The Haunted Heart - Envy

INTRO.

Have you ever felt like enough just isn’t enough?

[Pause for Response]

TENSION.

I actively have 5 pairs of white shoes in my closet. And I’m ok with that because I love white shoes! But this past weekend, in spite of having 5 pair of white shoes in my closet…I bought a pair of white shoes.

It’s not that I don’t like the 5 I already have. In fact, every time I got one of those pairs, I LOVED them. But there’s just something in me that, despite having 5, there was a 6th pair that I loved and had to have.

Anybody else? It reminds me of a clip from a movie I watched back in the day, check this out:

[The Other Guys Clip]

All of us have a place where enough just isn’t enough, because it’s in our human nature. We LOVE to conquer and acquire – new stuff, new jobs, new relationships, new money, etc.

And this unquenchable thirst to conquer and acquire what we don’t have that’s in our human nature? It’s called envy. And envy is a gateway drug that leads down a dangerous path. When our envy goes undealt with, things get scary.

Which is why we’re starting a new series for the month of October called The Haunted Heart. The whole idea of the series is that there are feelings and emotions inside of each of us that, if we don’t deal with them, can become monsters that haunt us.

And as we kick things off tonight, I want to talk about envy, because, like I said, envy is a gateway drug that leads to all kinds of other issues. I would even go as far to say that if we don’t deal with the envy that is in us, it will become a monster that will haunt us, and no one is off limits.

Not even King David.

SOLUTION.

Besides Jesus, King David is probably the most famous person in the Biblical story. He’s the OG rags to riches story. He started as a shepherd, which was a minimum wage job in his time. And then, at 15, David is surprisingly anointed to be Israel’s 2nd king. CRAZY. No one saw that coming.

He finally becomes king when he’s 30, and he QUICKLY turns things around in Israel. He led Israel to multiple military conquests over their enemies. When he became king, Israel was split into two separate nations, Israel and Judah. But when David becomes king, he unites the two back together. In uniting the nation, he establishes Jerusalem as the capital city. And God makes a covenant with him, which means that David had God’s favor. All of this happens in his first 20 years.

And on the backside of all of this success, our story begins with now 50 year old, established, and celebrated King David. The man who had gone from shepherd to king and had an entire kingdom in his hands.

But…

Envy was still in David’s heart, waiting for an opportunity to strike.

2 Samuel 11:1: In the spring, at the time when kings go off to war, David sent Joab out with the king’s men and the whole Israelite army. They destroyed the Ammonites and besieged Rabbah. But David remained in Jerusalem.

In the spring, when David should have been off at war, he decides to stay home. Envy was waiting for an opportunity to strike, and David delivered it right here. This is the kind of innocent decision that usually paves the way for us to make a bad decision.

Maybe you’re hanging out with a group of friends that if you’re honest with yourself, you know this isn’t “where you're supposed to be.” Or maybe you’re in a dating relationship with someone that you know deep down you have no business messing around with. An innocent decision of being in the wrong place paves the way for a whole mess of bad decisions to be made. And envy takes advantage of the opportunity David gives it.

2 Samuel 11:2-4: 2 Late one afternoon, after his midday rest, David got out of bed and was walking on the roof of the palace. As he looked out over the city, he noticed a woman of unusual beauty taking a bath. 3 He sent someone to find out who she was, and he was told, “She is Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam and the wife of Uriah the Hittite.” 4 Then David sent messengers to get her; and when she came to the palace, he slept with her.

David is standing on the porch of his PALACE. Remember, this guy came from being a shepherd. He came from nothing. And now he’s got a palace.

And as he stands on his porch, he most likely sees the entire capital city of Jerusalem. The way that the city was laid out was that David’s palace was elevated at the point of the city, and everything else was built on terraces that were like steps below the palace. So I imagine he’s standing out there and he can see this whole big city that HE IS THE KING OF.

And yet, with a kingdom in his view, what catches David’s eye?

[Pause for Response]

With a whole kingdom that he is the king over in his view, his eye is caught by what he does not have…Bathsheba.

As he stands on the porch and sees Bathsheba, envy takes over and does to David what it will do to all of us if left unchecked, it sets David’s sights on the next person or thing to conquer and acquire. By the way, the same thing happened with Adam and Eve. They had the whole garden at their disposal, but they fixed their gaze on the 1 tree they couldn’t have…

Isn’t it interesting that having a whole kingdom wasn’t enough to satisfy the envy in David’s heart?

That’s partly why I think the story is so fascinating. When I struggle with envy, the lie that I tell myself is that, if I just have _________, I’ll be satisfied.

I know I have the 5 pairs of white shoes, but if I just get my hands on that pair, then I’ll be satisfied. I know I have enough money for what I need, but if I could just get that much money, then I’ll be satisfied. Or in David’s instance, I know I have multiple wives that are in the house right now, but if I could just get that wife, then I’ll be satisfied.

The truth is that, it doesn’t matter how much you conquer or acquire, you cannot conquer enough to satisfy your envy. You cannot acquire enough to satisfy your envy. David’s story is an example that, even if you had a kingdom in your hands, envy is always close by.

Envy tempted the man who came from nothing, that had everything, to find something that made him feel like what he had wasn’t enough.

And look, I know we’re king David. I get that. But I would argue that in a country that is as rich as ours, with a culture that celebrates conquering and acquiring like ours, our envy is more enabled and celebrated than anyone in history, King David included.

Like David, we have kinglike power to satisfy the thirst of our envy, and oftentimes, we don’t have a prophet in our life like David did in Nathan who would call him out and correct him. Quite the opposite is often true. Those who satisfy the thirst of their envy the best build billion-dollar companies, get interviewed on podcasts, and are held up as examples to follow. Now I’m not saying that everyone that runs a successful business or is interviewed and held up as an example to follow is given over to envy or is bad. Because that wouldn’t be true. But there are many who are.

And I say this because, as your pastor I want to warn you, envy is a gateway drug. We’re going to follow the progression of David’s envy for the next 2 weeks; you can see this for yourself. When you give in to envy, things get scary.

STEPS.

Which is why I believe that followers of Jesus in America in 2023 need to become the best practicers of gratitude the world has ever seen.

And by the way, even if you don’t follow Jesus, I think this is still very helpful wisdom for life. You may not practice gratitude because of a personal relationship with Jesus, but I do think this would still benefit your life. In my experience the way of life that Jesus asks us to live does that.

I love how pastor Craig Groeschel talks about gratitude,

“Gratitude makes what I have enough.”

Gratitude fixes our gaze on the kingdom in front of us, not Bathsheba. Gratitude trains our eyes to look for what God has ALREADY given, not what He’s not yet given. Gratitude makes what I have enough.

I had to do this TODAY. Kings aren’t exempt from envy, and pastors aren’t either. I had a bad day yesterday. This past season, I’ve been told no in a few different areas of my life, and I got another one yesterday.

It wasn’t hard for my eye to get fixed on the “no’s.” In fact, I think my brain defaulted to that. But this teaching was in the back of my mind, and the Spirit of God used it, not just as something for me to teach to us, but for me to practice myself. This morning I woke up, and I had to work at it, but I began the morning by telling God thank you for the places in my life where He’s already said yes. And you know what happened? My gratitude had momentum. I mustered up the courage to say thank you for the first one, and then a second one came.

See, envy is a gateway drug, and when left unchecked, things get scary. But so is gratitude. If envy is a gateway to deeper levels of sin, gratitude is a gateway to deeper levels of holiness. It allows me to see what’s right, not what’s wrong. It leads me to peace, even when everything isn’t perfect. It leads me to contentment rather than striving.

But like I talked about last week, giving in to envy feels like you’re swimming downstream. Gratitude is an upstream practice. It will require work. But I believe it’s work that is worth it.

So here’s my challenge. From a person who struggles with envy to another: write down 3 things you are grateful for every day this week. Put it on paper, put it on a note in your phone, carve it into the back of the bus seat. Whatever you have to do, write down 3 things you’re grateful for every day this week, and see what it does to your soul.

Let’s pray and then we’ll talk about it together in groups.