Mark Clark [00:00:00]:
Hey, guys. Hope you're doing well. Mark Clark. Here. We are launching a new series, and this is the first episode. I'm very excited about this. This is a series called Trapped that I did for Connexus church up in my home country of Canada. Great church up there.
Mark Clark [00:00:14]:
And it was a four week series exploring four of the seven deadly sins. So if you think about this historical thing called the seven deadly sins, these are things that kind of destroy our lives. And the whole series was built around making sure we identify the sins that destroy us and the virtues that make us flourish. Today on the podcast, we're diving into the first one, a powerful topic, the topic of envy. This silent sin that I talk about can actually creep into our lives, kill our joy, and damage all of our relationships. So in this episode, we're going to explore how envy manifests in our culture, especially through social media, and how it impacts our spiritual lives. So we'll look at biblical insights and personal stories to understand envy better and find ways to overcome it. Discover how embracing contentment and celebrating others can actually lead to a more fulfilling and joy life.
Mark Clark [00:01:04]:
Hopefully you enjoyed this first of four episodes on Trapped and the seven deadly sins. Let's get started. We're talking about envy today, and Envy is a huge one. To kick off this series, you might find it. I find all of these are some of the most relevant things we can talk about in our lives at all. And even as a culture, this one might be even the most. I don't know. We have all had that moment.
Mark Clark [00:01:25]:
If you've read withering heights, the novel, Catherine and Heathcliff are looking in the window of their friend's house, and everyone inside is dancing and laughing and they're spinning around and they got their noses pressed up against the window just pining. But they're outsiders with no way to bridge the gap. We all feel that in our lives at times. Now it's worse on social media. You have all these people. Oh, you're like, they hung out last night. Why didn't I get the phone call? Or, man, they went to Hawaii again. And so it's insidious.
Mark Clark [00:01:52]:
I want that life. I want that husband who could give me that house and those kids. I want that wife. I want that life. I want this person to satisfy me. I want to look better and feel better. It is endless. It's a never ending thing.
Mark Clark [00:02:07]:
What I wanna say about envy today, it kills our souls and it kills our relationship with God and our relationship with the world. Let me define envy for you. The definition of envy comes from dictionary as a sorrow which one entertains at another's well being. Because of a view that one's own excellence is, in consequence lessened. In other words, we're sad that something good is happening to someone else. That's envy, from the latin word invidia, meaning it's an emotion which one writer has said occurs when a person lacks another's superior quality, achievement or possession. And either desires it or wishes that the other lacked it. Isn't that messed up? Aristotle defined envy as pain at the sight of another's good fortune.
Mark Clark [00:02:55]:
Stirred by those who have what we ought to have. Right? This is what we want. Thomas Aquinas said this envy, according to the aspect of its object, is contrary to charity. Where the soul derives its spiritual life. Charity rejoices in our neighbors good, while envy grieves over it. Isn't that, like, just so much a part of our. Like, Adam and Eve's story, right? In the bible, Genesis one, two, and three, where Adam and eve are in the garden, and he says, hey, here's Eve. She's your wife.
Mark Clark [00:03:26]:
And Adam, he doesn't start looking around at other animals. Like, what are his options? It's like Eve or hippo, right? That's it. That's how we're supposed to actually view our marriages, in the sense of like, we're not supposed to be. Cause when you look around at other people, that's when you start to lack contentment in life. There's a sickness that begins to happen in our life, right? And so, in the garden, Adam and eve are there, and they have this thought. I'll bet you that that's the best tree, the only tree we're not allowed to eat from. Remember, God said, you can have any tree in the garden, but not that one. Let's go eat from that one.
Mark Clark [00:04:00]:
That's envy, right? He said envy made even the garden of Eden not enough. It's so prevalent and natural for us, we barely think of it. And yet it is totally deadly. Comparison to other people is what kills contentment in our life. That's the toxicity of it. But contentment is what we all want for our culture. It's a way of life. It's the basis of every endorsement commercial that we see.
Mark Clark [00:04:24]:
We get this, and we're going to improve our life. I guarantee everyone else has it. You have to get it. That's a picture of the good life. The constant nagging that you're behind. And you need that thing to get ahead and to get something. So what does the Bible say, like all the sins that we talk about in this series, the Bible actually says a lot about envy. In the book of Genesis, envy is said to be the motivation behind Cain murdering his brother Abel.
Mark Clark [00:04:46]:
Is Cain envied Abel because God favored Abel's sacrifice over Cain literally. We're only in chapter four of the entire Bible, and the sin of murder gets introduced. It's like the first thing we see in the book of Exodus. The 10th commandment forbids us from coveting our neighbor's stuff, our neighbor's wives, our neighbor's servants, and urges us to rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep. Proverbs 14 says, envy makes the bones rot. Have you ever felt that in your life? Proverbs 23 let not your heart envy sinners. Matthew 20 718 it was out of envy that they had delivered Jesus to be crucified. Realize that it was envy that killed Jesus.
Mark Clark [00:05:32]:
Matthew chapter seven. Out of the heart, Jesus says, comes envy, slander, pride, murder. It's in the same list. Romans chapter one, they are full of envy, murder, same list. Galatians five envy, drunkenness, orgies, the same list. James four, they have a covetous spirit. First Corinthians three for you are still of the flesh, for as long as there is jealousy and quarreling among you, are you not of the flesh and behaving according to human inclinations? Jealousy. First Corinthians 13.
Mark Clark [00:06:05]:
You know that passage that gets read at all of our weddings? Usually grandma's up there reading it in. Like King James, like loveth, he keepeth. You know, love is patient, love is kindeth. Love is not envious or boastful or arrogant. Galatians five let us not become conceited, competing against one another, envying one another. See, all of these passages are constantly leading us toward the idea that envy will actually kill your soul. So first Peter says, rid yourself of it, therefore of all malice, all guile, all insincerity, envy and all slander. Do not fret because of the wicked.
Mark Clark [00:06:45]:
Do not be envious of wrongdoers. Psalm 37 so this is a really important thing in our lives. If we're honest people who sleep around or make a lot of money but are bad people. It looks kind of fun, right? Like this is what psalm 37 is saying. Do not fret because of the wicked. Do not be envious of wrongdoers. You might be envious of wrongdoers that looks fun, sleeping around, making money, killing, doing all these things. The Bible goes, this will kill you because the immediate temporal reality is not as important as the eternal.
Mark Clark [00:07:23]:
Don't be envious of wrongdoers. Even if it looks fun, don't do it. Run from it. Ask the Lord to take it from you. It's like Joseph with Potiphar's wife. She's coming on to him and he just runs away from her. He leaves his cloak in her hands and she's like, come on, little one. He's like, I'm out of here.
Mark Clark [00:07:38]:
That is what you need to do with the sin of envy. Envy is a sin deeply ingrained in human nature. It comes into being when man lacks certain things. We're envious of others regarding a hundred things. Wealth, power, beauty, a spouse, fertility, social ascent. Miracles and healings happen in other person's lives. And we're jealous. They're more popular than me, they're more successful than me.
Mark Clark [00:08:05]:
Even relationships with God. You look at Tozer, aw Tozer, years ago he prayed 3 hours a day and I'm like, man, I want that. And then you read the history books. It's like, yeah, but there's always a flip side to this. He also neglected his family in a sense, right? Like I remember pointing that out to someone and just even saying that to you, right? There is an interesting thing because someone says you don't pray 3 hours a day. Aw Tozer did. And I go right for the jugular for what's wrong with him. See, why do I do that? Because I want what he had with the Lord.
Mark Clark [00:08:37]:
But I'm going to put him down because I'm envious of what he had. How messed up is that? And that's what we all do. So the Bible goes. Envy cannot coexist with true and spiritual wisdom, but with false, earthly, unspiritual, demonic wisdom. Throwing away envy is a crucial condition in our path to salvation love because it banishes envy from our hearts. So why is it a sin? Because God knows what is best for us. Bertrand Russell, who was this atheist philosopher back in the day, said that envy was one of the most potent causes of unhappiness in our lives. Not only is the envious person rendered unhappy by their envy, but that person may also wish to inflict misfortune on others to reduce their status.
Mark Clark [00:09:27]:
So psychologists distinguish true malicious envy from benign envy. Malicious envy being proposed as an unpleasant emotion that causes the envious person to want to bring down the better off, even at their own cost. While benign envy involves recognition of others being better off but causes the person to aspire to be as good. So there's nothing wrong with aspiring to be like someone who's successful. That's a good thing. It's when it becomes haunting over your life and you feel it, and it causes you to resent them, to desire deep down their downfall. Here's why that's bad. Because what is a christian life? Love God and love who? I had a friend look at me one time and he said, I have actually been praying for your downfall as a leader.
Mark Clark [00:10:12]:
And I realize now it's because I'm jealous, because we were both pastors in ministry. What does it mean to love your neighbor? To love is to will the good of that person. And this guy recognized himself and he was crying and repenting. To me, our very goal in life should be to will good things on our neighbor, not to be sad about them. That's the crazy part. So when we gossip about people, when we put them down, that is not to love them. That comes from envy. So much of our hidden motives in life draw on envy.
Mark Clark [00:10:42]:
I want to be them. Bigger than them, stronger than them, richer than them, smarter than them, more beautiful than them. And that's a sign of backwards, because God asks us, look, what does it actually look like to love people? I'll tell you another reason why it's upside backwards. Look at high school. All the cool people, right? Think back to your high school days. The cool people, the jocks, the athletes. And then think of all the geeks, the computer nerds, the acting goofs. What's happening now, 25 years later? All the geeks wanted to be the cool people in high school.
Mark Clark [00:11:16]:
Fast forward 20 years. Most of the coolios are working for the geeks. And the geeks are rich and successful, and they change the world. And the Coolios are whatever. It's just true almost every time. So why are we envying? We have such a small perspective on reality. We don't even know what to envy. This is stuff God calls us and he goes, the reasons I didn't make you look like that or give you that house or that spouse or all this or all that is for a purpose.
Mark Clark [00:11:51]:
And you're going to see it in the long run. But you can't see it now. You don't always understand it, but I'm going to be doing something. See, when God says not to covet, it's not so much about possessions. It's coveting after a kind of life, right? Social media feeds it, Instagram. You see the travel, you see the great marriage, you see the money, you see the kids, you see the beauty. And then it kills me because you go, my skin isn't that nice. My house isn't that nice.
Mark Clark [00:12:21]:
My husband's not like that. My wife thought people smarter than me, and it kills our soul, but also it kills our joy because we do comparison. Yeah, I have all these nice things compared to 99% of the world. Sure, I understand. 80% of the world has to walk 2 hours to get water. But I want those nice things because they're nicer than mine. And here's what ends up happening. Envy ends up being a lonely sin.
Mark Clark [00:12:48]:
It's focused only on the self. Why can't I have that? Why do they get it and I don't? Viewing the world in that lens will only lead to a deeper and deeper misery. Self pity is born out of envy. I got dealt a bad hand. There's social reasons for my life. That's not always true. Here's the other thing. Envy is in all of us, maybe more than any other sin.
Mark Clark [00:13:14]:
This is us. Alexander Solzhenitsyn, who's a writer, says this, if only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart? See, that's the hard part. To follow Jesus, we have to destroy a piece of ourselves. That's what discipleship is. Pick up your cross and follow me. There is no room for envy in a life of discipleship, because we fully accept our lives, and then we deny those things.
Mark Clark [00:13:51]:
If we don't do that, we will never know. Listen to me. We will never know true happiness, which is the thing that drives all of us. Right? Philosopher Luke Ferry says this. We live virtually all our lives, somewhere between memories and aspirations, past and future, nostalgia and expectation. We imagine we would be much happier with new shoes, a faster computer, a bigger home, more exotic holidays, different friends. But by regretting the past or guessing about the future, we end up missing the only life worth living, the one which proceeds from the here and now and deserves to be savored. That was an atheist talking about that in a book that I read about a brief history of philosophy.
Mark Clark [00:14:32]:
Think about that. We end up missing the only life worth living, the one which proceeds from the here and now and deserves to be savored. See, that's what envy steals from all of us, the here and now. Think about that. I have regret about these things. Right. The other day, I was working. And one of my daughters started crying about something and I should have just gone down and cuddled her in that moment.
Mark Clark [00:14:56]:
And I'm like, okay, but I gotta just finish this one thing. Hey, honey. I mean, and then it was like, oh, she turned on a show. She was fine. And then I come down, it's like, oh, it's too late. Get away from me. And I'm like, oh, man, these kids are going to be gone soon. And we're writing sermons and writing emails to people.
Mark Clark [00:15:13]:
What does that mean? See, when you compare to others, you start to understand something about yourself and you start to say, man, I only have this moment in front of me. Let's savor every second of it. I don't want to get to the end of my life and regret the fact that I spent half my time envying other people's lives. See, when you compare yourselves to others, there's only emotional pain because you're always going to find someone better at whatever than you. They're always going to find someone richer than you, right? You're always going to find someone. I wish my marriage was thriving like those people. I wish I had this. It's endless.
Mark Clark [00:15:51]:
A lack of self worth and a lowered self esteem and well being is what you get in the end if envy runs your life. In Nelson Adrick's old money, he states, envy is so integral and painfully a part of what animates human behavior in market societies that many people have forgotten the full meaning of the word, simplifying it into one of the symptoms of desire. It is that which is why it flourishes in market societies, democracies of desire, as they might be called. But envy is more than desire. It begins with the almost frantic sense of emptiness inside oneself, as if the pump of one's heart were sucking on air. One has to be blind to perceive the emptiness, of course, but that's what envy is, a selective blindness. Blindness to what? To what you've already got. To the fact that every good and perfect gift comes down from the father of lights.
Mark Clark [00:16:45]:
James one says the fact that if you're alive right now, you should just be freaking out, just being like, ah, I can't believe it, I'm alive. It's crazy. Do you know why you're sitting there right now watching this? Do you know why you're sitting here pondering this? Listen to this. Because God decided you could live another day. That's why. And that's a gift. And when we misunderstand that, we start to envy. See, literally the word envy in Latin, it means non sight.
Mark Clark [00:17:13]:
You can't see it. Dante's Inferno in the paintings where he talks about the seven sins and the layers of hell and so on. In his painting, he has the envious people plodding along under cloaks of lead, and their eyes are sewn shut with wire. They're blind. And what they're blind to is what they have God given and humanly nurtured in themselves. Think about it. Envy in the movie seven, the David Fincher movie. And it's not for the weak of stomach to go and watch it, but a serial killer goes and kills people according to the seven deadly sins and the last two sins.
Mark Clark [00:18:01]:
I won't ruin the movie for you. But the sin that makes the serial killer kill one of the main guys wives is envy. He can't live with himself not having her see. Here's what the gospel does. It wakes us up and makes us see and appreciate it. Makes us. John, chapter nine. When Jesus heals the blind guy, and then they all start talking about it.
Mark Clark [00:18:25]:
And the blind guy wakes up and he goes, now I can see. And they all start talking about, what's the theology of it? And Jesus goes, this isn't just about physical blindness. This is about spiritual blindness. And the gospel goes, now you can spiritually see. You wake up to what you all have. That's what solves envy. And you know, this is a sin in your life. When you can't celebrate other people's wins.
Mark Clark [00:18:52]:
They get married, they get a new job, they run into money, and we're always like, yeah, when's that gonna happen? For me, that kid did. Their kid did something awesome. Well, what about my kid? And you start to resent them in the pastor world. You write a book, you speak at a conference. I try my hardest to always encourage other pastors and promote their books and praise them from afar because I don't want to have any comparative attitude. They got their own life. God's doing that. It's amazing to compare.
Mark Clark [00:19:22]:
Is going to kill. But if you constantly celebrate others, that is what's going to kill. Envy. See, for me, it's not so much money. I don't really care much about all that. It's other stuff. That guy's got a great golf swing and a golf score. Why does that guy always beat me? And you know what I start to do? Justified.
Mark Clark [00:19:41]:
He plays more than me. He's a jerk, all right? He's got the best equipment. He probably neglects his family. This is what we do with ourselves. And we forget no, he's just better and more talented than you. He's just better. And I'm jealous, right? This is what we do. I go to a bookstore, and I go buy a book, and it says, New York Times bestseller.
Mark Clark [00:20:01]:
And I'm like, why can't I get a New York Times bestseller on my books? Problem of God, problem of Jesus, available now. Why can't I get that, man? See, the difference between jealousy and envy is this. Envy is more coveting. Jealousy is more about possessing. Envy is the one that is no fun. It's just pain, right? It's a litmus test of how we love our neighbor. Can we bless others? Can we encourage others? Can we champion, celebrate others wins, promote them versus shriveling inside when someone else. So here's the solution.
Mark Clark [00:20:35]:
Here's how we fight it. How do you win against any of these sins that we talk about? We do the opposite. We focus on the sin that messes us up if we just constantly focus on the sin. The only time I've ever tripped in my house and fallen was I had filled up this bathtub full of boiling hot water because my baby, my first daughter, all the water in our neighborhood was, like, brown. It was disgusting. And so I was like, okay, the only way to clean this is to boil the water in a kettle, walk it over and pour it into the bathtub. And so I was pouring kettle after kettle in the bathtub. This is a really dumb idea.
Mark Clark [00:21:16]:
I'm pouring, and I get this thing filled up. It's boiling hot, there's steam coming off. And of course, I'm going to let it cool down. And then I walk, and I literally tripped. It's the only time I've ever tripped in my life. I just tripped in my bathroom and went in right up to my arms, and I come out in the red, and I'm like, ah, what's happening? The only time ever. Why? Because I over thought it. I was focusing on the wrong thing.
Mark Clark [00:21:38]:
I was nervous. I was so intentional that I actually tripped over it. I was so aware of the wrong thing. This is what we do. We focus on the sin, and then we try to beat the sin. Envy, envy, envy, envy. No, no. Philippians four says this, not that I am speaking of being in need, for I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content.
Mark Clark [00:22:03]:
I know how to be brought low and know how to abound in any and every circumstance. And I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. I can do all things through him who strengthens me. You see, what Paul's saying, I've had a lot of money. I've had no money, and I'm content in Christ. See, contentment is the key. The only way to defeat these sins is not to focus always on beating the sin, but to love Jesus more than the sin to get your identity by. I am a person in Christ.
Mark Clark [00:22:36]:
Whatever he's given me, I'm gonna slay that thing. And then envy dies. Kindness and a desire for good things to come to other people, then is the cure that flows from your identity. In Jesus, we got to grow our charity and our hearts for everyone around us, even if it means we don't benefit. See, envy is you not only feel that you deserve his or her state, but that they don't quite deserve their state in life. And if you believe that, you cannot truly love them as you love yourself, which is what the Bible tells us to do, love them as you love yourself. You ever thought about how much you love yourself? See, your discontentment also extends itself towards God because he's the one who's blessed this other person in the way that you want to be blessed, because you are discontent with the amount of blessing that God's given you. In the end, that's what you're saying.
Mark Clark [00:23:33]:
And because that's true, then you fail to love God with all that you are. See, envy is sinful because it says that God is not good enough for you and that you can't be truly happy with how God blesses you because he's not enough. And either is the stuff he's given you. And he blesses others more than you. So it's not fair. See, when we think it through, we can see that the reason we're envious of the other person because their happiness is a sign that they're loved and accepted and we're not. That's what lurks deep within, like a beast. That's what envy is.
Mark Clark [00:24:12]:
I got a buddy. He was attacked by a grizzly bear last year. Crazy. He was hunting. He's sitting there. His kid goes off. He hasn't seen him in a couple hours. He turns around, and there's a grizzly bear staring at him.
Mark Clark [00:24:25]:
Literally, it was like revenant. The thing runs at him. Last thing he remembers is being tackled. And there was grizzly on his chest, and he could smell death on his mouth. And he passed out. And the fact that he passed out actually saved him because the grizzly bear thought he was dead. And he woke up, he's all messed up. He's in the middle it's crazy, but that's what envy's like, man.
Mark Clark [00:24:45]:
It mauls you and it mauls others, and it mauls your relationship with God if you don't kill it first. He pulled his gun out to shoot the bear, and it just tackled him. That's what envy will do. Because Envy leads us to desire the harm of another person. In the end, we nurse grudges, we brood over things, we lick our wounds, we gossip, plan revenge, and it shrivels our souls. So we got to fight it. This sin is countered with kindness. Kindness desires the happiness and flourishing of another person, not their harm.
Mark Clark [00:25:22]:
Kindness is composed not of heroic acts of virtue, but small, daily, regular acts of goodness toward another person. The kind person's ready with a smile, a joke, a word of encouragement, a genuine appreciation of life's blessings and the good things we all share together. Kindness rejoices in the good of others, rather than being sorrowful, angry, resentful at the good of another. It's impossible for a saint, for a person who's following Jesus, to be envious, because a saint has come to the place where he or she knows they're loved unconditionally, and all they are and will have is already theirs. At the heart of the envious person is a deep sadness and self loathing. We can be cured by a profound encounter with the one who loves us beyond our wildest imagination. See, the knowledge of this love banishes envy because I'm loved by God. Ergo, I'm not going to be envious of other people as light banishes dark.
Mark Clark [00:26:21]:
And to experience that love, the aim, the ambition, the goal of our effort and our journey's end is to actually have envy die because we understand that we are so loved, because envy at its root, calls into question God's very goodness toward us. Envy demonstrates that we do not love God with all we are, because he's not enough, and either is what he's given us. It occurred to me as I was preparing this message that what I think I may have only spoken two or three times in my whole life on envy. Like as sermons. I've been preaching for literally 20 years. I know I look young. I've been preaching for 20 years, since I was 19 years old. It's the first time I did a sermon.
Mark Clark [00:27:01]:
It was a terrible sermon, but I did preach when I was 19, and I was wondering why that is the case, why envy hasn't really been a thing that I preach on. I realized to some degree, a preacher tends to talk about things people are asking him about, which is only natural. People are always saying, I have a problem with anger. I have a problem with lust. I have a problem with whatever. There's lots of things, but I don't think in my whole life anyone's ever sat me down and goes, I have a problem with envy. I don't think anyone ever said, why don't we hear more sermons on envy? You know why? My job as a Bible teacher is to tell the truth, not what my opinion is or envy what you want to hear. You know, whatever.
Mark Clark [00:27:38]:
Even what you want to hear. I'm not going to preach that. The reality is nobody thinks they're envious. When you cheat on your spouse, you wake up beside someone. You're like, man, yup, okay, I did that sin. But when do you become envious? When do you become greedy? It's insidious. Remember David and Saul? Saul was this king. And there was a new guy in town named David.
Mark Clark [00:28:07]:
Younger, hotter, more talented one. Samuel. Chapter 18 says this. And the women sang to one another as they celebrated. Saul has struck down his thousands and David his ten thousands. Oh, gosh. And Saul was very angry. Especially the women are singing.
Mark Clark [00:28:32]:
Cause that's just like the double cut. It's like all the hot ladies that Saul loves are all like, you got thousands of miles. David's got 10,000. Wait, what? And then it says, and this saying displeased him. Really? He said, they have ascribed to David 10,000. And to me they have ascribed thousands. And what more can he have but the kingdom? And Saul eyed David from that day. You know what I mean? Eye David.
Mark Clark [00:28:59]:
He's trying to kill him. There's so many layers of that that would drive this guy nuts. I thought I was the strongest. I thought I was the smartest. I got the peacock feathers up, puff them up. I'm the man. Saul's envy took him over. Tim Keller says this.
Mark Clark [00:29:19]:
He says the text first, Samuel 18, teaches us three things about envy right off the bat. It's serious. It's signs and it's power, it's seriousness. The meaning of the text is that envy can ruin a whole life. It's a life breaker. And it was for Saul. See, I don't think we take it very seriously. If you do a Google search on envy, you'll find that the first 90% of all the references you get actually have nothing to do with the sin of envy.
Mark Clark [00:29:49]:
They're all like retail outlets, like body envy or car envy or clothes or whatever. Joseph Epstein, who's a well known scholar at Northwestern University, just wrote an Oxford University press volume on envy. Yet in the book, he actually says not only that, he doesn't feel like he has much of a problem with envy, but he doesn't know anybody who does. See, there's a sense in which envy is not taken very seriously. And Keller says one of the websites that he was looking at was actually a website for young women called Envy. It encouraged young women to log on and write in and name the beautiful women, the models, the actresses that they most envied. And you just have page after page of people saying, I envy Natalie Portman. I envy Charlize Theron.
Mark Clark [00:30:35]:
I envy this. I envy that. What's interesting is that innocent, well, on the front page of the website, the woman who runs the webpage had a disclaimer. She said, one thing that's bothering me is I have gotten reports that a number of pro anorexia websites link to this page. I want you to know I don't support that at all. That's what she said. See, one writer has said this, envy starts as a headache, but so do brain tumors. For her not to see the link between Envy and anorexia, for her not to see the link between Envy and all sorts of other lethal things in her life is because she's not understanding the seriousness of envy.
Mark Clark [00:31:17]:
It can start small and grows to destroy us. We're given two signs of envy then. Being unable to be able to enjoy what someone else has because of comparison and being unable to enjoy what you have because of resentment. He has 10,000, but I have only 1000. He can't just say, hey, look at his accomplishments. Look at this victory. Look at his acclaim. Look at how much he's loved.
Mark Clark [00:31:42]:
Awesome. He says, yeah, he, he, he. But I see you can never appreciate what someone else has. You can't appreciate her beauty. You can't appreciate her happiness. You can't appreciate his success without comparing yourself. Envy makes everything about you. You can't just appreciate the fact that here's somebody who's happily married without saying, I'm not.
Mark Clark [00:32:00]:
You can't appreciate someone who's made this and that mark in success without saying, but I haven't. On the other hand, you notice the motivating drive. You might say the heart of envy is verse eight of one, Thessalonians 18. And Saul was very angry. See, it's possible to want to be better in life and not be envious. If you ever read the gospels and you see Jesus so much more loving, so much wiser so much gentler. And you say, I want to be like that. I want to be loving.
Mark Clark [00:32:27]:
I want to be that wise. I want to be that gentle. That's not envy. That's joy. It's a longing, but it's a joy that motivates you. Envy. Resentment is begrudging someone what they have. By comparing yourself to them and resenting it.
Mark Clark [00:32:41]:
You can envy yourself in the end. In that way, you can say, I. Here's what's messed up. You can say, I used to be this. I used to have that. I used to have this. And then you look at yourself, and you can't enjoy it anymore. Joseph Epstein in that book, he says, look at the other seven deadly sins.
Mark Clark [00:33:00]:
Greed, lust, gluttony. Every other seven deadly sin eventually destroys you. But for a while, it feels pretty good, right? Greed feels good. Lust feels good. Gluttony feels good. Every other deadly sin gives you pleasure. Some little bit of pleasure, right? These things feel good. But envy never feels good.
Mark Clark [00:33:22]:
It sucks all the joy out of your life immediately, because that's what envy is. In Vancouver, where I live, it's possibly one of the hardest places to avoid envy. Nothing's ever good enough. The restaurants, these aren't good enough. The food is not good enough. I can always find something better. I can always. A better restaurant, a better.
Mark Clark [00:33:44]:
And he says, especially when you're dating people, nobody's good enough, right? Go watch Seinfeld. What's wrong with her? I don't know. She had funny feet. I like a pinkish hue in her cheeks. It's like, what's happening? One guy wrote an article of stuff he overheard one night in a singles bar about relationships. And he wrote down actual quotes of what people were saying, critiquing their dates. And one of the people was saying, he's my age, and he's still single. I mean, come on.
Mark Clark [00:34:11]:
If she would just lose seven pounds. I mean, come on. Sure, he's a partner, but it's not a big firm that he's actually a partner at. And he wears those short black socks. What? One of my favorite ones is. He says he heard somebody say, well, it started out great. She opened the door, and she looked fantastic. She looked beautiful.
Mark Clark [00:34:33]:
Her face, her nice smile. Everything was going fine until she turned around and he paused, and he shook his head, and he said, she had dirty elbows. It's like, bro, what do you think? See, in Vancouver, the wealth is really up close. You see it in the boats and the water. You can look into the windows of the billionaires. You know where they live. You can walk by. You look and you see their chandeliers and their house is on the bluff.
Mark Clark [00:35:06]:
And it doesn't take much before all the joy is sucked out. Now, that's what Keller calls headache level envy. But what happens is it doesn't stay there. Never underestimate the power of it. See, there's Lucifer. The devil himself was in heaven. He's in heaven. Think of heaven.
Mark Clark [00:35:28]:
The best, most pleasure. You're with God. Then he had a thought. I'm number two. Envy made it impossible for him to even enjoy heaven, y'all. I mean, if Envy can make it possible for him to suck the joy out of heaven, what do you think it's gonna do to you? What do you think it's going to do to your life? Envy made heaven not enough. Envy's what made the devil demonic. Envy is what ruined the universe.
Mark Clark [00:36:00]:
Don't underestimate what it can do in your life. It's slavery. We see the spiral the next day. The text says, I know some of you raise an eyebrow at this the next day, later on one Samuel, chapter 18. The next day, it says, a harmful spirit from God rushed upon Saul. I'm sure if you've read that before, your eyebrows go, why would what? And it says, and he raved within his house while David was playing the liar, as he did day by day. Saul had his spear in his hand, and Saul hurled the spear, for he thought, I will pin David to the wall. But David evaded him twice.
Mark Clark [00:36:42]:
You take the seven deadly sins. In the beginning, you do anger, but after a while, anger does you. In the beginning, you do envy, one writer has said. But then eventually, Envy does you. You start with a spirit of envy, but eventually it turns into a spirit of envy. You lose the ability to be free, willing, choosing self. You lose control. The more you go give into Envy, the more you actually give in to greed.
Mark Clark [00:37:09]:
Right? Envy is going to feed greed, and then it's going to feed every other one of the sins. The natural force of evil outside of you gets locked into this almost in the great divorce cs Lewis book about a man who goes to the outskirts of heaven, he sees people from hell who people from heaven are trying to get to come to heaven. And these people from hell won't go. And he says, but how can there be a grumble without a grumbler? And then he says, it begins with a grumbling mood and yourself still distinct from it, perhaps criticizing it and yourself in a dark hour may will that mood may embrace it. You can repent and come out of it again. But there may come a day when you can't do that any longer. Then there will be no you left to criticize the mood, nor even to enjoy it, but just the grumble itself going on and on forever, like a machine. So envy literally leads to your slavery.
Mark Clark [00:38:07]:
So where does all this lead us? One writer has said this. Is there anything wrong with wanting a decent body? Is there anything wrong with wanting a good family? If you want these things, how are you going to avoid envy when you see how incomplete your life is and how broken your life is? But if you know what is coming is a complete fulfillment of your deepest desires beyond your wildest imagination, then, and only then, are you going to be able to live with the incompleteness of this world. See, I believe that now. How can we be people who know what's coming? It's because we truly trust in the person and the work of Jesus. A perfect person, God himself came down, lived a perfect life in our place, died on a cross, taking on the wrath of God, taking on the sin, even of envy, and rising from death to give us a kind of completeness and to then assure us, see, why can we repay evil with good? Because we know that God, in the end, is going to deal with the evil. Even if you never get justice in this life, you know that the new heaven and the new earth, it's going to come. And so then you walk in that assurance. You're not going to get everything in life.
Mark Clark [00:39:19]:
You're not going to have a perfect family. Not everything is going to go well for you, but you trust in the one who provides a way for you in the end to be in a place of absolute perfection and delight in the presence of God. And so then you can deal with the incompleteness of this world. Father in heaven, I just pray you give us a shift in our very perspective and a kind of contentment that nothing in this world can define or take from us, and that in that contentment, we become people, defined by everything that is the opposite to envy that kills the soul. Let us flourish in you, the one who died ultimately because envy, as Matthew told us earlier, drove you to the cross. Ergo, you had victory over it, because it's one of the sins that you came to defeat, defeated in us. Lord, in Jesus good name we pray. Amen.