to those of you joining us at home.

You are a special part of our community.

Hey, before I start out today, I wanted to take a moment to address the call and response that we just engaged in with Alex.

We've I've had more than one person come up to me and say something along the lines of like, hey, why are we doing that?

Like, is that new?

And even isn't that something the Catholic Church does?

Like, what's up with that?

So I just wanted to take a moment to address that here.

We um that is certainly a practice that happens at the Catholic Church, but it's not uniquely Catholic.

Its roots go much deeper than that.

In fact, a call and response is part of an ancient Christian tradition that goes all the way back even to the Old Testament.

So in Nehemiah, the prophet Ezra reads the law to the assembled people and they respond saying, Amen, amen, and they bow down with their hands in worship.

We see something similar in Deuteronomy and 1 Chronicles and the Psalms and so on.

So when we say, when we read scripture, we say the word of the Lord, we are recognizing that God speaks first.

Before I even get up here and start speaking to you, God has spoken through his word, which is authoritative and divinely inspired.

And then when we respond with thanks be to God, we are responding with an attitude of gratefulness and appreciation for the word that God has spoken.

So when we engage in this practice, we are engaging in an ancient Christian liturgical practice that helps us into enter that posture of receiving God's teaching as an act of worship.

Yeah?

Okay.

All right, well, getting in today, I want to start with an imaginative exercise.

Okay?

So imagine with me that you are sitting here 50 years ago.

Okay?

It's the year 1976, and I come to you and I say, I've got a new invention.

I want to invent a photo album.

But this photo album isn't going to have like, you know, your birthday parties and your vacations and your milestones.

It's not going to have any of that.

It's going to have other people's birthday parties and other people's vacations and other people's milestones.

And it's not going to be, um, it's not going to be just like, you know, your neighbors, your close friends, your family.

It's going to be like everybody.

And you're like, well, what do you mean, everybody?

Like, you know, people you maybe met once and you don't really remember their name anymore.

People you went to high school with years ago.

Heck, I'm even going to throw in people from halfway across the world that you've never met and you're never going to meet.

Oh, and here's one more thing.

It's going to update constantly.

I know it doesn't make sense now, but every time you open it, there's going to be new photos, and it's going to be like this never-ending stream of photos from other people's lives.

All the best stuff.

Nothing bad, just the good stuff.

But just not from your life, from their lives.

You may realize that what I'm talking about by now is social media.

Right?

Social media is a breeding ground for envy.

And that's what we're going to talk about today.

And here's the kicker.

What I realized as I was thinking about this is that sometimes what we see in social media isn't even real.

Like I found myself recently looking at some ad for a sweater or something popped up on my feed, and I'm like, oh man, I wouldn't look as good as that person in that.

And then I looked closer, I'm like, her proportions seem off.

Wait, that is an AI-generated image.

I'm literally feeling envious over someone that isn't even real.

It's craziness.

So here's the thing social media might be somewhat of a new invention, but envy certainly is not.

We don't need Instagram to be envious.

The church in Corinth had an envy problem 2,000 years ago, way before the internet.

And that's what we're gonna be looking at today.

So if you've been coming for the past few weeks, you know that we're in a series called Love Never Fails, where we're going through 1 Corinthians 13, and Paul is speaking to the church in Corinth about the importance of love as followers of Jesus.

And if we zoom out a bit, we see that the chapter before this one focuses on spiritual gifts in the church.

So 1 Corinthians 12, he was talking to them about how they've each been given different gifts, the gift of prophecy, the gift of healing, the gift of teaching, etc.

But it would seem as though rather than using those gifts to bless each other and build each other up, the Corinthians were using them to build themselves up, to appear impressive as a source of status.

So the implication here is that is that they were using their gifts rather than for mutual blessing for their own blessing, and Paul says, no, no, no, that's not what it's about.

The body of Christ should look like love, and love does not envy.

The people in Corinth, it seems we're looking sideways.

Who has which gift?

Who's getting noticed more?

Why don't I have that gift and they do?

But Paul says, love does not envy, and that's our passage for today.

It's four words, it's not even the full verse.

1 Corinthians 13, 4.

Two weeks ago was love is patient.

Last week we talked about love is kind.

This week, love does not envy.

And anytime I start with a passage like this, I like to look at what the original word meant in the original languages.

And here, the word envy is a word called zelao, if I pronounce that right.

Um, and what I found interesting in my research is that it doesn't always have a negative meaning, kind of like envy.

Um, it does sometimes, but we see this in other places in scripture where it's translated to something more closely to like zeal or an eager desire.

For example, in 1 Corinthians, Paul tells them to eagerly desire spiritual gifts, be eager to prophesy.

In Galatians 4, Paul says it's fine to be zealous, using the same word, provided the purpose is good.

So this zeal isn't inherently a bad thing.

I think we actually have some pretty healthy imagination for what zeal can look like in a positive way, right?

You could be zealous at your job, you could be zealous as a parent, you could even be zealous to grow in your faith and become more like Jesus.

So zealous desire alone isn't the problem.

The problem is that when that desire turns sideways, when we move from simply saying, I want this, to saying, why do you have that and I don't?

Right?

That's where desire becomes envy.

And as we dive in, I want to start with some observations I made about envy as I was preparing this message.

And the first is just how prevalent it is in our culture.

I already talked about social media, but if you just really step back and think about it, the internet just gives us way too much opportunity for envy, right?

We used to kind of know what our neighbors were doing and maybe our close family and friends, but now we know like what everybody's doing all the time.

It's this constant source of what can turn into envy.

And on top of that, the algorithms literally tailor the content to stir up envy in you.

So you're thinking of doing maybe like a home remodel, bam, you're gonna see all the like pristine homes and the nicest stuff and all everything that you could ever want.

Thinking about getting in shape?

You're inundated with like, I use these easy steps and these supplements, and bam, I lost 50 pounds, and look how muscular I am.

I mean, no matter what it is, the internet will like read your mind and then push that content to you.

It's crazy.

We are constantly bombarded with images of all the things we want before we even want them.

So that's my first observation.

My second is that what we envy reveals what we desire.

Because if I pay attention to the things that stir up envy in me, I think they can tell me something about what I think would make my life better.

And if I could have an honest moment, when I first saw that I was gonna be preaching on envy, my first thought was I don't know, I don't think I struggle with that like too much.

I feel like I'm pretty content, I feel like I'm like pretty happy for other people.

Um, but anytime I start thinking about a sermon, I start by paying attention to where it is in my own life.

So, God, show me where I have envy in my life.

And one of the things that came up for me was leisure.

Right?

I work, I have four kids, so sometimes when I see other people, it just seems like kind of leisurely strolling through life.

Well, I'm like hurried about rushing from one thing to the next, I think, man, that'd be nice.

Or when people talk about like what movies they're watching or what TV shows, I'm like, I can't even think of the last time I sat down and watched a show for myself.

But they get then again, it is October, which means that Christmas Hallmark movie season is coming, so that will be changing.

Um, another one for me is coffee, right?

If you know me, you know that.

Um, up until five years ago, the thing I loved most in this entire world was coffee, and I developed an allergy to it.

It's brutal, right?

And I I get allergies to like gluten and dairy and nuts, like, oh, but coffee, like it's just some kind of sick joke.

It's really bad.

So I envy those who can drink coffee big time.

These are the things I think would make my life better.

Clearly, I desire more leisure.

I desire a good cup of coffee.

But notice what I said there, what I think would make my life better.

Isn't it funny how often we envy the things that we think would make our lives more enjoyable, more comfortable, make us happier, when in reality those aren't usually the things that draw us closer to God.

In fact, the things we so often envy tend to be the things that would make us more successful, more confident, more self-reliant, not more reliant on God.

Can you imagine if the social media algorithms pushed stuff on us that actually like promised to make our lives harder?

Follow these three easy steps for a life of struggle and hardship so that you'll depend on God.

Like, not gonna happen.

So the object of our envy reveals what we desire, it illuminates what we long for.

So I think we need to ask ourselves, what am I envying?

And what does that say about what I desire?

What is it for you?

What do you desire?

What do you envy?

In Matthew 20, Jesus tells a parable of some workers in a vineyard.

In this parable, there's a landowner who goes out early in the morning to hire some workers and he promises to pay them a certain amount for a day's worth of work.

He goes out later that morning into the marketplace and he recruits some more workers.

He goes out again at noon and then at 3 and then at 5 p.m.

And each time he recruits more workers to work in his vineyard.

When the end of the day comes, he pays each of these workers the same amount.

So you can imagine those that got there bright and early in the morning are like, hey, what's up with that?

Why are you paying the same as them?

They started at 5 o'clock, we've been here all day.

And the landowner says, Well, didn't I pay you what I promised?

Don't I have a right to do with what I want with my money?

Or are you envious because I am generous?

The early workers got exactly what they were promised, but when they saw that the what the other workers received, their blessing suddenly didn't feel like enough.

And that's envy.

This leads me to my third observation, which is that envy tells me that your blessing is my loss.

Something good for you means something bad for me.

It's like a zero-sum game.

And I think most of us know this feeling more than we care to admit.

Um, take work, for example.

You might feel perfectly content with your work, with your salary, but suddenly your coworker gets a raise and you're like, wait, what?

What about me?

Right?

Suddenly your pay might feel insufficient.

Parenting.

You might feel really good about your kids and your parenting.

And then someone else tells you that their kids got into the school or the program or the sports team or the opportunity, and suddenly your situation feels a little bit like a disappointment.

And I even think this can happen at church, right?

You may feel called to a certain ministry or step into something and feel good about it, but then think, wait a second, why is that person getting a better response than I am?

Why do they have more of a following?

Why does it seem like they're excelling more than I am?

God, I'm trying to do the right thing here.

I mean, did any of you see how many signups the pickleball group got on sign-up Sunday?

I have never had a following like that for any of my groups.

Um, so yes, envy can even be a thing here at church.

So this is what I've noticed about envy.

It's more prevalent than ever.

It reveals what we desire, and it carries the message that your blessing is my loss.

But next I want to ask the question: so what?

Like, does it really matter?

You might be hearing me and thinking, yeah, but is envy really that big of a deal?

I mean, I can want what someone else has, and I don't know, I can still be nice to them.

Like, who's it really hurting?

But I think there's a reason Paul chooses to list it here, and he lists it in his description of love.

Love does not envy.

So I think we have to ask, is envy incompatible with love?

Can't we love someone and want what they have at the same time?

But as Paul is speaking to the Corinthians about love, he puts this one right at the top.

Love is patient, love is kind, love does not envy.

And I don't think he's treating these as entirely separate characteristics, as much as they all together fill out what it looks like to love.

Remember a few weeks ago we talked about how love is to be the plumb line for everything we do as followers of Jesus.

Right?

If you don't have love, nothing else matters.

Jesus tells us in 1335, by this everyone will know that you are my disciples if you love one another.

So love then becomes the marker of what it means to follow Jesus.

And not love in the way the world loves, not in the way the movies show us, love in the way that Jesus loves.

Agape love, self-giving love, love that seeks the good of the other person.

But see, friends, I think it's actually impossible to have this type of love if we envy someone at the same time.

See, love sees someone as an image bearer of God, envy sees them as an object of competition.

Love celebrates someone's flourishing, envy resents that flourishing.

Love seeks another person's good, envy experiences that good as a threat.

So the posture of envy is entirely different from the posture of love.

That's why Paul puts it here.

Envy changes the way we see the person in front of us, it blocks our love.

They are incompatible.

But I think envy goes even deeper than that.

Because envy doesn't just affect the way we see other people, I think it can also affect the way we see God.

Remember, envy says your blessing is my loss.

And if your blessing is my loss, well then maybe there isn't enough good to go around.

There's not enough for both of us.

And if God is really being good to you, maybe it means there's less good for me.

And I think this is where envy can expose something really vulnerable for us.

Because sometimes underneath that thought of like, wait, why do they have that?

Is a deeper question that says, God, what about me?

If you're being good to them, are you still being good to me?

If you love them enough to give them that thing, well, wait, don't you love me enough to give me that thing?

And suddenly, envy isn't just about that other person, it's about whether I trust the goodness of God towards me.

Envy can reveal a belief about God.

At the heart of envy is the question: do I still trust that God is good to me when I don't get what I want, but someone else does.

Imagine with me that you've been praying about something for years.

Maybe it's finding the right job.

Maybe it's finding a marriage partner, maybe it's having a baby.

I know that's a very tender spot for many, many people.

Maybe it's physical healing.

Maybe you're sick or you've been injured and you have been praying to be healed.

And then one day, someone you know experiences the very thing that you've been praying for.

In one sense, you might be happy for them, right?

Or at least you know that you should be, or you want to be.

But at the same time, you feel that twinge of sadness.

That thought that, God, what about me?

At the heart of our envy is a question about God's goodness towards us.

We question whether God can really give us what we need when someone has it and we need it.

Envy reveals a deeper question about whether God really cares and whether he will provide what I need.

So, what does he tell about, uh what does he tell us about that in his word?

2 Corinthians 9, 8 says, and God is able to bless you abundantly, so that in all things, at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work.

Read that again with me.

God is able to bless you abundantly.

The Bible tells us that God is a God of abundance, not limitation.

In our pantry at home, we have a candy bin.

It's like a bin in the back corner of the pantry, and when the kids get candy from like a parade or a holiday or trick-or-chating, whatever, it all goes on the bin, and then they can like pick out one piece here or there for dessert or special treat or whatever.

Um, of my kids, my oldest Charlie is the most disciplined with his sugar intake.

And he went in there the other day and he pulled out the bag and he was like, Hey, what happened to all my jolly ranchers?

Like, poor Charlie had been saving them and eating them very slowly, and someone ate them all.

I don't know if it was my other kids, I don't know if it was Alex, the jury's still out, um, but they were gone.

So, my point is envy can make us think about God's goodness like a bag of jolly ranchers.

One for you is less for me.

But what if instead of a bag of Jolly Ranchers, God's goodness is more like a fresh spring that never runs dry.

If we want to stick with the candy illustration, like the chocolate fountain and the Willy Wonka chocolate factory.

My kids were just watching that last night.

It just never goes out.

No matter how much you drink, there's always enough for the next person.

Because the truth is that God doesn't have to choose between being good to you and being good to me.

The Bible tells us that God's resources are infinite, unlimited, unending.

They never run out.

And here's my hope, church.

My hope and my prayer is that when we truly believe this, when we step back and we receive this kind of abundant love from God and we learn to trust his provision in our lives, knowing that he loves us and he wants our good, then we will be able to turn around and share that kind of love with others.

We said earlier that envy blocks our love, but the contrary of that is also true.

Love can block our envy.

More specifically, God's abundant love can block our envy.

So that's our bottom line today.

Envy blocks our love, God's abundant love can block our envy.

And I really want us to take in that word abundant.

God's love is abundant, his goodness is abundant.

He's able to give each of us all that we need, and then when we believe that and we receive it, it frees us up to love other people with an envy-free kind of love.

This is the kind of love that Paul talks about in Romans 12 when he says, rejoice with those who rejoice.

That's something that's really hard to do when we're burdened with envy.

I don't know about you, but for me, it feels like there isn't enough willpower in the world to force myself to genuinely rejoice over someone whose blessing feels like my loss.

I can fake it, but genuinely rejoice, probably not happening.

So, what if the pivot for us isn't to just kind of put on a good face and try to make ourselves act like we're happy, like rejoicing through gritted teeth?

If envy is rooted in the belief that there isn't enough and somehow your blessing means less for me, then maybe the way out of envy is to learn to trust that there is enough.

Right?

It may be true that there's not another spot on the team or another house or another job or another opportunity like the one I wanted, but there is enough of God's goodness.

There is enough of God's love.

There is enough of God's grace.

So then the more deeply I receive God's love and goodness in my life, the less threatened I am by your blessing.

The more I can celebrate God's goodness towards you.

I can genuinely rejoice when you rejoice because my heart has been transformed in such a way that God's love has overpowered my envy.

Doesn't mean I'll never be envious again, but what it does mean that when I do, I can bring it before God and say, God, I know I'm feeling this way, but would you help me to trust that you love me and you desire my good?

Would you help me to trust that your goodness is sufficient for me?

Would you help me keep my eyes fixed on you to provide all that I need so that I might be freed up to love other people the way that you love me?

And church, that becomes our witness in the world.

When we confess before God and allow his love to change us, we become the type of people who can live differently, who can relate to others differently, not seeing them of objects of competition or comparison.

But as image bearers who deserve God's goodness, just as we do.

When we collectively, as the church, learn to live this way, we begin to love other people in a way that reveals God's heart towards them.

So that they may too come to experience the redeeming love of a God who loves them and wants their good.

That was Paul's invitation for the Corinthians, and that's my heart for us today.

So what does it look like to live into this?

I have a few action steps.

The first one is just to notice, right?

Where is envy bubbling up in me?

Mac often quotes his friend Jim Harrington, who says, talks about how Ephesians says, take off the old self and put on the new, but you can't take off what you can't name.

So the first step is just to notice it and to name it.

God, where is envy?

It doesn't feel good, but it's kind of like the hood of your car.

Even if you don't pop it, you don't look at it, the problem's still there, right?

So, God, where is envy bubbling up in me?

The second step is to confess it.

Confess your envy in the light of God's loving presence.

Confession simply means bringing something into the light.

Because look, when you notice some sin in your life, you have two choices.

You can either go into hiding and feel like covered in shame, or you can receive God's forgiveness and receive his love and then move forward in the light of his goodness.

God never wants you to live in shame.

The third is to trust that God's goodness is sufficient for you.

To say, God, I don't always know what you're doing.

I don't know whether I'm ever going to get the thing I've prayed for, but I trust that you are good towards me nonetheless.

Not because of my circumstances, but because of who you are.

And then the fourth is to rejoice over God's goodness for you and for someone that you're tempted to envy.

When I don't have to compete with you anymore, I can celebrate God's goodness towards you.

So notice that area where envy is bubbling up, confess it, choose to trust, and then choose to rejoice.

Before we leave here today, I want to give us an opportunity to bring our envy before God.

We talked about those four movements: notice, confess, confess, trust, and rejoice.

And I'm going to close by reading us through a prayer that takes us through those movements.

I'm going to read it in three sections.

And at the end of each section, I'm going to pause and give you a prayerful question to reflect on.

So if you could with me, find a prayerful posture, whether that's closing your eyes or taking a deep breath, bowing your head, just take some time to settle into God's presence and let me read this prayer over us.

I would that my joy were pure, O Lord, at this the news of my friend's delight.

Yet though I rejoice to see my friend made glad, I confess that my selfish heart is divided.

For long have I prayed for that same delight, and long has my own longing gone unsatisfied.

This yes that you've spoken in another's life seems to whisper no to me.

From every smile and every screen and every word of congratulations, each affirmation of their blessing is a deepening of my own hidden ache, a sharpening of the fractures where my emptiness remains.

Even as I open my mouth to praise you for all you have done on my friend's behalf, my heart groans loud with lament.

If you are truly generous, O Lord, why grant this gift to one child and not another?

If you are truly kind, O Lord, why taunt me with the sight of a joy you won't bestow?

If you are truly good, O Lord, why withhold this good gift from me?

O Father, how the accuser's eyes have scaled my sight.

My heart has been blinded, my desires upended, so that I can no longer see the beauty of your creation, nor hear the sound of your approaching step.

I only crave this singular fruit withheld.

What envy do I need to confess before God this morning?

O Christ, be the flame that burns away this bitter envy.

For you are the bread that satisfies every hunger, you the spring from which the truest life flows.

In you every promise has found its yes, and in you every shattered thing shall be made new, every jagged fracture mended, every hidden ache wholly filled.

So meet me here, O Christ, in this sacred longing, in the heart's sore space between gratitude and grief.

Let my eyes not dwell upon the earthly joys I lack, but lift my gaze to the splintered crossbeams, where the greatest gift of all was not withheld, but given freely, that I might know the joy of belonging in you.

Forgive me, Father God, for thinking any good gift could fill me more completely than the Giver Himself.

Remind me this day that all you have has always been mine, that a ring and a robe bestowed upon another is not a mark of favoritism or disdain, but rather an invitation to share in your great delight.

Where do I need to release my timeline, my comparison, or what sense I of what I think God owes me this morning.

Strengthen me, O Spirit, to rejoice with those who rejoice, even when the celebration sharpens my ache, and to teach me to see that every hope deferred is a floodgate where your tender grace pours in.

And let me not forget your abundant kindness to me, but instead recall that the provisions I take for granted, someone else is praying for.

Grant me courage and compassion, O Lord, to share what you have given me, that I might become an answer to the heart-heavy prayers of those around me.

Make me this day an ambassador of the only lasting joy, the delight which is found not in grasping at fruit or chasing after gifts, but in resting in the arms of the gardener himself and abiding in the one true vine.

God, where can I celebrate your goodness in someone else's life even before I see the answer I'm waiting for in my own?

God, I thank you for your word this morning.

I thank you for this teaching.

I thank you that you invite us to live lives that are free of envy.

But you don't ask us to do this on our own.

You don't ask us to operate out of guilt or shame or fear, but God, you love us so much.

Help us to receive your love.

Let it transform us that we may move out into the world and love other people with the same kind of love that we receive from you.

Would you help us to grow as disciples who love you and who love others and who can share that love with the watching world?

We ask these things in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Hey, real quick, before I dismiss you, um, three quick reminders.

DNA class is next week.

Today's the last day to register.

Golf outing is also next week, and so is coffee hour.

So, three things all a week from today.

Um, go in peace.