Shout 2021 | Kathy Monk | Jealousy

amen well this morning i want to talk about jealousy i know i prayed about it and i was like can i talk about something a bit more nicer like love um or joy or being thankful but i just felt the lord say i want you to talk on the subject of jealousy and uh the reason why is because throughout the bible and human relationships jealousy has played a part now if you don't believe me you just look at cain and abel they were siblings uh they brought a sacrifice before god a able sacrifice was acceptable cain got jealous and it says that sin was crouching at the door and cain was so angry at his brother because god accepted his sacrifice and and when i read about that i think well sin was crouching at the door but we are the ones that open the door to sin and so sin was crouching at the door and as a result as a as a as a result of that cain murdered his brother abel because he was jealous and we look throughout the word of god we look at relationships like jacob and esau esau was jealous of jacob if you're a younger sibling in here you'll know what i mean i'm the youngest of three the youngest normally tends to get away with murder am i right there's about 10 years between my older sister and i'm the baby and i can say that i did manipulate things because you know you're cuter when you're the youngest and the in the older child put your hand up if you're the eldest you're the guinea pig so uh you know you do something and your parents scold you or they tell you off or whatever it is and then when you're the youngest nothing happens do you know what i'm do you know what i'm talking about so as a younger sibling i would get away with stuff but you look throughout the word of god and you look at siblings like leah and rachel now leah and rachel were sisters leah was probably the less pretty one leah was jealous of rachel but rachel was also jealous of leah because leah could produce babies and at the time rachel couldn't so there was jealousy happening there then we go to king david or before he was king king saul it says that he had a jealous eye on david because david was the people's choice and we look throughout the word of god we look at different relationships and i think what was the key thing that separated those relationships and it was jealousy or envy and i think this is really important because you know we can say well i'm not the jealous type but sometimes it can creep in it says in first corinthians 13 that love is patient and kind and this is what love is not love is not jealous boastful and proud and so love is not jealous and i just want to finish there love is not jealous it says in proverbs also that anger is cruel and wrath is like a flood or roth roth is like a flood but jealousy is even more dangerous jealousy is even more dangerous and i'm just going to share a few stories personally about dealing with it it's something that i'm not proud of but i know that god is working in us because rivalries can happen you know there's rivalries between and you know some people are new south wales supporters i don't know if you're in the room yeah i'm not go queensland [Applause] i see right now you're hating on me anyway but in first corinthians 10 12 it says it is not wise to compare and what jealousy does is it unlocks unhealthy comparison it starts to mess with our minds and uh it talks about how it's not wise but in james 3 let me read it out to you if you can put it on the screen james 3 13-16 it says if you are wise and understand god's ways prove it by living an honorable life doing good works with the humility that comes from wisdom and humility is a key it's humbling yourself having uh thinking of others better than yourselves but if you are but if you are bitterly jealous and there is selfish ambition in your heart don't cover up the truth with boasting and lying for jealousy and selfishness are not the not god's kind of wisdom such things are earthly and spiritual and demonic can i just read that out again it's earthly unspiritual and demonic for wherever there is jealousy and selfish ambition there you will find disorder of every kind you know some people will say but jealousy is not that bad because doesn't it say that god is a jealous god and i love the way that tim keller explains godly jealousy he says godly jealousy is love fighting extinction it's love fighting extinction extinction and it's like god wants your full heart he doesn't want you to be divided uh looking at other things so when you get married you're married to one person and that person doesn't want you to be looking anywhere else god wants our full and whole devotion and so the godly jealousy is love fighting extinction god wants our full attention but normal jealousy no it's not good and i just want to read the story and i find the story really hilarious it's in john 21 20-24 and just to give you full context of this passage peter this is uh peter peter and jesus were walking together and jesus told peter how he was going to die now i don't know you and prophetic words but if someone told me you know like this is how you're gonna how your life is gonna end i'll be like thanks thanks jesus um it's so funny i was talking to my daughters and i said would you die for your faith and they're like yeah i mean ruby said i'll probably end up in prison for my faith she's the middle one and one of my girls i won't say who but she said i think i'd rather die in my sleep um but anyway in the story jesus had just told peter what was going to happen to him and this is peter's response so peter turned around and saw behind them the disciple that jesus loved the one who leaned over to jesus during the supper and asked lord who will betray you peter asked jesus what about him lord so he wanted to know what about john like how was how is his life gonna end like you just gave me this prophetic word that this is how i'm i'm gonna die this is my this is my destiny my calling so what about john and jesus replied if i want him to remain alive until i return what is that to you isn't that interesting it's like it's none of your business what happens to john he just said follow me so the rumors spread among the community of believers that this disciple who was john wouldn't die but that's not what jesus said he didn't say that john wasn't going to die but he's he said look peter this is your calling this is what i've that's this is what i've given you but as for john it's none of your business and we've got to realize that unhealthy comparison triggers or unlocks jealousy sometimes we can think well you know it's not fair some of the things that happened to me but this is how we know that we have unhealthy comparison in our life number one is through pride you start to look at people and go at least my life's not like that you know you start to think that you're better than somebody but another way that it can manifest in our life is unhealthy comparison can unlock inferiority you can walk into a room and feel like you're less than so pride you're better than inferiority it's like i feel less than whenever i walk into the room i feel like i'm an invisible and i just want to say to you out there if you feel like that that's not god that is not god because you know what it says in his word that you are fearfully and wonderfully made that you are chosen that you're special you're a child of god and it's a lie and we've got to stop agreeing with the lie of the enemy so when you walk into a room walk with confidence so unhealthy comparison can reveal itself through pride inferiority and then you start to speak about others in a way that you talk about other people's faults this is how you know well you start to get critical you start to think oh did you hear about that person yeah useless say i knew that would happen to them your conversation starts to be laced with criticism and that's how you know you have unhealthy comparison and there's nothing wrong with competition i'm not saying there's anything wrong with healthy competition like the olympics that's awesome but when you're on the sideline of a netball court and you hear parents i feel like saying to them hey it's not the olympics say you look at the five-year-old kids trying to play netball and they're like come on come on ref you know they start to go really ugly and i'm like i don't want to be that parent so i never was ask my kids i was terrible on the sideline of network i didn't even know what was going on but you start to look across the room you don't stay in your lane and you know the thing is there's one place you can stay absolutely free and that's your lane so stay in your lane and there's a phrase or a term called rubbernecking when you're on the motorway and there's an accident you start they call that rubbernecking you start to look over remember it's none of your business keep driving unless you know that person that's crashed but stop rubbernecking stop saying hey lord what about that person do you know god is god and god is big he doesn't need your help unless you're actually praying praying for that person praying for their good supporting them but not going oh god can you just do something about that person they're really annoying me so stop rubbernecking also it can manifest itself through one upmanship now what is one upmanship it's when someone has a better story than you some of us know relatives like that you know it's like my son my son's a lawyer oh my son's a judge you know it's like it goes up and up i remember telling someone i had a cold and they topped me out with i had covered and i was like okay you win actually a friend of mine who's a missionary now she didn't mean to do this but i had a really killer headache after church and i remember saying oh man my headache and she said oh yeah when i had um when i had tuberculosis i was like okay you when i'm healed but it's that that kind of someone always has to have a better story all of us have a friend like that am i right it's like you tell like oh yeah you know um see if something really amazing happened to you something super amazing happened to them and you're like okay cool kill buzz but all of us have friends like that but here's the thing jealousy is really ugly it's not attractive how do i know this because i've been there i felt like that i felt envy you know you look through social media and you go wow you know you watch those um i don't know what they're called reels or tic toc i don't know are they the same thing anyway um and you know when they they show someone and they're like they're showing their transformation and it takes about two minutes they'll all know 20 seconds and they're like and then they turn around and then they're like really skinny or something i don't know but i'm like wow how did they do that that's amazing but little did i know it took them like six months or two years but you know it's a it's a power of editing and i just think we've gotta stop falling into the trap of unhealthy comparison i just want us to look in the mirror today and identify those things that cause us to just stop that cause us to think we're less than or we're better than that help us with our mouth our tongue our words we need to stop so how do we stop well we need to learn to celebrate now what do i mean about that like oh yeah have a party no we need to learn to celebrate someone else's success celebrate those things that we privately criticize now some people will say to me oh that's been fake kathy no we're called to celebrate one another now i struggled with this when a few years ago many years ago just to give you a background story i've been part of the music team since i was 16 years old and you know i was a bit of a veteran thought oh yeah i'm really good and i thought you know when you think i've earned the spot i've been here for years no one can move me and i know whatever anyway this was years ago not me now but my husband was in charge of picking the people for our church album and we were releasing our first church album and i made the mistake of saying hey you don't need to put me on there i'm all good you know like but you know when you say something but you don't mean it and i was like yeah don't put me on i'm all good we got so many younger singers just put them on and uh he said okay he listened to me he took me at my word like don't you know that i changed my mind every day anyway i think i was feeling really humble that day when i said it but a few days started to unfold and he showed me the list of the people on the album and i was like didn't see my name have you ever not been picked for something like you know maybe you're like you're average at sport and you're like the last one to be picked or you're at a dance and no one asks you i felt like that and um i didn't tell him that i felt really horrible i was like oh cool this is awesome it's going to sound amazing but i remember my attitude and i started it was like with cain where sin was crouching at the door of his heart i open that door and i let jealousy come in and i can tell you it's really ugly did i feel at peace no in proverbs 13 30 it says a peaceful heart leads to a healthy body jealousy is like cancer to the bones i felt like it was just riddled through me and i tried to hide it but i remember because i had a lot of friends on the album and they were filming it at the time and i remember just standing there and i couldn't worship i was like you didn't even pick me man that person sounds flat you know you start to go why did they pick that person they can't even dance you know i mean i can't dance but i started to talk like that and i just look really sour i think i just worshiped like that in my head i was like god i pray that it's not successful so ugly do you know it took me a long time to listen to their album because i was so riddled with jealousy i didn't talk to sam about it for a while and i remember thinking you need more discernment sam meanwhile god was like kathy boy [Music] wake up you need to learn to celebrate and then he pointed to pointed me to the passage of luke 15 and i was like oh yeah god i'm like the lost son he was like nah you're like the older brother i'm like what do you mean god so i read through it this idiot son you know took his inheritance was horrible to his dad walked out spent it all realized oh man i'm an idiot i need to go back to my dad and try and be a hired servant because they they get more pampered than i am i'm eating with pigs so he goes back and his dad welcomes him he runs him hugs him gives him a kiss and a ring in a in a robe and the older brother is standing outside and the dad throughout the story is like we must celebrate we must celebrate and that was a key phrase in that story we must celebrate the son who was dead as thou alive the son who was lost is now found we must celebrate and the oldest son was like stuff you did i don't want to celebrate and that was me folded arms during worship having a really bad attitude and the holy spirit said kathy come on you need to learn to celebrate so i played the album in the car stopped criticizing you know what i thought was flat it wasn't flat my attitude was flat and i started to sing in the car and i was like thank you god thank you that we have an album thank you that we have an amazing team god i celebrate their success and i started to worship freely and my heart started to unlock the reason why i share this story is because all of us can have those moments because we're always one decision away from stupid am i right someone said to me about you're a leader i'm like yeah leaders get offended leaders can get jealous we're human but it also says in corinthians we are human full stop but we don't wage war as humans do and so the challenge is yeah i am human i'm getting real with you god but false up there i'm not going to wage war like a petty person so i change my attitude i start to celebrate i start to worship and now i can say with freedom i know how to celebrate other people's success because you know what the reality is there will always be someone better than you there will always be someone better looking than you there will always be something better but what is your attitude like can you celebrate someone else's success even if you think they don't deserve it can you celebrate because we must celebrate and that is the father's heart celebrating every success and not being that person if someone fails told you so i knew they would fall don't be that person we learn to celebrate also we need a practice gratitude and what i loved about pastor matt's sermon about being thankful is that we need to practice it in everything give thanks now what does that look like it means i thought of the passage in philippians 4 where paul says i know the recipe of being content with or without it's being content with what you have and what you don't have now this is a man who wrote this in prison it wasn't a pretty prison it was dark and it was horrible but he knew the recipe of being content with and without can we practice gratitude this morning can we be thankful and i said in the first point we must celebrate others but also number two we need to celebrate how god has made us because it says in corinthians that we're a body we're part of a body that i'm made for many parts and so not everyone has the whole package that's why you're all needed with different paths we have different talents we've got different strengths but on our own we're useless that's why we need each other we need each other we need to learn to be grateful for what god has given us how he has made us so celebrating others but also celebrating how god has made you and not comparing yourself but being content i love what my mother-in-law helen says she says you're content until you compare so let's be content thank you jesus that i am fearfully and wonderfully made i thank you lord that it says in ephesians 2 10 that i am your masterpiece created for good works in christ jesus thank you jesus start declaring the word of god over your life thank you lord i thank you i celebrate others but i also celebrate how you've made me so start to celebrate how god has made you maybe you think i'm talentless you must be good at something just think about it you must be good at something if you can walk that's amazing if you can talk that's amazing come on let's be thankful for how god has made us even our families that god has given us our children thank you god maybe you're like i've got rap bad kids thank you god that i've got kids be thankful let's practice gratitude and learn to celebrate others and how god has made us number three everyone has pain and what that does is it releases empathy we start to think oh actually that person hasn't got it all together everyone has their pain some people aren't loud about it some people allow you know what there are some people that are really silent in their pain you just don't know i don't know some people when they hurt themselves they're like ah and there's some people that are really quiet but everybody has pain and what that does is it releases empathy but also it takes off judgment now if you're thinking about people that you're you're just like god it's not fair their life is amazing do you know their whole life i don't think you do do you have a camera on them 24 7. no i don't think you do as a family we shared about our pain last year on mother's day everybody has pain but this is what i hate when people start to say my pain is worse than your pain it's like you know when you you hear someone's testimony and you're like wow you know people that have been you go wow man i wish i had a testimony like that where i was on p and i got saved and set free and then you tell your story like you didn't do anything and you feel really terrible but everyone has pain and you've got to realize that so we've got to celebrate others success but we've also got to celebrate how god has created us but also we've got to remember people have pain there's a sign of true maturity when you can put yourself in other people's shoes everyone has pain so if you're thinking of school or your workplace wherever it is and you're just annoyed at someone just stop for a minute and remember everybody has pain so even that even if that person is really horrible you go so what actually happened to that person to make them horrible everybody has pain number four we need to learn to trust again the opposite of jealousy is trust everybody has pain so we start to lose trust do you know what jealousy says to god jealousy says to god god you owe me that's what it's saying you're saying god you owe me because i missed out i really missed out on that i feel really ripped off god like that person their family they're prospering they're doing so well that church is doing so well god that person is really successful but god i don't know if i can trust again because you owe me god owes you nothing it says in psalm 20 i think it says that some trust in horses chariots and all these other things but we trust in the name of the lord if your trust has been broken today i pray that it would be restored that you can trust again here's the thing people can fail you like i said we are human full stop we are human and human beings hurt each other it's part of human nature but when we said yes to jesus our old life was crucified with christ and now we've become a new creation old things have passed away and behold new things have come right now so we are a new creation we are a new creation but yet sometimes we fail and sometimes we hurt people intentionally and unintentionally but i pray that you would learn to trust again maybe your trust has been broken by the words of someone you've trusted or maybe you've been disappointed disappointment is so horrible i've been disappointed so many times and i've said with my own mouth god you owe me i've been a christian for so long and nothing has shifted i've had an attitude like that before and it's like kathy where have you been hurt where have you misplaced your trust why are you disappointed and it says in proverbs that hope deferred makes the heart sick but a desire realized is a tree of life hope deferred makes the heart sick and if your hope has been deferred today i know a healer trust again you can trust again everyone has pain that we can trust again we can trust god as a family when we went through our stuff our pain it was like i don't know if you've ever been burnt with a hair straightener when you're straightening your hair it's really painful and my um hairdresser was straightening my hair and she burnt my ear accidentally but you never forget that feeling you never forget that feeling so when someone straightens your hair you kind of flinch you flinch and i remember flinching and it's like god god said to me are you flinching because i want you to fully trust me you're not going to get burned you can trust me again because we can put our disappointment on god he's not the one that's disappointed us but when we realize that desire when that promise happens it's a tree of life but i loved what pastor shane willard said it's like that hope that river of hope that hope and that's what it it comes through that hope that everlasting hope because sometimes we go this is my desire realize god this that and the other but remember he's god and sometimes the way he gives us the answer is not the way we want the answer but it's trusting him trust him maybe you're at school and you're really disappointed with how you're going at school maybe you're disappointed at your friends maybe you need to change your friend group there's a word if your friends aren't helping you why don't you help them what do i mean by that if they're being a bad influence and you can't influence them just walk away and sometimes god is just saying to us hey you need to celebrate you need to celebrate others their success not their failures celebrate someone's success and you'll see that god will work and bless you he always does but we don't do it out of the wrong motive it's like god what am i learning through this and he's saying like he said in philippians to have the same attitude as christ of thinking others better than yourself it's not about getting your answered prayer sometimes is about what am i doing in you what am i doing in you kathy and it's like okay god you're dealing with my attitude you're dealing with my spirit you're dealing with my heart and what does he want he wants my whole heart can i get everyone to stand isaiah 26 3 says you will keep in perfect peace all who trust in you all whose thoughts are fixed on you you will keep in perfect peace all who trust in you and i want to encourage you this morning put your trust and your faith in him people will let you down you've probably heard that before but god will never let you down he will never let you down you can trust him again you can fully trust him again learn to celebrate others celebrate how god has made you everybody has pain and you can trust again trust god again he will keep him perfect peace those who trust in him i want every eye closed and every head bowed thank you father thank you jesus everybody thinking about their own lives don't think about anyone else or how that person needed to hear that but ask the holy spirit what are you saying to me right now what do i need to change am i opening the door with sinners crouching and ready to pounce on me what you need to do right there is shut the daughters in shut the door to jealousy shut the door to anger shut the door to pride the holy spirit what are you saying to me right now thank you jesus thank you lord thank you jesus i can just sense his presence in the room so strong thank you father for all those that have been saying in their hearts god it's not fair he wants to minister to you right now because he understands your pain but the key the key to that is unlocking celebration there's something profound there's something powerful in celebrating and gratitude and saying thank you jesus thank you god for what you've given me thank you jesus

Channel: Equippers Church

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Length: 39min 4sec (2344 seconds)

Published: Wed Jul 28 2021