(Disclaimer: This transcript is auto-generated and may contain mistakes.)

So, when we talk about jealousy versus envy, the problem is today is people misuse the word jealous today. You know, if something good happens to you or something good is going on in your life and somebody gets mad at you and your parents or somebody says, oh, they're just jealous. They're just jealous. No, actually what they are is they are envious. Because every time jealous is used in the Bible, jealousy is actually a good thing in the Bible. Okay? Jealousy is something that I can be over something that is mine. The definition of jealousy and envy is found in whether or not you own those things or not. Okay? So, the Bible says that, I mean, jealousy is a good thing. It's actually one of God's names. In Exodus chapter 34 in verse 14, it says, whose name is jealous, capital J. It's actually one of the names of God. So, God is jealous over you. Why? Because he owns you. That's why. God created you. He created everything. He created this universe. God can be jealous over you. He wants your attention. He wants your worship. He wants your affection. It's okay for God to be jealous over you. It's okay for me to be jealous over things that are mine. Today is my wedding anniversary. It's okay for me to be jealous over my wife. Why? Because she's mine. You say, oh, what? You know, look, I don't want to offend anybody. Okay? But look, it's okay for my wife to be jealous over me. Why? Because we belong to her. We belong to each other. So it's okay to be jealous over things that are yours. Okay? That is the key. Now, envy is always a bad thing. Envy is always a bad thing. So when a child comes home from school or somebody's being mean to a child and their parents say, oh, they're just jealous. What they should be saying is, oh, they're just envious. Because envy is a bad thing. Envy, and we're going to look at it in the Bible this morning with King Saul against David, envy is coveting something that somebody else owns. It's coveting something. It's where somebody else gets something or does something, and you're upset that they have that thing, or you're upset that they did that thing or they had that success or whatever it is, and you're angry about that. That's envy. Envy is always a bad thing. Go to Proverbs chapter 14. Proverbs chapter 14. Let's talk about envy this morning. Look, it's okay for God to be jealous over you because, I mean, all things were made by him, and without him was not anything made that was made. So it's okay for God to be jealous. Jealousy is something that is yours, something that you possess. And that's why God can be jealous. It's actually one of his names. But envy is completely different. Look at Proverbs 14 and verse number 30. The Bible says a sound heart is the life of the flesh, or it's on the front of your bulletin. But envy is the rottenness of the bones. Look, the Bible here is saying that envy will eat you from the inside. It will just, it will just, and it gets worse, it's just like rottenness. It gets worse and worse and worse as time goes on. So if you're envious of somebody or something, or somebody because they have something, you better fix that because the Bible says it's going to rot you. It's going to rot you from the inside, and that's exactly what we see. Go back to 1 Samuel chapter 18. That's exactly what we see in the life of Saul. That's exactly what we see in the life of Saul. Look at verse number 6 of 1 Samuel chapter 18. See Saul, Saul was king. Saul was king. He had everything in the kingdom. But he had envy that rotted him from the inside. And look, it defined his whole life. Look at verse number 6 of 1 Samuel chapter 18. And it came to pass as they came when David, this is right after David killed Goliath. Okay, the chapter before David had, he slew Goliath and he was returned from the slaughter of the Philistine that the women came out of the cities of Israel singing and dancing to meet King Saul with tabards, with joy, and with instruments of music. And the women answered one another as they played and said, Saul has slain his thousands and David his ten thousands. So it's interesting that they weren't saying, you know, King Saul is like worthless. They weren't saying Saul's done nothing. They're saying Saul is a powerful king, but then they just gave more credit, extra credit. David just killed Goliath, the man who was challenging the entire army. It was a big deal. Look at verse number 8. And Saul was very wroth, meaning he was angry. And the saying displeased him and he said, they have ascribed unto David ten thousands and to me they have ascribed but thousands. What can he have more but the kingdom? And Saul eyed David from that day forward. We see also that, you know, he tried to kill him in the same chapter, but he envied David for the attention that David got. Look it was David's attention. It was David's attention. David is the one that slayed the giant. He just envied the prestige that David had in this moment. I mean, he was insecure. But let me just think about how stupid this is. As a leader, you know, as a leader, you can't do everything yourself. You know, you must delegate authority to people. So as a leader, you delegate authority, maybe as a leader in your family, you delegate authority to your children. Hopefully you're doing this in your family. You have your children do chores. You give your children responsibilities to build them as young people, to get them used to working hard, to get them used to having responsibility, following through on tasks. Imagine how stupid it would be for you to give your children a task and they do that task well and you get upset at them. Because they did it well and people are like, wow, good job. Maybe other people come and see how well the lawn looks or whatever and you just get upset and you're like, oh, why is everyone so happy that they did such a good job? It's ridiculous. But this is what Saul was doing here. He delegated a task to David to kill Goliath and he got upset when he was successful. So right away we see that, you know, it's an illogical, you know, position to take as a leader. So look, David was having a good day here. He had very much success with killing Goliath. It wasn't David's issue. Anything, I mean, anything, anything, anything, anytime something good happens to somebody and you aren't happy for them, you have one of two issues in your life, okay? You don't want anything good to happen to them. Number one, you have a bad heart towards that person or you want the thing they got. That's the covetous part of envy. Go back to 1 Samuel chapter 17. Here's how stupid it is for, or how unreasonable it is for Saul to take this position with David. When this giant was coming forth and challenging the army, where was Saul? Where was the rest of the army? Where was every single other soldier in the army? Look at 1 Samuel chapter 17 and look at verse number 11. Go to verse number 10. Look what Goliath says. Goliath is coming forth, he's challenging the whole army every day and the Philistines said, I defy the armies of Israel this day, give me a man that we may fight together. When Saul and all, look at verse 11, when Saul and all Israel heard these words of the Philistine, they were dismayed and what? They were greatly afraid. Saul was afraid of Goliath. He was afraid just like everybody else was afraid and here David came forth, Saul gave him permission to go do that and David, with his faith in the Lord, he was up to the task and he killed Goliath. Saul was covetous, is what Saul was. Saul was covetous over what David had here. He was covetous over the attention David got. Here's the thing, wanting things is not necessarily bad in your life. Wanting to better yourself is a good thing in the Bible. Wanting to work hard and better your life is a good thing. However, being upset over somebody else bettering themselves or somebody else having success is bad. I mean, look at Saul, he had praise. He had praise. They said he slayed his thousands. He had victories over their enemies. He just didn't have the most praise and that was his problem or he wanted to be the only one with praise. This is not a place that you want to be in your life. I mean, like someone who's successful but he's only happy if he's the only one successful. Think about that. Turn to 1 Samuel chapter 20. Saul was so envious of David that he was upset that his own son was friends with David. Look at 1 Samuel chapter 20 and verse number 27. We see even 1 Samuel chapter 18, we see that Jonathan right away was very happy for David. He was very happy for his friend. 1 Samuel chapter 20, look at verse number 27. The Bible says, and it came to pass on the morrow, which was the second day of the month, that David's place was empty and Saul said unto Jonathan, his son, wherefore cometh not the son of Jesse to meet, neither yesterday nor today? And Jonathan answered Saul, David earnestly asked Levi to go to Bethlehem and he said, let me go, I pray thee, for our family hath a sacrifice in the city and my brother, he hath committed me to be there and now I have found favor in thine eyes, let me get away. I pray thee and see my brethren. For he cometh not unto the king's table. So here, you know, David was already, you know, Saul already tried to kill David a couple chapters before. David leaves, you know, he's fearful, he's fearful Saul's going to kill him and Jonathan is kind of standing up for David here, look at verse 30, and Saul's anger was kindled against Jonathan. He said unto him, thou son of a perverse and rebellious woman, he like literally insults, you know, his mother, you know, Jonathan's mother, do not I know that thou has chosen the son of Jesse to thine own confusion and to the confusion of thy mother's nakedness. Just makes it just a terrible insult towards the mother of Jonathan and then he says, for as long as the son of Jesse liveth upon the ground, thou shalt not be established nor thine kingdom, wherefore now send and fetch him unto me for he shall surely die. So look, back at 1 Samuel chapter 18, he's basically yelling at Jonathan saying, don't you know that he threatens your place as the next king? I mean, David's already been anointed king at this point. God has already chosen David to be king and Jonathan, he didn't care about that. As a matter of fact, in verse number 1 of 1 Samuel chapter 18, it said it came to pass when he made an end of speaking to Saul that the soul of Jonathan was knit to the soul of David and Jonathan loved him as his own soul. And Saul took him that day and let him no more go to his father's house, then Jonathan and David made a covenant because he loved him as his own soul. And look at verse number 4, Jonathan stripped himself of the robe that was upon him and he gave it to David and his garments, even to his sword, his bow and to his girdle. Jonathan gave David all of his royal apparel to the point where he was so happy and so happy for his friend, he didn't care about this power struggle that was going to be between him and David. Jonathan just left that up to the Lord, whoever's going to be the next king. And Saul is saying, he's so envious, he's yelling at Jonathan, you know, two chapters later, like, don't you understand that he's going to take your place in the kingdom? Look, Saul is destroying himself through envy, is what we see happening in his life. I mean, you know, Saul is saying, you're saying, you made, I mean, in verse number 1 through 4 of 1 Samuel 18, he literally made David look like a king by giving him all this apparel. He didn't care. He didn't care about any of that power struggle. The thing is here, this is a side note, if you want to have great friends, I mean, Jonathan is a perfect example for you in the Bible. I mean, you say everybody wants great friends. I mean, if you go up to somebody and say, do you want to have great friends in your life? I mean, would anyone say no? Everyone wants great friends. Watch Jonathan's example in the Bible, because look, here's the thing, you have to be a good friend. Everybody wants to have good friends. I want to have stuff. I want to have, you know, success. I want to have friends. I want to have all these things, but look, you got to be a good friend. If you want to have good friends, that's what you're seeing Jonathan do here. He didn't care about any of that stuff, just, just pouring it on David. He didn't care about any of it. You want to have good friends, you be a good friend. That's the key. Like, you know what that means? You can't be envious. You can't be envious, look, because it works both ways. Because it works both ways. You got a, you got a friend in your life, something good happens to them. This has happened to you. Every single person in this room, this has happened to you. You got a friend in your life, something good has happened to you or it happened to them and you're like, there's something in your heart that just like, look, that's a problem with your heart. You have envy in your heart, you need to find the root of that and get it out. Because look what it did to King Saul. Be supportive, be supportive and good, look, you want to have good friends, be supportive to your friends in good times and bad. I mean, everybody could be going up to a friend and be like, oh, I'm sorry you're going through hard times and all this, but look, can you also go up to that friend who's just got a promotion who just had some really great things happen to them or whatever and be like, you know what, I'm really happy for you and mean it when things aren't going well for you in your life. That's the test right there. That's the Jonathan test in your life. Jonathan was probably like the best example of a friend in the Bible that I could think of. Just like didn't have any consideration for himself, for his position, for his success was just totally for the success of his friends and look, he even defied his own father when his own father was doing the wrong thing. His own father who was the king, even though he wasn't really the king, he was still the official king to the people at that time, he defied his own father and did the right thing for his friend. I mean, the thing is, folks, people have different abilities in their life. People grow in the Christian life at different rates. People are generally going to just have different even worldly success than other friends of theirs. Different things are going to happen. Different circumstances exist for everybody in their life. Some people will just do more with their life. I hate to say that, but some people just will. You know it's true. Some people are just more motivated, they're just going to do more. That's why we talked last week on the Independence Day sermon. It's the pursuit of happiness. It's not the guarantee of happiness. That's what the Declaration of Independence says, it's the pursuit. Everybody is going to pursue things and have different successes and failures along the way. If you want to have friends, you need to be supportive to your friends in those failures and their successes, whether you're failing or succeeding at that time. That's how you can tell if you have envy in your life. If you've ever had a friend that is successful and you kind of had that little thing in your heart and you've got some envy problems there, you need to work that out. Turn to Proverbs chapter 23. The Bible tells us another source of envy. Let's take a look at it in Proverbs chapter 23. Envy is bad. Envy will rot you from the inside out. Envy literally destroyed Saul's life and his family. We'll get to that in a few minutes. Look at Proverbs chapter 23 and let's look at another source of envy, especially for us as Bible-believing Christians. This is a Bible-preaching Baptist church. We preach the whole Bible. Whether you like it or not, you're going to hear the whole Bible preached here. We preach separation here. We preach that the Christian should be peculiar to the world. The Christian should look different than the world. The Christian should sound different than the world. The Christian should be separated from certain things in the world. The Christian shouldn't go out and just live like everybody else. That's not what the Bible says. The Christian should have a separated life. If you're separated, here's something that can happen to you. Look at Proverbs 23.17. If you're separated, why are we different? Why do people get mad when some of the things are preached here? The Bible calls out sin, that's why. The Bible calls out sin. You're supposed to separate from that sin in your life. You're not supposed to go out, be a Bible-believing Christian, and then on Friday night go out hanging around a bunch of people that are drinking and living these reveling lifestyles. That's not what we're supposed to be doing according to the Bible. But look, here's what the Bible says could happen to you. You're like, hey, I don't do that stuff, I'm separated. Look at Proverbs 23.17. Let not thine heart envy sinners, but be thou in fear of the Lord all the day long. Now look, this isn't saying that you get saved and you're not a sinner anymore. This is not what this is saying. When you separate and you start getting sin out of your life, don't be always looking back over there going, oh, what are they doing over there, that looks fun. It says don't envy those things that you left behind. Get out of the drunkenness. Get out of fornication. Get your life squared away. Get right with God. And then don't be looking back over the fence going, what are they doing over there, that looks fun. Don't envy that junk you left behind is what the Bible is saying. That's a source of envy for certain people. Look, and I talked about this a couple weeks ago, but this is what will happen if you get saved and then you start trying to put one foot into the Christian life. That's what will happen. You're like, hey, on Sundays I'm going to go to church and then I'm just going to hang out with the same friends, I'm going to do the same thing. Look, you're going to start to envy sinners. You're going to have envy in your life. Turn to Galatians chapter 5. You got to guard your heart. You turn to Galatians chapter 5, I'll read you Proverbs 14. Proverbs 14.30 says, a sound heart is the life of the flesh. But this is again in your bulletin. But envy is the rottenness of the bones. Look, it's not going to work out if you separate partially in your life and then you're always looking back over the fence or maybe you're even walking back across the fence and hanging out with, you know, just doing all the things that you used to do. This is why even Alcoholics Anonymous was like, you know what, you just got to get new friends. You can't like, oh, I'm going to quit drinking and then just like go hang around with a bunch of people to drink. Why? Because it's not going to work. That's why. I mean it's a biblical concept, that one thing in Alcoholics Anonymous, there are 10 steps or whatever their steps are. Galatians chapter 5, look at verse number 16. Every good idea was stolen from the Bible, by the way. If it's a philosophy and it works in your life, they got it from the Bible somewhere. All right. Look at verse number 16 of Galatians chapter 5. Galatians chapter 5 verse number 16. So don't be somebody who separates and then envies what you left. This I say, this I say then, walk in the Spirit and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit and the Spirit against the flesh. And these are contrary to one another, so you cannot do the things that you would. But if you be led of the Spirit, there's the trick right there. You're not under the law. Now the works of the flesh. So we're talking here like, you know, when you got saved, when you believed on the Lord Jesus Christ, you didn't get saved because you stopped sinning. You didn't get saved because you changed your mind about alcohol or some sin or whatever. You didn't get saved because of that. You got saved because you trusted the Lord Jesus Christ. That's it. That's why you got saved. At that moment, Galatians chapter 1 says, you were sealed by the Holy Spirit. At that moment, God put a down payment down on you. He sealed you. That's how He keeps your salvation. You're like, how do I know that once I'm saved, I'm always saved? How do I know? Is it because I'm great? No, you weren't great to get saved. You're not great to stay saved. You're great, you're saved, you're not great. You're saved because you're sealed. You're sealed by God. You're sealed by that Holy Spirit, capital S, Spirit. Let that Spirit lead you is what the Bible is saying here. The Bible says that if you envy sinners and you go back into sin, that you will actually grieve that Spirit that's in you. Because look, that Spirit's not going to leave you. That down payment is not going to leave you. You'll grieve that Spirit. Not only will you be punished by God at that point as an adopted child, but you'll grieve that Spirit within you. You all know what I'm talking about if you're saved. You'll grieve that Spirit. You're supposed to be led of that Spirit. The opposite of that is being led by the flesh. The opposite of that is being led by just like your sinful desires, because your sinful self is not going away. Your sinful desires, they're going to be with you until this body dies. It's all what you're letting lead you. You're letting your flesh, your sinful desires, your lusts lead you, or you're letting that Spirit lead you. That Spirit will be better at leading you if you feed it. How do you feed it? You get involved in this Christian life. See, because that's a problem. You separate from all these things, and you get all these things out of your life, and then you replace it with nothing. You go home and you're like, okay, all my past friends are all having fun now. You go home and stare at a wall. I'm going to go home and do nothing. You're going to be like, this is lame. But look, there's joy in the Christian life. You just need to get plugged into it. You need to get plugged into the Christian life. Let's continue in Galatians 5. Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these. You're saying, what is the flesh? What are they talking about? What is going to give us a list here? Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies. Look at all these things. These are all the things you need to leave behind. Then look at verse 21, envyings, murders, murders, drunkenness, revelings. What did envy lead to, by the way? What did envy in Saul's life lead to? Let him to murder. Attempted murder and actual murder. Drunkenness, revelings, and such like. Of the which I tell you before, as I've also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God. Now look, you're supposed to be led of the spirit and not of these things of the flesh. That's how we're supposed to live this Christian life. But look, here's the thing, folks. It's not like there's no joy in this Christian life. It's not like there's no joy to be had in this Christian life. It's not like there's no fellowship in this Christian life. One of the things, we were just out fishing the last couple days, and one of the things I've really enjoyed doing is, first of all, you see the contrast in people. We go on, Jacob and I go on walks when we're done fishing, and you'll see people that their idea of camping is like just sitting in a lawn chair just drinking all day. You walk by this guy at noon, and there he is. You walk by him at eight o'clock at night, and he's still right there. I'm like, what in the world? What are you doing? One of the things that I've liked doing, I've started to like more and more, is at five o'clock in the morning, 5.30 in the morning, you see all the like, just like the hardcore fishermen coming out, getting everything ready to go out. These guys aren't, I can tell you one thing, I don't know these guys personally. We just chat in the mornings, but I know that these guys aren't reveling all night long. They're out there, and they're like working on their machines. They're about to head out many miles offshore. These guys are serious. These are serious people, but they're going out, and they're involved in a sport that is serious. It could be dangerous. I just enjoy talking to those guys, because they're not the type that are reveling until two in the morning, but they've got a lot of joy in their life. It's not that there's no joy in the Christian life. The Christian life has actually got more joy than all that. There's actually no joy there. There's death there. There's sadness there. There's destruction there. We've talked about that. Look at Galatians 5. Look down at verse 22. It's interesting that Saul with his envying and his rottenness, it just led to murder and all sorts of other sins that we see in Galatians 5, these things of the flesh, because he let envying lead him. He let his flesh lead him. That's the difference here. Look, it literally, if you read the story of Saul, it literally drove him insane. It literally drove him to the point where God was judging him with just this troubling spirit. It moved the favor from him in his life, and Saul, if you read it, it reads like he went insane in his life. Look at Galatians 5 and verse 22. But the fruit of the spirit, here's what we need to be led by. The fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, long suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance. Against such, there's no law. It's like, hey, just fill yourself with those things. It's like there's no limit to those things in your life. And they that are Christ's have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts. If we live in the spirit, let us also walk in the spirit. So it's saying, look, if you live in the spirit, look, if you're saved, you live in the spirit. If you're saved today, you are sealed in the spirit, you have the spirit with you. So you should walk in that spirit. Let it lead you. Let us not be desirous of vainglory, provoking one another, again, what does it say here? Envying one another. So look, envy is something that if we have it in our lives, we need to figure out what is wrong with our heart, why we are envying our friends, envying people, envying anybody, and we need to take care of it and get rid of it. So for us, look, we saw King Saul, it destroyed his life, it destroyed his family. But here, you're saying, well, how do I do it? How can I tell? I'm gonna give you three points to conclude this morning on how you can tell and get rid of envy in your life. The first thing is this. The first thing is this. The first problem that you might have if you have envy in your heart, you're like, yeah, I do have some envy in certain situations in my life with certain people in my life. It's one of these three things. The first one is this, you love stuff. You love credit. You love attention. You love things like that. You feel like you deserve those things. But here's the thing, folks, work hard. Work hard and those things will come to you if you deserve them. When you deserve those things, turn to Luke chapter 14. Turn to Luke chapter 14. You will get those things when God thinks that you are ready for those things or believes that you deserve those things. You're not to love those things. Look at verse number eight of Luke chapter 14. Verse number eight of Luke chapter 14, the Bible says, when thou art bidden of any man to a wedding, sit down not in the highest room, lest a more honorable man than thou be bidden of him. So it's saying when you go to a wedding, it's saying when you go to an event or whatever, don't go sit in the best chair right away. It says, and he that bade them come and say to thee, give this man place and now begin with shame to take the lowest room. It's like, don't go sit in the best chairs of a wedding because then someone's going to come and say, yeah, that's for someone more important than you. That's going to be embarrassing when that happens. All right. Don't be like, hey, honey, the front row, it's open. And you take it and everyone's like, yeah, this is for the bridal party. Like who are you? That's embarrassing. It says, go sit in the back seats, go sit in the back room or the back of the room. Look at verse number 11 or verse number 10, for when thou art bidden, go and sit down in the lowest room. That when he that bade thee cometh, he may say unto thee, friend, go up higher and thou shall have worship in the presence of them that sit at meet with thee. And the Bible here is saying, go sit in the lowest chair. You're like, but I'm super important. You're like, I'm going to go sit in the back of the room and don't people know who I am? Here's the thing, if you are super important, go sit in the lowest chair and then someone will move you to the front chair. That's what the Bible is saying here. That's what Jesus is saying. He's trying to get you to understand. He's trying to get you to not love attention. He's trying to get you to not exalt yourself, because guess what? Just forget about exalting yourself. When you're at work and you do something great, maybe you had a great idea at work. Maybe you did a really good job on something and you just want everyone to see. Just shut up about it, is what the Bible is saying. Let the work speak for itself. You're like, I just went to this job and the boss left me alone here and I just killed this thing. I mean, look at the craftsmanship of this. It'll speak for itself. That's what the Bible is saying. You don't have to lift yourself up. Because you go and you tell everybody how great you are, they're going to be like, yeah, you know what? It's not that great. Then that's embarrassing. So look, don't love, credit, attention, stuff. You shouldn't be covetous over stuff anyway. Stuff comes and stuff goes. But what's the other part? So don't love those things. Don't seek attention for yourself. If you deserve attention, folks, the Lord will make sure that you get it. Look at Daniel. Look at Daniel. Daniel rose to the top of two empires and he did nothing in his life except give credit to God with everything. Everyone's like, he's interpreting dreams. He's like in prophesying end times. Everyone's like, this is the greatest thing. It's the Lord. It's God. It's because I serve God just constantly. It's nothing but God. He rose to the top of two kingdoms. He was second in charge. Can you imagine how difficult that is to your second in command of an empire and then some other empire comes and conquers that empire and they're like, we're keeping this guy. He's going to run our place too. He did nothing to try to bring attention to himself. Daniel was all about just credit to the Lord, credit to the Lord, credit to the Lord. You do something great at work. You have a great idea. You know what? Praise God for giving me that idea. That needs to be your attitude. Tell that to your boss. Hey, great idea, man. The Lord gave me this idea. See what he says. He won't care. He's like, hey man, whatever. It's still great. He's going to think you're great for being humble. That should be the Christian today. That should be the Bible believe in Christian today. We should stand out because of this. Just another reason we should stand out. The first thing is that you love things. You love attention. You love stuff. You love credit. Stop doing that. You don't deserve anything except to burn in hell. Start at that baseline. You don't deserve your salvation. You don't deserve anything. Anything that you have, your nice car, your nice house, whatever, that's just because God gave that to you. That's it. That's the only reason you have those things. Just remember, remind yourself that every day if you have to. Here's a second reason that you could be envious in your life. You love bad stuff. That's what Proverbs 14 is, or that's what Proverbs 17 is talking about. You love Proverbs 23, sorry. You either love stuff or maybe you just love bad stuff. Maybe you just love the things like you left some things, you just love those things still. You need to start walking in the Spirit. You need to get plugged into the Spirit, plugged into the Christian life, and guess what? You will stop loving those things. If you are walking in the Spirit and you're plugged into the Christian life, you're just walking with the Lord, you're going to stop loving those things. But if you just keep feeding the flesh, you're never going to stop loving those things. You have to make some decisions to actually change your life, folks. I'm not talking about salvation here, but I'm talking about changing your life. I'm talking about walking this way and not this way. Look, that's going to be some actual decisions in your life that need to be made. And then you'll stop loving those things. The Bible says that the more you get into the Bible, the more you learn the Bible, the more you hear the Bible, the more you will despise those things. The more that sin, sin will become exceedingly sinful to you. I'm telling you, you get plugged into this Christian life, you start walking in the Spirit, you're going to start looking at the world and you're going to start going, this is crazy! You're going to start seeing the things that we read in the news every day, all the perversion out there, you're going to be like, this is nuts! It's because you're in the Spirit, that's why. That's why nobody, you see, why does not anyone notice what's going on? Does not anyone notice all these things that are going on today? It's because they're not in the Spirit. That's why. They're just in the flesh. So they're going to go along with everything that changes, and that's how that's going to go. Get in the Spirit and you'll stop loving bad stuff. Here's the third one. Turn to Romans chapter 12. Turn to Romans chapter 12, you say, yeah, but there's this one person, there's this one person, and I just don't want anything good to happen to this person. And you're like, you know, he's a really bad person, or she's a really bad person, and I don't understand why, you know, good things keep happening to this person. But here's the thing, folks, look at Romans chapter 12, maybe there is, maybe, and the third reason is this, maybe you just don't like someone. Maybe you're not covetous, maybe you don't even love sinful things, but maybe there's somebody in your life, and maybe this is just a really bad person. Maybe they've really wronged you, like for real, like they've really wronged you, and then like they just keep having success in their life, and you're just like, ugh, they're so bad, why, why, why do successful things keep happening to them? First of all, the unsaved folks, I mean, I preach sermons on this as well, but the unsaved people, they're not going to be, you know, bad, good things may happen to bad people. They're going to be judged in hell. They're going to be judged in hell, which would be worse than anything that you could possibly imagine. God chastises his children on this earth. God will chastise us on this earth like a parent chastises their children, but look at Romans chapter 12, verse 19, yeah, but this really bad person, I just don't like seeing good things happen to them. Here's all you have to do. You just have to have faith. You just have to have faith that God's word is true. Look at verse number 19 of Romans chapter 12, dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath, for it is written, what place? Vengeance is mine. I will repay, sayeth the Lord. Look, you don't have to carry that around with you. If you have somebody that's like truly has done you wrong, like truly maybe done a wicked thing to you, done a wicked thing to someone that you know, you don't have to carry that around with you. You don't have to be watching everything. You can completely put that out of your head because you can have faith that God will take care of that. Because God said vengeance is mine. It belongs to him. And unless you think that like God's going to make a mistake and he's going to miss somebody, you know, God's going to like, oh, oops, I forgot to properly judge that situation. No, God will take care of all of it. That's just a matter of faith. Look, that's not for us. That's not for us. You can just take that load of bricks off yourself and just put it on the Lord. That's it. And that's how you can not be in envious, I mean, whatever. God will take care of that situation. That is just a matter of faith. That's all it is. Do you believe that God will make things right or not? It's very simple. Okay. So, look, turn to Proverbs chapter 17. I want to give you one last point, one last warning about envy in your life. So those are the three things. Okay. Those are the three things. Either you're covetous, you want attention, you want credit, either, you know, you are not walking in the Spirit and you're still desiring sinful things. These are all sources of envy. Or maybe you just don't like someone. You just don't like someone. But look, you can take that and just put it on the Lord, God says. Let me just give you one last point, especially for the men, especially for the leaders of households. We really need to take this lesson from Saul's life. Look, it's better in our lives to learn, like, you know, like I've learned from my own mistakes. Hopefully, you know, the worst kind of person is the person that makes their own mistakes, doesn't learn from them, and keeps making mistakes. That's the worst type of person. The second worst is someone that needs to make their own mistakes, that maybe learn from their mistakes, but they just, no, I got to, everyone's like, there's a hole right there. Don't step there. You're like, I don't think so. I don't think so. You're like, no, it's like 20 feet deep. Don't step in there. And you're like, no, I must do it. And you step in the hole. Okay, there's people like that as well. Look, I've done that, you've done that, like, at least learn from those mistakes, but here's the best way to learn. The best way to learn is through the mistakes of other people. That's the best way to learn. That's the best way, and that's why God puts all these things in the Bible for us, all these examples of people in the Bible, both good and bad, in the Bible, because we can look at Saul's life and say, man, I don't want to do that. But look at Proverbs chapter 17, and look at verse number three. Here's the last point I want to make. The Bible says this, say you're envious towards somebody because you're covetous towards them, you want the attention. Say that you have a little bit of Saul in you, and there's a David in your life, and you're upset over it. Look at Proverbs 17 verse three. This is a very serious verse right here for you. Whoso rewardeth evil for good, look what it says. It says evil shall not depart from his house. If I could come up with one verse to describe Saul's life, it would be that one right there. David was nothing but good to Saul, even when Saul was trying to kill him. He's like, no, I will not. David felt bad for even cutting the robe that Saul wore because he laid his hand on God's anointed. Look, Saul rewarded good with evil, and because of that, evil did not depart from his house. When we say evil, by the way, in the King James Bible, because look, the evil spirit on Saul came from the Lord. Is the Lord evil? Evil means trouble. Evil in that sense is talking about trouble in the Bible. Look, it says, let me King James translate this for you. Who rewarded evil for good? Trouble shall not depart from his house. That's how you could read that. That's what that evil means there. Go back to 1 Samuel chapter 18, 1 Samuel chapter 18 in verse number 10. I mean, think about how terrible that is. If you're envious of somebody just because you're covetous over something that they have, the Bible says, God says, that you're going to have trouble for that. Your house is going to have trouble for that. In verse number 10, and it came to pass on the moral that the evil spirit from God came upon Saul. This was that troubling spirit that, I mean, we're not talking about a demon here. We're talking about just a troubling spirit that literally, I mean, it just drove him nuts. And it ruled, it ruled his life. Does that sound like it matches the front of your bulletin where it says the rottenness of the bones? Rottenness is something that if you don't get it out, it's just going to grow and get worse and worse and worse. This is what happened to Saul. Guess what? Evil never departed from his house. This is how important it is, men, leaders of your family, to get things right. You say, why? Because our house comes with us. Every good decision you make, your house comes with you. Every bad decision that you make, your house comes with you. I mean, that's why in Acts 16, 31 it says, believe of the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shall be saved and thy house. It's saying, if you get saved, you will be able to get your house saved too. You will be able to preach the gospel to those that you're out soul winning and you get somebody saved. You should say, is there anybody else in your house you would like to hear the gospel? Say that. And many times people will say, especially if they got it, they'll be like, you know Because everybody wants their kids to go to heaven. Another question, nobody will say, hey, do you want your kids to go to heaven? No one will say, no, I don't. Everybody wants their kids to go to heaven. And if they understand what they've just been given, they will want their house to have it too. That's what the Bible is saying. So good, the good comes with your house, men. But guess what? The bad comes with your house too. You can lead your family in the wrong direction, is what the Bible is saying here. And you can bring trouble upon them. Turn back to 1 Samuel chapter 31. This also came true for Saul. This also came true for Saul. Let's look at the ending of this story, since we're studying Saul. This came true for him. The trouble that he had in his life, the trouble that envy came in, it rotted him from the inside, it didn't just cause him trouble, it caused his entire family trouble. Look at verse number 1 of 1 Samuel chapter 31. The Bible says, now the Philistines fought against Israel, and the men of Israel fled from before the Philistines and fell down slain in Mount Gilboa, and the Philistines followed hard upon Saul and his sons, he's being attacked by this army now, and the Philistines slew Jonathan, and Abinadab, and Melchisua, Saul's sons. And the battle went sore against Saul, and the archers hit him, and he was sore wounded of the archers. Of course, right after this, he kills himself. But look, you see, this isn't fair, Jonathan didn't do anything wrong. Yeah, but we disobey God's warnings, and we will bring trouble on our house. It's not like God didn't warn us, but look, you say that's not fair, look, that's leadership. That's leadership folks, that is the leadership that God has ordained in the Bible for the family. Otherwise, look, if God didn't think leadership was important, he'd just be like, everybody's in charge. Who's in charge of the family? But anybody who's been in any kind of leadership position, seeing leadership work, seeing it not work correctly, knows that, you know what, that would make no sense, because if everybody's in charge, nobody's in charge. So God put someone in charge. And there are consequences to that, good ones and bad ones. So us as people, especially as leaders of our homes, maybe you're in a leadership position somewhere else in your life, we look at these things and we're like, oh, I want all the good, but I don't want to get the bad. Is that right? That's not right. You take the good with the bad, and God warns you against the bad. You can affect those around you in both a good or a bad way. This is the pomegranates and the bells, the blessings and the curses. All I want is pomegranates in my life. I don't want any bells. Well, listen to the Bible, because that's not how it works, all right? So look, just to wrap up, envy is always bad. Envy is always bad. Next time you hear somebody say, oh, you're just jealous, no, like, speak with proper English and say, you're just envious, because jealousy is a good thing. Envy is recognizing that something belongs to you and that someone is trying to take what belongs to you. So next time you see that, correct people. Saul and Jonathan and David, this story, it should serve as a warning to us to not be envious in our lives at all. So if you have good friendships in your life, and I pray to God that you do have good friendships, and you have something, and you're just, here's the biggest test, you're just the lowest you can be, and you have a friend that's in a really high place, you should be Jonathan. You should just take my coat, take my sword, take everything, and then you know that you don't have envy with you. If you have something that says, oh, why is that happening to them, you got some heart problems you need to work on. You need to get that envy out of your life before it rots you. That's what we take from the story of Saul, Jonathan, and David. Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer. Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer. Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer. Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer. Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer.