Man, the title of the sermon tonight is stopping up the wells of Isaac, stopping up the wells
of Isaac.
Let's start reading in verse number 12 of Genesis 26.
The Bible reads, Then Isaac sowed in that land and received in the same year a hundredfold
and the Lord blessed him.
And the man waxed great and went forward and grew until he became very great.
So here's a guy who's excelling, he's succeeding, he's doing well.
And it's through being righteous and receiving the blessing of the Lord.
He's not a crook, he's not hurting other people or ripping them up.
He's doing well, he's moving forward, he's working hard, he's succeeding.
It says in verse 14, For he had possessions of flocks and possessions of herds and great
store of servants.
And look at this last phrase at the end of verse 14, And the Philistines envied him.
For all the wells which his father's servants had digged in the days of Abraham his father,
the Philistines had stopped them and filled them with earth.
And Abimelech said unto Isaac, Go from us, for thou art much mightier than we.
And Isaac departed thence, and pitched his tent in the valley of Gerar, and dwelt there.
And Isaac digged again the wells of water, which they had digged in the days of Abraham
his father.
For the Philistines had stopped them after the death of Abraham, and he called their
names after the names by which his father had called them.
And Isaac's servants digged in the valley and found there a well of springing water.
And we're not going to read the whole chapter again for the sake of time, we just read the
whole thing.
But over and over again in this chapter you see the frustration of Isaac digging wells
and re-digging wells and the Philistines coming along and stopping up the wells, dumping dirt
into his well.
Now why in the world would someone dump dirt into someone else's well?
That doesn't get any more fresh water for them, it doesn't save them any work, it doesn't
make them any money, it doesn't cause their herd to be any bigger or more successful.
The Bible gives us the answer at the end of verse 14, the Philistines envied him.
Envy is a wicked sin that would cause people to do such stupid things that end up hurting
everybody.
They're hurting themselves, they're hurting Isaac, they're just being a sore loser here
when it comes to these wells.
Why?
They look at Isaac, he's succeeding, he's thriving, he's prospering, and they wish
that they had that kind of success.
But you can tell from this chapter that they lack character, that's why they're not having
that success.
And a lot of times people who lack character, they don't work hard, they don't succeed,
and then they want to try to take someone else down a notch instead of trying to improve
themselves, better themselves, and excel on their own.
They want to take the other person down a notch to make them feel better about themselves.
I mean, doesn't this chapter get you mad?
I mean, every time I read this, it annoys me, it gets me angry at the Philistines, that
it's just ridiculous what they do, how they just want to tear down Isaac and bring him
down to try to lift themselves up, it doesn't make any sense what they're doing.
But this is the human sin nature of man that wants to act like this, it doesn't make any
sense.
Before I get into the rest of the scripture I want to go over tonight, I want to talk
to you about the subject of sportsmanship.
This is a good subject that ties in well with this chapter and with this concept in the
Bible.
This attitude of competing with one another without getting a bad attitude or without
seeking to sabotage someone else or be a bad loser.
Now, one of the things that we see that's bad about the Philistines here is that they
don't want to learn from the guy who's successful, they just want to destroy him.
Because they tell Isaac, go from us, for thou art much mightier than we.
Instead of saying, Isaac, teach us about your God, teach us about your religion, teach us
how we can succeed, teach us to have the wisdom that you have, teach us to have the work ethic.
Isaac, is it alright if we just get around you and work and spend time with you and learn
from your servants?
Because maybe what you have will begin to rub off on us and we can experience the success
and prosperity that you're experiencing.
But no, let's just dump dirt in your well and just vandalize and be destructive.
It makes no sense.
Sportsmanship, what is it?
Well, I looked up sportsmanship in the dictionary and it said sportsmanlike conduct as in fairness,
courtesy, being a cheerful loser, etc.
But when you look at this definition about being a cheerful loser, obviously the Philistines
needed that lesson.
That's what a lot of people think of when they think of sportsmanship.
But one thing that they often don't think of when they think of sportsmanship is the
idea of winning properly.
See losing properly is when you're graceful about it, you honor and respect the other
party, you congratulate them and you don't get a bad attitude.
And you definitely don't seek to cheat at the game or sabotage them as was seen here.
But it's not just being a good loser but also being a good winner.
How are you a good winner?
By not going overboard, gloating and bragging about your victory.
Now TV and professional sports has taught people to be a poor winner because they have
all kinds of showboating and just these ridiculous displays if they win at a game of just, you
know, all this stupid dancing and all this victory lap and all this stuff.
Not just enjoying the victory but being pompous, arrogant, prideful, doing what?
Going over the line, overboard, boasting, prideful, arrogant, braggadocio.
There's nothing to be admired in that.
It's actually bad sportsmanship.
See sportsmanship involves self-discipline, respect and honor for your opponent in sports.
And so if you win, you should be respectful and honoring and treat the other party well.
And in this passage we see Isaac treating the Philistines with respect.
We see him seeking to, you know, further everyone's prosperity whereas the Philistines are only
concerned with winning.
They're only concerned with being stronger or better than Isaac.
And if Isaac is better than them, well then we're just going to take our ball and go home
because we don't even want to play on the same field with you Isaac because you're better
than us.
The wise person goes to the person who's better than them and purposely spends time with that
person in order to learn from them, you know, and just surround themselves with inferiors
which kind of goes into what I talked about this morning a little bit too.
Now whenever you win at a game, it's pretty natural to be excited about that or feel good
about that.
No one likes losing.
And honestly I find it to be bad sportsmanship when someone doesn't try to win.
There's nothing more frustrating than playing a game or a sport with someone who doesn't
want to win.
It's annoying.
It ruins the fun.
You know, everyone should be trying to win.
That's part of good sportsmanship.
Everyone's doing their best.
Everyone's playing hard and trying to win.
And this could go for sports or even just a board game.
Any kind of competition.
Even a contest at work.
Right?
Anything.
You know, everybody should try to win or the game's no fun.
The contest is no fun.
You know, because who's ever had a job where they have contests and games?
So this kind of teaching that I'm doing right now from the Bible, that applies to that as
well.
Sports, games, and also just contests at work.
Any kind of competition.
Even competing with another company at work.
Well, when you win, it feels good.
But that's where you exercise self-control and don't just give in to the full feeling
of victory.
Just, yeah!
Woo!
You know?
And to go overboard gloating, bragging, both.
Instead, you should consider the other person's feelings.
Reach out to, hey, good game.
Be respectful.
Be honorable in victory and in defeat.
You congratulate the winner and you have good sportsmanship.
Also, good sportsmanship never wants to win by cheating.
And the cheating that we see in this passage is sabotaging the other guy.
But any kind of cheating is wicked.
And it's children who cheat at games, children who cheat at sports, they're learning to be
dishonest at work later in life.
They're going to be the ones that are stealing from their employer, cheating, sabotaging,
breaking things, destroying things in order to win.
A great example of this in sports is athletes who would actually dope in order to win.
They'll take drugs, they'll take steroids, they'll do whatever kind of blood doping or
whatever the current thing is that people are using to cheat.
And this happens all the time in professional sports.
And again, it just makes you want to have nothing to do with professional sports when
you realize all the cheating and the doping and the garbage that goes on.
But see, someone who has good sportsmanship, they don't want to win at all costs.
They only want to win fairly.
In fact, they'd rather lose fairly than to win by cheating and deception.
There could be no more empty feeling than winning by cheating or by using deception.
But when you see people who cheat and win and enjoy that victory immensely, you're looking
at wicked people, very bad people, sick individuals.
You know, Lance Armstrong comes to mind.
Guy who won just Tour de France after Tour de France by cheating and then attacked and
vilified and went after anybody who tried to expose him for his cheating and his deception.
Just lying and lying until finally it came out to the point where he finally had to admit
to it.
And then it's like, oh, well, everybody's doing it.
In fact, one of the Tour de France victories I read up on, they said that if you would
have actually given the victory to the guy who didn't cheat, you'd have to go to like
the guy who came in 17th place.
You know, the guy who came in 17th place.
But you know what?
That's the real winner.
That's the guy that should have been lifted up as a role model to somebody.
The guy who actually went out there and worked hard and did his best without cheating or
seeing how close you can get to cheating or doping in the off season.
Look, how can you even look at yourself in the mirror if that's the way you live your
life?
How is that victory even enjoyable to you unless you're just a wicked person?
And when children grow up and they're not taught proper sportsmanship in games or sports
or contests, they're going to grow up to be criminals.
They're going to grow up to be pathological liars and very wicked people.
These lessons need to be taught to our children young.
We need to teach our children that it's about doing a good job, trying your best.
Yes, strive for victory, but not at all costs.
And cheating should be punished severely.
And children should be taught also not to go overboard gloating when they win at something
and not to throw a tantrum or a fit when they lose.
They need to learn to have a good attitude about winning and a good attitude about losing.
Both of those things are very important.
Part of this is that we need to consider other people.
Consider the feelings of other people and not be self-centered.
The Bible says, look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things
of others.
And a person who actually loves and cares about other people, he never desires to humiliate
the other person when winning.
He wants to win because winning is fun, not because seeing the other guy lose is fun.
This is a bad attitude when we desire to see other people fail, when we desire to see other
people lose.
That should not be the enjoyment of winning.
The enjoyment of winning should be to see our hard work, strategy, whatever, pay off,
enjoy that victory, exercise moderation, exercise restraint, exercise self-control, and then
think about the other person and try to build them up, edify them, love them.
The Bible says that when we see our enemy fail, we should not rejoice or God may turn
away his wrath from him and turn his wrath toward us.
It says, I believe it's in Leviticus 19, it's not in my notes, but that scripture comes
to mind.
Should not enjoy the fall of others, we should strive for our own success and enjoy success
when it's done right, when we're following the Lord, when we're doing it honorably and
doing it in the name of Jesus Christ.
But we should never enjoy humiliating other people.
And we should never get an attitude that says, because I won at this game, I'm better than
you in other areas of life.
That's an overboard attitude of, you know, just because I won at this game, I might be
better at that game or I might be better at that sport, but that doesn't mean that I'm
just better than you period.
That's a weird attitude.
That's not proper sportsmanship.
Does everybody understand the concept of sportsmanship?
You go into it, you play hard, you do your best, you follow the rules, but you consider
and love other people and off the field or outside the game, they're not an enemy.
And you can even enjoy their success.
And rejoice with them that rejoice and weep with them that weep.
You know, your competitor goes under in business, it shouldn't just be, yeah, burn them.
You know, it should be, oh, that's too bad for them.
You know, hey, sorry to hear about that.
You know, we want to succeed, but not so that others can fail.
And that's a weird attitude.
That's not a biblical attitude to have where we just want to see other people fail.
But you see this a lot.
Taking other people down a notch in order to feel better about ourselves.
This is what we should avoid.
This is exactly what we see in Genesis 26.
Look at verse 14.
The operative word here is envy.
It all goes back to the fact that the Philistines envied him.
Let's look up some scriptures on envy.
Go if you would to Proverbs chapter 14.
And again, or let me give you the dictionary definition, a feeling of discontent or covetousness
with regard to another's advantages, success, possessions, et cetera.
And that you'll find that that definition jives with what the Bible teaches.
Obviously, the dictionary is never a final authority.
But in this case, the dictionary gets it right.
Envy is when you're discontented or you covet other people's advantages, their success,
their possessions, et cetera.
And that's exactly what the Philistines did.
What does it mean to covet?
It's when you desire that which belongs to someone else.
Look at Proverbs 14, 29.
He that is slow to wrath is of great understanding, but he that is hasty of spirit exalteth folly.
A sound heart is the life of the flesh.
Watch this.
But envy, the rottenness of the bones.
I mean, the person who is fueled by envy, in this case, the Philistines, the Bible teaches
that that person is literally rotten to the core.
I mean, it's the rottenness of the bones.
I mean, can you think of a worse issue to have in your body?
And maybe you can, but rottenness in your bones.
That's a pretty hard problem to deal with.
That's pretty deep in your body.
Your bones are pretty important.
If you have rotten bones, you're going to have all kinds of problems because your bones
are what produce your blood, the blood marrow.
And obviously it's the structure that's holding your whole body up.
And if your bones start breaking, they're brittle, they're rotten.
That's a serious issue.
The Bible says envy is like that spiritually.
It's like rottenness in your bones.
He that oppresseth the poor reproacheth his maker, but he that honoreth him hath mercy
on the poor.
So what do verses 29 and verse 31 have to do with verse 30 about envy being the rottenness
of the bone?
Sometimes when you read Proverbs, it seems like God's just hitting you with just random
Proverbs one after the other.
But usually if you look at the context surrounding, you can kind of make connections between the
thoughts and you can see that the guy in verse 29, who is of a hasty spirit, he's letting
his emotions take over.
He's very emotional, right?
Everybody who's quick to get angry is not controlling themselves, right?
Well that's the same way a bad loser is.
They're not controlling themselves.
They're letting anger get, oh, I'll show him, bad loser, dump dirt in his well, whatever.
Quick to get angry.
A sound heart is the life of the flesh, but envy the rottenness of the bones.
He that oppresseth the poor reproacheth his maker, but he that honoreth him hath mercy
on the poor.
That doesn't have to do with the guy who's consumed by envy.
The guy who's consumed by envy does not empathize with other people.
He doesn't care about how other people feel.
He only cares about his own success.
In fact, when other people succeed, that makes him mad.
He hates it when his friends are successful.
No, he wants them to fail because he wants all the success for himself.
Well a person who lacks empathy is the same type of person who doesn't care about the
poor.
In fact, he would even oppress the poor.
He would even enjoy seeing them fail or suffer.
He would enjoy seeing them humiliated that his riches might seem even greater.
Bad attitude, bad sportsmanship.
Look at chapter 27 of Proverbs.
A sound heart is the life of the flesh, but envy the rottenness of the bones.
Don't be a rotten person that envies other people's success.
Strive to learn from that person if you wish you had their success.
Strive to emulate their success or seek to excel in your own way, but don't try to take
them down a notch because they're successful.
That doesn't make any sense.
Look at Proverbs chapter 27 verse 3, a stone is heavy and the sand weighty, but a fool's
wrath is heavier than them both.
Wrath is cruel and anger is outrageous, but who is able to stand before envy?
So in these two verses, we have a progression here.
We start out with the stone and the sand representing extremely heavy things.
And then it says, well, a fool's wrath is heavier than that.
But then even beyond the sand, the stone, anger, wrath, beyond all that, envy is worse.
Do you see that?
Envy is a bigger problem.
Envy is worse than anger, worse than wrath, worse than being a foolish person who's angry
and filled with wrath.
Even beyond that is envy.
So this is a serious sin.
It's a serious problem.
In fact, this is the sin that caused the Jews to crucify the Lord Jesus Christ.
Go to Matthew chapter number 27.
Matthew chapter 27, while you're turning there, I'll read Mark 15, 10.
Mark 15, 10 says, for he knew, he being Pontius Pilate, that the chief priests had delivered
him for envy.
So why did the chief priests arrest Jesus Christ and deliver him onto Pontius Pilate
to be crucified?
Well, the Bible says it was because of the sin of envy.
And then Matthew chapter 27 says something similar.
Verse number 18 says, for he knew that for envy they had delivered him.
See Pontius Pilate's trying to find a way to release Jesus.
He doesn't want to have anything to do with this just person.
He said, I find no fault in him three different times.
And he wanted to get rid of the responsibility.
So he says, well, you guys have a custom that I release a prisoner to you at the time of
the Passover.
How about if I release Jesus?
And they say, no, we don't want Jesus.
We want Parabas.
Give us Parabas.
What shall I do then with Jesus, which is called the right?
Let him be crucified.
Pilate knew that they had delivered him for envy.
They envied him.
They didn't want people to listen to his preaching instead of their preaching.
It's not that Jesus was preaching anything false.
It's not that they're attacking him for being a false prophet.
I mean, attacking a false prophet is biblical.
The Bible commands us to preach against the, the, the false prophets and have no fellowship
with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them to Mark them and avoid
them that cause divisions contrary to the doctrine that we've learned.
But that's not what was going on here.
Jesus wasn't a false prophet.
Jesus was the truth incarnate.
Jesus preached the truth.
He was the truth.
Everyone that was of the truth came to him.
He said, those that were of the truth would come to the light.
And he said, I'm the light of the world.
But envy caused them, even when they saw Lazarus resurrected from the dead, they went straight
from watching Lazarus be resurrected to hold a council against Jesus, how they might destroy
him.
What could cause someone to be so wicked that they would see a great miracle of a dead body
being raised to life after four days in the tomb and just go straight away and say, we
got to figure out how to stop this guy.
We had to destroy this guy.
Let's go dump water in the well.
That's the attitude that envy will create in us.
Look at Acts chapter number 13, Acts chapter number 13.
While you're turning there, I'll read for you from Acts chapter seven, verse nine, where
it says that the patriarchs moved with envy, sold Joseph into Egypt, but God was with him.
Why did Joseph's brethren sell him into slavery?
Because of envy, the Bible says.
Look at Acts 13, 45, but when the Jews saw the multitudes, they were filled with envy
and spake against those things, which were spoken by Paul, contradicting and blaspheming.
Could you imagine how wicked it would be if another soul winning church, just picture
this.
Another soul winning church springs up in Phoenix, Arizona, and starts seeing a multitude
of people saved, tons of growth, growing faster than faithful word Baptist church, seeing
more people saved, thriving.
Can you imagine the wicked attitude that would be in our heart if we looked at that and it
made us upset?
Can you imagine the wickedness when in reality our attitude should be, this is great.
God's sending revival to our town.
He sent this great preacher.
He sent this great church.
Look at all these great churchmen.
Look at all the great workers.
What can we do to help them?
They're doing great.
Well, how about this?
What can we do to learn from them?
Let's get some tips.
Not, hey, go from us.
You're mightier than we.
What a foolish attitude.
And when it comes to the ministry, what a wicked attitude to not just say, well, the
most important thing is that people are being saved.
And even if people were to leave our church and go to that church and our church got smaller,
but that other church is thriving and winning souls and preaching the truth, who cares?
We're all on the same team if we're preaching the true gospel of Jesus Christ, if we're
King James, if we're soul winning, I mean, we're on the same team.
Envy should have no place in that equation.
But when the Jews saw the multitudes, they were filled with envy and spake against those
things, which were spoken by Paul, contradicting and blaspheming, not because he's wrong, but
because they see the multitudes look at chapter 17, verse five, chapter 17, verse five.
So it was the Jews in acts 1345 that saw the multitudes and were filled with envy.
Again, it's the Jews in acts 17 five, but the Jews, which believe not move with envy.
So these people are just like the people who screamed, crucify him about Jesus, same attitude.
They took unto them certain lewd fellows of the baser sort and gathered a company and
set all the city on an uproar and assaulted the house of Jason and sought to bring them
out to the people.
Go to Galatians chapter five.
While you're turning there, let me just point out that in Romans chapter one, when the Bible
describes the worst kind of people, those who are a reprobate, those who have been given
over to a reprobate mind, people who hate the Lord, they don't even want to retain God
in their knowledge.
They've been given over to a reprobate mind, those worst type of reprobates in Romans chapter
one.
And it lists the sins that they're involved in.
It says being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness,
full of envy, full of envy.
See, there's a list of things there, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness, but
then he even chooses to start a new thought there with full of envy instead of just saying
full of covetousness, maliciousness, envy, murder, debate.
He already said that they were full of, but he gives us another full of right before envy,
just to kind of point that full of envy, just to almost emphasize that thing in the list.
Murder, debate, deceit, malignity, whispers.
What is it?
And of course, these are the sodomites.
If you study the passage, that's who this is talking about because it's talking about
men who would burn toward other men or women that would burn in their lust one toward another.
And when we see these people and when we see full of envy listed in a list with maliciousness,
murder, malignity, things like that, full of envy there means that they want to see
other people destroyed.
They want to see other people fail.
They want to see other people fall.
They don't want anyone to succeed but themselves.
They don't care who they destroy.
That's why later in the list it says they're implacable and unmerciful.
Galatians 5 verse 26, the Bible says in the short little verse there, let us not be desirous
of vain glory, provoking one another, envying one another.
And this is a scripture that you could take right back to the concept of sportsmanship.
I mean what could be more of a vain glory than winning a game of basketball or winning
a game of football or winning a game of baseball or winning at a board game?
What could be more empty than to have that be your claim to fame?
I mean that's just what you're going to wear around on your finger for the rest of your
life that you won that game.
You threw that ball around and you ran down that field.
Look we should not be desirous of vain glory.
That's not what we should live our lives for.
Am I against sports?
Absolutely not.
I'm not against you getting out there and learning sportsmanship for example.
Teaching your children sportsmanship.
Learning to have a good attitude.
There are a lot of lessons that sports could teach us about life.
About how hard work pays off.
You win victory and so but you know what we should also you know teamwork etc.
But what we should learn most of all is how to control ourselves.
That's the number one thing that sports should be teaching us that we should be able to win
and rejoice in moderation.
And when we lose we could feel a little bad about it but moderate that.
Control that.
And not go overboard in either direction.
We should not be desirous of vain glory.
The goal should not be to just seek glory for ourselves because it's in vain.
Let's not be desirous of vain glory and then look at provoking one another.
Wouldn't provoking one another be the overboard bragging and gloating after a victory?
And then wouldn't envying one another be a poor loser who envies or covets the success
of the other guy?
So this is a perfect scripture.
I mean this should be put up on the wall of any sporting venue.
If anybody loves to play sports this verse should be your motto.
Galatians chapter 5 verse 26.
Let's not be desirous of vain glory.
You know next time we have a board game night we're going to start with this verse.
No I'm just kidding.
I'm joking.
Let's not be desirous of vain glory provoking one another or envying one another.
Look at Titus chapter 3 and while you're turning to Titus chapter 3 the Bible tells us in James
that where envying and strife is there is confusion in every evil work.
Titus chapter 3 verse 3.
For we ourselves also were sometimes foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving divers lust
and pleasure, living in malice and envy, hateful and hating one another.
Do you notice how envy is coupled there with malice?
Wishing ill upon someone else?
And obviously hateful that goes without saying.
Malice and hateful.
What's right between the two?
Envy.
You see where this fits in?
Now the last place we're going to turn is John chapter 3 and I'm going to show you the
positive example.
So we saw the bad example in the Bible.
Bad sportsmanship.
And again we're not just talking about sports.
There are things in life that are much more important than a game.
Like for example this could apply to business, this could apply to competition in business,
any kind of a contest, any kind of a game or sport or even just co-workers, even just
sibling rivalry.
I mean this is something that could teach us lessons in all area of life that envy should
be something that we don't have as a part of our lives.
We should strive to have good sportsmanship or a sportsmanlike attitude in our job, in
our family, in our life, at church, in every area of life.
Look at John chapter 3 verse 22.
I'm going to show you the right attitude now, the good example as opposed to the Philistines
which were the bad example.
It says in John chapter 3 verse 22, after these things came Jesus and his disciples
in the land of Judea and there he tarried with them and baptized and John also was baptizing
an anon near to Salem because there was much water there.
That shows right there he wasn't sprinkling, right?
He's obviously dunking people underwater if he needs that much water, amen.
It says because there was much water there and they came and were baptized for John was
not yet cast into prison.
Then there arose a question between some of John's disciples and the Jews about purifying
and they came to John and said unto him, Rabbi, he that was with thee beyond Jordan to whom
thou barest witness, behold the same baptizeth and all men come to him.
John answered and said, a man can receive nothing except to be given him from heaven.
He yourselves bear me witness that I said I'm not the Christ but that I am sent before
him.
He that hath the bride is the bridegroom but the friend of the bridegroom which standeth
and heareth him rejoiceth greatly because of the bridegroom's voice.
This my joy therefore is fulfilled.
He must increase but I must decrease.
So here John the Baptist has the right attitude.
He sees another preacher, another prophet, obviously of course this is Jesus Christ,
the son of God, God in the flesh, but still they're coming to him trying to create envy
in his heart saying, well, the guy that you pointed to, he that was with thee beyond Jordan,
they said the same baptizeth and all men come to him.
And they're trying to basically create an attitude in John of envy that, well, you know,
he has made and baptized more disciples than you.
That's what it says at the beginning of John chapter 4.
And so John the Baptist's attitude is, well, good for him, praise the Lord.
And in fact, a man can receive nothing except to be given him from heaven, ye yourselves
bear me witness that I said I'm not the Christ but that I'm sent before him.
And then in verse 30, he said he must increase but I must decrease.
But if we look at verse 29, we see the illustration of the bride and the bridegroom and the friend
of the bridegroom.
The friend of the bridegroom, the best man as it were, shouldn't be jealous of the fact
that this guy is marrying the beautiful woman, he's having all the success.
You know, the attitude that says, I'm always a bridesmaid and never a bride, right?
What is that?
Envy.
So if that's how you feel, you need to check your heart.
If you're not properly rejoicing another, what does the Bible say?
Rejoice with them that rejoice and weep with them that weep.
That's what the Bible says.
That's known as empathy, feeling what other people feel.
And so when you are the bridesmaid or the groomsman, you should rejoice greatly because
of the joy and happiness of the bride and the groom.
Not having an attitude of envy saying, oh, well, you know, it's always their big day.
This is my ninth time being a bridesmaid.
When's my ship going to come in?
The right attitude is to care about other people, enjoy their success.
And look, it's okay to want success for yourself.
It's okay to want to strive to be better and achieve more, but it should never be at the
expense of tearing someone else down.
And it should never be the point where you can't enjoy other people's success because
you're failing.
You should still, even when you fail, be able to enjoy other people's success and love other
people and put them first and die to self, deny self and moderate those kinds of feelings.
Verse 31, he that cometh from above is above all.
He that is of the earth is earthly and speaketh of the earth.
He that cometh from heaven is above all.
And what he hath seen and heard that he testifieth, and no man receiveth his testimony.
He that hath received his testimony has set to his seal that God is true.
For he whom God has sent speaketh the words of God.
For God giveth not the spirit by measure unto him.
The father loveth the son and it's given all things into his hand.
Now why do I point out these verses?
Because we see John the Baptist praising the other preacher who's doing well.
Praising him, lifting him up, exalting him and saying, yeah, look at the great things
he's doing.
Listen to the great preaching.
Listen to the great word of God that comes out of his mouth.
You say, well, that's easy for John to say because he's talking about Jesus, he's talking
about the son of God.
Yeah, but there comes a time even later when John the Baptist even doubts whether Jesus
is the Messiah, when he sends to him from the prison, because this is before he was
cast in prison, when he sends to him from the prison and says, art thou he that should
come or do we look for another?
So at this point, John the Baptist knows for sure that Jesus is a righteous prophet
of God.
Whether he's a hundred percent settled on him being the Messiah, he should be settled
on that, but we know later he's going to doubt that.
The point still stands that he sees his fellow prophet of God, his fellow preacher, his fellow
servant of the father succeeding, thriving, even doing greater things than he himself
is doing.
His attitude is to praise him, lift him up, not to try to dump dirt in as well, not to
try to take him down a notch and say, well, yeah, okay, but here's the downside.
And by the way, did I mention that I was the pioneer?
I was preaching for three months before Jesus ever came on the scene.
I'm the one who baptized him.
Is that what you see him bringing out?
Well, I baptized him.
I taught him everything he knows.
I was the pioneer.
I was doing it before it was cool.
He just comes on.
No, no, no.
That's not the attitude.
This is just a pure unadulterated, just a great attitude from start to finish here.
Maybe that's why John the Baptist was the greatest man that was ever born of a woman.
That's what Jesus said.
The greatest preacher, the greatest prophet was John the Baptist.
Maybe part of it was this attitude that wasn't in competition with other righteous men of
God.
Did he point out the false prophets?
Oh yeah.
He called the Sadducees and the Pharisees a generation of vipers.
He refused to even baptize them.
He said, I'll, I'll baptize you when I actually believe that you're sincere.
When I actually think you're even saved, I'll baptize you is basically what he was getting
across.
So the bottom line is that John the Baptist, when he's faced with another Bible believing
preacher, another righteous man of God, he doesn't try to get in competition with him
or take him down a notch.
He just says, you know what?
He must increase.
I must decrease.
And he praised him and exalted him.
That should be our attitude as well toward other people that are succeeding and doing
well.
We shouldn't try to sabotage them and even more than that, we shouldn't even have envy
in our heart in the first place that could lead to those kinds of foolish, wicked actions.
And this happens in the sporting world.
People are paid to go beat somebody up so that they don't make it to the sporting event
or somebody's, somebody's equipment is sabotaged or whatever.
Somebody's gear or vehicle or whatever is sabotaged.
If that's what it takes to win, then it's not worth winning.
It's better to lose with honor.
And so we need to have the right attitude of sportsmanship in all areas of life, not
be like the Philistines, sabotaging the competition, avoiding the competition, hating the guy who's
doing better.
And you know what?
Honestly, frankly, they're in hell right now.
I mean, by all, I mean, some, I hope some of them were saved.
I hope some of the Philistines that did that got saved.
But chances are just from what we know about the Philistines, what we read in that story,
the chances are they're probably in hell.
The majority of them are probably in hell.
And think about this, if they would have had the right attitude here and they would have
gone to Isaac and said, teach us, you're greater than us.
We want to humbly learn from you.
We want to pick your brain.
You know what?
If Isaac would have shared with them that the real secret to his success is what?
The Lord, because he would have given God the glory.
Hey, this is why I'm succeeding because God's blessing me.
That's why God made me this promise.
He made it to my father, Abraham.
And he told me to come to this land and he's been blessing me.
These are the commandments.
These are the statutes.
You know, let's get you worshiping the true God.
Let's get you to stop worshiping Dagon and your other false gods.
And look, they would have actually called upon the name of the Lord and they'd be in
heaven right now.
But instead, because they were sour grapes and throwing dirt in somebody's well, it actually
cost them learning the most important lesson of all, the true worship of the Lord.
Get them off the idolatry and paganism that they practiced.
John the Baptist is in heaven exalted and has all kinds of great rewards and is going
to enjoy rewards for all eternity.
Why?
Because he had a humble meek attitude and he's declared the greatest amongst preachers.
So let's decide tonight, do we want to be a Philistine mentality or do we want to be
a John the Baptist mentality?
And not only that, we need to work on teaching our children this too.
If you play a game with your children, if you play sports with your children, make sure
that they learn sportsmanship.
And I'm not, look, I'm not talking about this bogus sportsmanship of, hey, let's give everybody
a participation trophy and hey, when people fail, look, I've seen people go too far the
other direction, people screw up and then they're told, good job.
You know what all that does is just patronize.
Kids can see through that.
Hey, great job.
You failed.
No, that's not a great job.
So we don't want to go overboard into this kind of snowflake generation, millennial,
praise everybody, everybody gets a trophy, everybody won, no, let's not keep score.
No, no, no, no, that's not the way life works.
We do try hard, we do try to win, we keep score, we praise those who do well and those
who do poorly, we admonish to do better.
But we do it with love and kindness and charity in our heart.
And when the other team has a great play or a great success, we say, hey, that was a great
basket, or that was a great three pointer, and that was a great, you know, why?
Because we still respect and honor the opponent because we're practicing good sportsmanship.
So I'm not talking about this fake bogus weird sport.
I'm talking about biblical principles that can really be summed up in one word, envy
is what we need to avoid.
Envy is what we need to eradicate from our hearts to where we can go in and we can just,
we can try our best, we can desire to win, but we can just enjoy the game, enjoy other
people's success.
And we can also sympathize with their defeat and tell them, hey, here's one thing that
you did well, even though you lost, you did, you know, you played a good game, you did
your best or, you know, better luck next time, let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer.
Father, we thank you so much for your word, Lord, that you teach us how to live our lives
in all areas of life, and I pray that this lesson would sink in with every young person,
Lord, so that as they grow up, they would not have this evil, rottenness in their bones
of envy.
Lord, help them to learn, even when they're playing, even as a child, help them to learn
to control themself and not to be prey to envy, and in Jesus' name we pray, amen.