Peace Crucifies Envy

Of all the deadly sins, envy is one of the most damaging and undetectable. We casually look down on those who are more successful than us, we ignore the bitterness that takes root in our hearts towards others, and we slowly begin to see the people God has called us to live in community with as enemies rather than family members. But as dangerous and elusive as envy is, the gospel gives us a way out. In James 3, James gives practical instructions to those struggling with envy: “if you have bitter envy and selfish ambition in your heart, don’t boast and deny the truth… the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace by those who cultivate peace.” (Ja. 3:14, 18). We can make space for the Spirit to grow the fruit of Peace in our lives by practicing gratitude and honor. When we give thanks for what we have, we learn contentment. When we choose to honor instead of envy others, we experience peace.

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 Open your Bibles to Galatians chapter five. My name’s Trey if we haven’t met before. And ah, what a joy story time’s My favorite when we have people from our church just showing how we really are a practice paced.

And Jesus first church. And thank you Rebecca, that just really brought a lot of joy to my heart and such a joy to see you guys today. And I just wanna remind you before we get started, go to Galatians five. Um, but no matter how, how your week went, we’re here to tell you God loves you. Uh, Jesus is sufficient, he is supreme, and the Holy Spirit wants to do a transforming work in your life.

And so, uh, to begin, I’d love for us to pray and really anchor our hearts, uh, and what God has for us today. So let’s pray together. Father, son, and Holy Spirit, thank you for the work you are doing in and through us. Thank you, holy Spirit, that as we look at your fruit in Galatians five, this doesn’t have to be a pipe dream.

It doesn’t have to be. An impossibility, but we truly can through community, through the truth, through patience, God, we can become people of love, joy, and peace. God, I just ask that you would use today’s passages to form us and to encourage us the same way you’ve used these passages of scripture, to build up the church and to bring the lost into your kingdom for the last 2000 years.

In Jesus’ name, everyone says, amen. Sin isn’t bad because it’s forbidden. Sin is forbidden because it is bad. For 40 days leading up to Easter, our church is going on a journey called Lent, and what we’re really doing is we’re detecting and resisting the deadly sins that’s so easily in sear. So we’ve been trying to say, let’s not just talk about sin in general, but it’s really helpful to talk about sin in particular.

So two weeks ago we opened up with greed. We were talking about how that’s an invisible poison that robs us from the good life, but thankfully the fruit of the spirit being love can help us combat and crucify that sin. Last week we talked about gluttony, which we defined as consumption. Without contentment, we’re always wanting more, more, more.

Now, now, now not realizing we’re actually eating ourselves to death, sometimes, literally, often, spiritually and metaphorically. Now, the longer we talk about sin in this series, I’m really aware it’s easy for us to lose sight of why we started this conversation in the first place. It can begin to sound like a list of do’s and don’ts, and the last thing we want you to do is to leave here with the spirit of condemnation.

Feel like, oh man, I’m just the worst person on the planet. That’s the opposite of our intent. In fact, we’re hoping this invitation feels like it’s invitation to fruitful living. It’s a journey we’re taking together to truly become people of love, joy, and peace. But to do that, it requires identifying specific sins in our life and then turning.

From them by the power of the Holy Spirit. That’s the heartbeat. Now, last week I admitted to you that one sin that I’ve had to really turn from consistently is gluttony. If you remember, I talked about the biggest way I exercised gluttony in college was to go to Disneyland. Was anybody here, anybody remember that?

Uh, amazing. Uh, you don’t like raising your hands? ’cause I know some of you are here. Uh, so as one does, ’cause I’m a holy pastor and like, you know, I really follow what I say. I went to Disneyland this week, uh, just for good measure. That’s not a joke. And so as a parent, ’cause I was thinking about college days as I was there, ’cause I was just preaching on that as a parent.

Disneyland hits a little different. It also hits your pocketbook a little different, but we’ll talk about that another day. But I feel like most of the time I’m, I’m like spending time telling my kids to not do something right. It’s a constant stream of don’t do that. Stay over here, don’t lick that pole.

You know, like you’re going to get sick. Every single time when we get back, how come I’m so sick? It’s because of everything you touched and then you love to touch your mouth. This is what happens. Well, one of our kids, and I’ve learned not to do this, I won’t tell you which one, but one of them really loves to test our boundaries and our patience, which is a fruit of the Holy Spirit.

And so case in point, we actually this time kept going on the toy story shuttle. And if you know what that is, bravo to you. So it’s a parking lot. We usually do the other one. It’s fine. Our hotel was really close to the Toy story one. So with that, you actually go on a bus. And so every single day we’d wake up, we’d go on the bus and every single day it was two days.

But anyways, this is what we would do. And there’s two roll when you go on that bus. Number one is adults can stand, but kids cannot stand. Well, my kid could not stand the fact that she could not stand. She was like, I need, so literally, like, she would put her tush on the very edge of the seat and feel like she was standing to feel like she had some independence and freedom.

Pray for her and me. Uh, but the biggest one is to not stand beyond the yellow line. Now even I, as an adult sometimes wonder, can I re like, do I not, can’t I just step beyond it? What’s the big deal? And so we, I remember, uh, the very last time we were going home and it was done and we were about to take another six hour drive home.

And I told her, remember we were sit, we were standing, waiting to get out. I said, don’t stand on the yellow line. I look somewhere else. I look back and literally she’s going like this. You know, like, just like what? I wasn’t gonna stand on the yellow line until you said not to. How, what’s the magic here?

And right when she did that. She almost, she was like two inches away from her leg being decapitated because that door comes out like there’s a re guys, there’s a reason they say, don’t step beyond the yellow lime. And I remember her face, you know, after her near death experience, she looked at me and was like, oh, my dad’s not just hungry for power.

Like he, he was just trying to save my life. And I’m like, yes. Like I, yes, I wanna save your life, but I also just wanna save that really expensive er bill. Like, either way, there’s a reason I told you this. I’m not just mindlessly saying, I’m gonna give you a bunch of rules. These rules have a reason and it’s for your good.

And the same way it’s easy for us to forget. Why does the Bible talk so much about sin? Why does he tell us to abstain from it? Why is he constantly calling us to repentance? And that’s because sin isn’t bad, because it’s forbidden. Sin is forbidden because it’s bad, it’s harmful for you. It’s harmful for others.

It will be destructive for you and the people you love. It also just blocks the Holy Spirit from fully transforming you into a person of love, joy, and peace. I wanna make sure we remember the heartbeat of that. God is good for telling us about sin and how we should abstain. Now, today’s sin is forbidden because it really is bad for you.

In fact, we’re talking through eight sins. There’s seven historical deadly sins. We added an eighth for the East Valley culture. Be there Palm Sunday. But this is the only deadly sin that doesn’t even bring temporary pleasure. It’s the one who always tells you it’ll make you feel better, but it always makes you feel bitter, and it’s actually the only sin.

Let’s see if you find it. That’s mentioned twice in Galatians chapter five. So this is a big one. And we should be able to spot it. Let’s see if we do. Now, would you stand with me in the reading of scripture to honor his word? We’re gonna be in Galatians chapter five, starting in verse 19. Now, the works of the flesh are obvious, sexual immorality, moral impurity, promiscuity, idolatry, sorcery, hatreds, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambitions, dissensions factions, envy, drunkenness, carousing, and anything similar.

I’m warning you about these things, as I warned you before, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God, but the fruit of the spirit. Is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. The law is not against such things now. Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.

And if we live by the spirit, let us also keep in step with the spirit. Let us not become conceited provoking one another, envying one another. You may be seated. Did any of you catch the sin mentioned multiple times? It’s the sin of envy. The deadly sin of envy. We see Paul reference envy in verse 21. We also see him reference it in verse 26, and one could argue he references jealousy, which is a cousin to envy, and he references selfish ambition, which is also very much related to envy.

So let’s talk about envy for a little bit. There’s a lot of different ways to describe the sin. The medieval theologian, Thomas Aquinas, he said it the following way. He says, envy is sadness or sorrow over the good of another. That’s really big jargon. Another words, what it means is we are really bitter or sad when someone’s doing well in life.

Another way that’s even more helpful for me is envy rejoices when others mourn and mourns when others rejoice. Frederick Buchner. He’s a pastor and novelist. He said it the following way, quote of the seven deadly sins. Envy is the only one that is no fun at all because it’s the consuming desire to have everybody else as unsuccessful as you are.

The wisdom literature of the Old Testament says this about envy. In fact, I would argue maybe you should memorize it this week. It’s one of my favorite passages of scripture. Proverbs 1430, A tranquil heart gives life to the flesh, but envy makes the bones rot. Look at that word, picture of rot. Other translations would say it’s cancerous to your flesh.

Tristan and Jonathan Collins, uh, col uh, Jonathan is the one who helps with the Bible project. He’s the animator. Anybody ever seen the Bible project videos? Pretty phenomenal. So he wrote a book with his wife, who is a psychologist, a great book called Why Emotions Matter. And he describes jealousy and envy.

He uses those words synonymously and, and they talk about what it does to your body and to your behavior. And I find this really fascinating ’cause I think a lot of us don’t realize how much envy actually is prevalent. So how does it rot your body? Here’s what they said. Here’s some signs that envy is dwelling in you, uh, in the body.

You have stomach twisting. So if something happens and you just immediately don’t feel good, a physical feeling of heartache, maybe you’ve felt that before. Sweat and muscle tension. And they say it’s the development of anxiety and depression. So a lot of people, and I’m so sympathetic to that, a lot of us have a depression and anxiety for various reasons, but we often don’t think maybe my anxiety is because of my envy in the be in our behaviors that manifest many different ways.

Collins wrote it’s you are a distracted person and a an obsessive person. You are criticizing of self. Uh, you hate yourself. Uh, you also belittle other people through gossip or through bullying. I find that very fascinating that often the people we’re tearing down is because we secretly want to be them and we undermine others.

The Psalms talk a lot about the envious person constantly whispering behind their back to try to pull them down. Now, the author Proverbs, he wasn’t speaking in a hyperbole. When he says, A tranquil heart gives life to the flesh, but envy makes the bones rot. I believe the author of Proverbs saw it firsthand because it warps your soul so much to the point that you’re willing to see the world burn.

Uh, one Kings chapter three is a great example. Anybody know who wrote Proverbs or most of them? Solomon. Solomon In One Kings three is a famous story. Uh, he famously asked God, God says, ask for anything, and what does he ask for? He asks for. Wisdom and so soon after, in the same chapter, he’s faced with a very complex situation, but Solomon has wisdom to determine who is the mom and who’s not.

Here’s the story. If you need a refresher or if you’ve never heard it before, that’s amazing. There’s two women who came before the king, and they both claim to be the mother of the same baby. And we all stressed out when you go, like we had our child in NICU for 15 days, and so they had to wheel her out.

And I was like, is the name tag already on her foot? Like, I don’t want that switcheroo. I watched Disney Channel growing up. That always happens, right? Let’s not do that. Okay. And so here they didn’t have a good labeling system. Shout out to our kids’ ministry. We have it, man. We got the security thing. We’re not letting you have, I mean, I always, I always feel like that’s like such an empty threat.

Like, Hey, if you don’t have your security thing, we can’t give you the kid. You’re like, okay, peace out. Have fun with the kid. It’s like, oh no, what do we do now? Okay. Anyways, one of their infants died in the middle of the night, and so out of envy. This mom took her dead child, gave it to the other mother, and took the alive one and kept it and woke up and went, oh no, your child died.

Okay. So that’s the story. So now they’re trying to figure out, ’cause the mom, ’cause a mom knows this mother’s intuition, that’s not my kid. This alive one is my kid. And so Solomon, he and his wisdom goes, okay, here’s the solution. We’re gonna cut the baby in half. We’ll give you one and you the other just to see how they respond.

And so the real mom says, you know what? I just want this child to live. Just give the other women the child. I cannot imagine cutting this baby in half. The envious women who just lost their child says, quote, he will not be mine or yours, go ahead and cut him in two. So they, she sold herself out there really well.

Solomon’s like, gotcha. Okay, let’s give the baby to the actual mom. But that’s a wonderful picture of a envy actually, does envy would rather see the child dead than raised by another Envy rots you from the inside out. Envy isn’t bad because God said not to do it. God said not to do it ’cause it’s really bad.

Uh, the Old Testament calls it a cancer that destroys your body and the community around you. The New Testament goes even further by calling it demonic. Turn with me to James chapter three. That’s where we’re gonna anchor our text for the rest of our time together. James chapter three is a wonderful companion to Galatians chapter five because a big, uh, way to summarize, uh, the book of James is, faith Without Works is dead.

In other words, when the gospel takes root, you will bear fruit. And what is the fruit? Paul says, the fruit is the fruit of the spirit, which we just read. So what James wants to point out, so if you are a changed person by the gospel, envy will have no roots in you. But then he points out, we’re about to read.

Here’s what envy looks like. Be weary if you’re manifesting these signs. Maybe God hasn’t taken root in your heart like you think. Let’s look starting in verse 14. But if you have bitter envy, I love that descriptor. Envy is always bitter, bitter, envy and selfish. Ambition in your heart don’t boast and deny the truth.

Such wisdom does not come down from above, but is earthly unspiritual demonic. For where there is envy and selfish ambition, there is disorder in every evil practice. Lemme share with you just a few observations just from those few verses. Number one, there is a hiddenness to being envious. Notice in verse 14, it talks about that phrase, if you are envious in your heart, in your heart, shows how hidden it can be.

Where from the outside, I probably can’t tell how envious you are. It’s stirring within you. So from the outside you can look successful. You can be a really high achiever, you can look spiritual, but on the inside you lie awake at night, despising the competition, secretly gossiping and hoping those around you get destroyed.

Early in my ministry, early in this church plant, there was someone, I didn’t know this, but they were racked with envy. And again, I had no idea because to my face, they exercised flattery a lot. They said how amazing I was. They were super kind. They were impressive, but for some reason, as they would share their story and their past, which is okay, we all have a past, but disorder followed them wherever they went.

They always had a cutoff ties. They never had long-term friends, and so I thought. We’ll be those long-term friends. But what I didn’t see at first, but James helped me see it. Envy isn’t always obvious. What was actually destroying this person’s life was envy. It was rotting their bones. They would ruin a community, go to the next one, be fun and impressive, but the envy would take over and they’d ruin the next ones.

’cause envy, what it does is it sees it simers in the background until finally it explodes in conflict, gossip, and chaos. And so that’s a warning. So we could use this and go think about all the envious people. Oh man, you might be envious. Let’s hidden. Let’s not do that. I think first we need to start with from within is envy hidden within me?

And if so, we have good news, we can just confess our envy and God will bring about healing. Which leads to number two. Second observation based off first 15 is you block the Holy Spirit when you walk in an envious spirit. Verse 15 says Such wisdom does not come down from above, so it’s not from God, but it’s earthly, un spiritual and demonic.

I also find it fascinating, he calls it wisdom because I think what he’s pointing out is people will sound wise, but it’s not wisdom from above. It’s actually really earthly unspiritual and demonic quickly. What do each of those words mean? Earthly just means like shortsighted. Earthly means it’s a zero sum game.

If you win, that means I lose. Earthly has no eternal perspective. I need everything now in this life. It needs to go good. I’m not going to worry about the next. Also, it’s unspiritual. Unspiritual just literally means of the flesh. So Paul’s whole argument in Galatians five, when you walk by the spirit versus walk by the flesh, it is complete antithetical to the Holy Spirit.

And then demonic. Demonic, all demons know to do is to sow disorder and chaos. It’s, and here’s where I was even convicted as I was reading and studying this week. Envy is not just unhealthy, which it is, it’s hellish. It’s from the enemy. It’s gotta grip on people’s life. And it doesn’t just destroy the beholder, it destroys everybody around.

The enemy loves to use envy. To destroy a church community. And that leads to the next observation. What is envy? I think verse 16 is helpful for where there is envy and selfish ambition. There’s disorder in every evil practice. I think envy is disordered and it’s demonic because number three, envy is desire plus resentment.

Let me lean in on this for a little bit. I think a surface reading of this verse would make us stop trying to have ambition in our life. ’cause it says envy, selfish ambition disorder. But we have to remember that selfish was put in front of it. I think it, it’s a descriptor of what envy does. ’cause the answer is not to do nothing.

The Bible actually warns against sloth just as much as he warns against envy and selfish ambition. And by the way, sloth will be next week. So excited for us to enjoy that together. You’re amazing. The woo hoos. It’s great. Now, God, because it’s not sloth, because guess what? Read the book of Genesis. We are created to rule and reign.

We actually are supposed to be world changers. We’re supposed to make culture. We’re supposed to bless those around us. We’re supposed to have incredible businesses to the glory of God. We’re supposed to have ambition, but here’s what’s really key. Ambition can wake us up from complacency or it can wipe us out through comparison.

Notice that the gift, but also the it can ambition. If you have the right heart, it’s one of the best things in your life. I think actually more men need more ambition. But if it turns selfish, if it’s motivated by envy, your ambition will not be to lift others up. Your ambition will turn into, I’m going to get better and thus pull other people down.

One commentator this week says that Envy’s favorite three words are, why not me? I think that’s super helpful. I think I’ve fallen for this trap way more than I’d like to admit. I know, uh, when I graduated college and like a few years later seeing a lot of my buddies like make a lot of money and I’m like, bro, I remember you in college.

You weren’t smart, you didn’t work hard and you’re rolling and I’m here struggling. I had some envy. I wouldn’t say it to their face ’cause that’s not what envy does, but I’d be jealous and think you don’t deserve that. This definitely happened when we started our church. When we started our church, we started with a few other people around the same time.

Some of them moved into buildings right away. Some of them grew really fast overnight. And I kept asking as I scrolled Instagram, why not me? Aren’t I trying really hard? Then you begin to compare what’s so good about this guy that makes people wanna follow him, but not me. Why not me? So in the early days I realized I.

Had a mentor point that out and, and he said, well, you’ve gotta get more mature. But for now, mute every pastor you follow on Instagram. Now here’s a tip, guys. Mute is the greatest gift in the social media. I was supposed to say from God, but that’s Jesus. So let me back up. But it’s such a gift because it doesn’t offend people.

You’re not unfollowing it for all they know. You’re just looking at all their stuff and you’re, you’re just muting. And so this is what I had to do, especially on Sundays. For years, I would have church, maybe 20 people showed up and I’d go and I’d see the packed out crowd. Why not me? You know? And so I was like, okay, I’m just gonna mute them.

But in my own journey, I don’t want to be the type of person who just mutes my envy. I want to crucify it. I really desire, and I hope you do too. I wanna be a person who mourns with those who mourn. But I truly wanna be a person who rejoices with those who rejoice. Can’t I not be a pastor who loves when other churches and pastors succeed?

In fact, I was thinking maybe I’m disqualifying myself if I cannot do that. And so it began this journey for me a few years ago where I realized I don’t want my envy to be curved. I, I want it to be cured. And the question that I asked myself as I searched the scriptures was, is that even possible? How do you and I keep envy from rotting our bones?

The good news is it’s not from trying harder. That’s the beautiful gift we have in the gospel. Hear me? We don’t have good advice for the envious. We have good news. And here’s the good news, in Christ, you’re fully seen, fully known, and fully loved. That’s what envy is actually after. Envy is actually after.

I want to be seen by others. I wanna be known by others. I wanna be loved by others. The gospel is, look, the creator himself sees you, knows you. And loves you. So there’s no need to resent others. We have a rich inheritance. We all have more than enough. There’s no need to pull others down in the kingdom of God.

We’re actually all lifted up, but envy when we let it have its way, which is why I think we should fast to fight the voices in our head, envy whispers, you’re not enough. You’re being overlooked. You’re falling behind. But the gospel of Jesus reminds us the opposite is true. So is there a fruit from the Holy Spirit that crucifies envy in all of its empty promises?

Yes, and I would say it’s the fruit of peace. Here’s the good news, peace Crucifies envy. Now this word, peace. Anybody know the Hebrew word for peace? Shalom, right? Shalom, y’all. Okay. Peace is shalom. In the Hebrew, in the Greek, it doesn’t sound as cool. It’s Rene is peace in the Greek. Now, a lot of us in the Western worldview, we think, uh, peace is absence of conflict, which good start.

Like when we say no more wars, like that’s peace. Like we want that, but it’s even more than that. It’s a presence of wholeness. It means everything’s in harmony. It means that we’re all flourishing. Do you know Jerusalem literally means city of peace. So j ru means city. Shalom is shalom, city of peace. The whole vision of the Bible is that God is forming a people.

Of peace who lift each other up, that we bring about justice. We bring those who are low and bring them high. And then those who are high and arrogant, we bring them back to their proper place. We flourish together. And it’s a people, the vision of the church is that we are fully secure in the presence of God.

We know he loves us, and so we’re not worried how he loves others. We want God to love others just as much as he loves us. But this idea of peace doesn’t come from our human spirit. It’s not something you can just contrive. And I think this is why the world is struggling so much right now. It’s trying to say, how do we, why don’t we have world peace?

Well, it’s because it’s from the Holy Spirit. Peace, and its true essence is not something we could ever produce. It’s only something we can receive from the good news of Jesus Christ. James. He gives us a glimpse of what this looks like when peace is lived out. When we say no to envy, selfish ambition and allow the Holy Spirit to do its work, he continues in verse 17, but the wisdom from above.

So he just contrasted The wisdom from below is demonic, it’s unspiritual, it’s earthly wisdom. From above is first, pure, then peace, loving, gentle, compliant, full of mercy and good fruits, unwavering without pretense. I, as I study this more and more, there’s a lot of those descriptors can really fit with the fruit of the Holy Spirit honestly, too.

You can even use verse 17 as to say, like that’s what envy is, not envy, can’t do any of these. Envy, hates peace, envy, uh, is not gentle. We’ll keep going. Verse 18, and the fruit, there’s that word again of righteousness is sown in peace by those who cultivate peace. James is arguing, how do we get rid of envy?

It’s through peace that comes from God. Now I actually just admit those two verses are really wordy, really heavy, and it takes a lot to kind of unpack. This is why I think Eugene Peterson, he gives a really good summary, like a paraphrase of these two verses, and I don’t have it on the screen. I added this last minute, but just listen to these words.

I think it’s a great way to understand what those two verses mean. He put it this way, real wisdom, God’s wisdom begins with a holy life and is characterized by getting along with others. It is gentle and reasonable, overflowing with mercy and blessings. It’s not hot one day and cold the next. It’s not two-faced.

And you can develop a healthy, robust community that lives right with God and enjoy its results. Only if you do the hard work of getting along with each other, treating each other with dignity and honor. The very things envy never wants to do. Here’s what envy does. Envy looks at your holes in life with intensity.

Peace looks at your whole life with accuracy. Envy constantly says, why not me? Peace says, why not them? It’s a whole shift that comes because of God. So my next natural question is, how do we let peace, crucify envy in our lives? Number one, it’s first of all by surrendering to the prince of peace. I notice, by the way, though, Paul’s using this language here.

I’m borrowing this language from Galatians five. He’s saying the spirit crucify the flesh with its passions and desires, and that phrase crucify the flesh. I think number one, Paul is trying to get us to remember. It’s because we are crucified with Christ. We’re reminded the only way we can put to death these sins is because Jesus was put to death on our behalf.

So it’s supposed to remind us of what Christ has done on the cross, but also I think he uses this word crucify the flesh. And I think this could be so encouraging for you and for me, it reminds us that if we have Christ, if we have surrendered to the prince of peace, these sins will die. But it’s usually a slow death crucifixion that often lasted for hours.

That’s what made it so cruel. But the thing about crucifixion, it was slow, but it was always certain. I think a lot of us, we can relate to that. That we have been struggling with sins for a while, but hopefully you’ve seen slowly but surely God is purging it from your life. Now, I just wanna be clear, the last thing I want us to do as a church is to leave here with principles about peace without actually knowing the prince of peace.

Okay? There’s no use and knowing about the principles of peace. If you don’t know the prince of peace, if you verses John 1427, Jesus himself says, peace I leave with you. My peace I give to you, and I do not give to you as the world gives. Jesus is saying, it’s my peace, not just any peace, and it’s a gift, but you have to receive it.

Romans five, one, Paul puts it this way. We have peace with God through who? Our Lord Jesus Christ. There’s no other way. You must know the Prince of peace. Ephesians two 14, Paul says, Jesus himself is our peace. Lemme make this loud and clear. Without the cross and the resurrection, we have no peace. Brother without the cross on the resurrection, all we have is envy, hostility, disorder, chaos.

But in Christ, we’re whole. We’re filled, we’re satisfied, and we’re content. And lemme be clear, I think there’s so many different ways to surrender to the Prince of Peace growing up. And I still think this is a way I was always told the way to do it is to come down the aisle while just as I am was playing and to encounter the Prince of peace.

And I think there’s something beautiful about that. That’s how I gave my life to the Lord. And it’s a moment of surrender that I can always point to. Maybe today you can do that, but also Christians, we have to surrender to the Prince of Peace every day. Sometimes it means you wake up early tomorrow to read your Bible and to meditate on his promises to commune with the Prince of Peace.

It’s singing. With all your heart, soul, mind, and strength and worship as we respond to this word. It’s organizing your calendar so that you take long walks every day just to talk with God and get to know him. But once we have surrender to the prince of peace, I actually think God is calling us to the next step as well, that we see in James three, and we also see in Galatians five, because it’s not just peace isn’t just something we fill with God, which is first and foremost, but it’s something we do with others and we practice peace in many ways.

But I think chief among them is by honoring one another other. Here’s what Envy does. Here’s what’s so tricky. Envy manipulates others through flattery, but peace ministers to others through honor. Flattery is a bunch of sweet sayings just to get you to do something. But honor is anchored in the truth.

And it speaks hope and truth into your life. This is actually one of the reasons I believe the Sunday gathering shouldn’t be an online experience. Now, I’m not against those who do that, but there is a reason we don’t live stream. ’cause I think one of the chief reasons we should get together on a Sunday and throughout the week is to look at each other in the eye and to honor one another, to speak life to each other, to pray over people, to be honest about where we’re at, and to meet each other, where we’re at.

And usually for me, my favorite Sunday moment is actually towards the beginning at eight 30. We have our people starting to trickle in at eight o’clock. Those who serve at eight 30, we go in this break room and we huddle and we pick one person and we honor him for like, or her for like five to 10 minutes.

I start safely. Here’s some things I see in you. Who else? And it’s amazing. I love the culture of our church because we always have to cut it off. It’s like, okay, enough compliments. Like we gotta get going. We gotta say hi to newcomers. But it’s such a beautiful blessing. What’s so weird? And here’s what I’ve learned.

We anchor this, by the way, in Romans 1210. It says, take the lead in honoring one another. Another translation says outdo one another and showing honor. So in other words, if you wanna competition out, compete people and honoring others. But what’s amazing that I have seen. Is, the more I honor people, the better I feel.

I feel such at peace. Not so much when I, I mean I’m okay with the honor coming my way, but when I give it to others it feels selfish. It’s like this is so fun to give you credit and to compliment you. There’s something it does to me, and I love seeing it in community. I love seeing the person getting honored and their eyes all swelling up with tears as other people are speaking life.

That’s a vision of the church and envy when we honor has no place in the room we cannot envy and honor at the same time. Otherwise, that’s called flattery. And so I mentioned a few moments ago how I had to mute Instagram and eventually unmuted everybody. One of the key ways God slowly transformed me is I began to pray this prayer, and maybe you need to pray it as well.

It won’t be on the screen, but I started to say, God. Don’t give me success until I can root for everybody else’s, especially on Sundays. I’d say, God, don’t give me success until I can root for everybody else’s. To me, that’s a person who’s been captured by the Holy Spirit. I love how Adrian Rogers puts it.

He says, if you need encouragement, give it. If you need love, give it whatever you need. Give it away. And so this is why. One easy way to remember, I actually don’t know why this isn’t on the screen. We’ll fix that for next service. Remind me somebody, somebody who’s in charge. Let’s put this on the screen next week, but I think it’s on your notes.

It’s a cheesy way for me to remember, but one way I remember how to compete with envy is envy. Like literally the letters envy. If you have envy, then do ICNU. Come on, envy. I see in you. Here’s what that means. You pull somebody aside, especially if you were envying someone, you pull them aside and instead of gossiping or betting them, you pull them aside and said, Hey, I just wanna honor you.

Here’s what I see in you. And, and honestly, the best way to honor is to mention the things you’re tempted to envy. Here’s what I see in you, man. You are such a good dad. I just love how you take care of them. That’s incredible. Keep going, brother. Hey, come here. Here’s what I, I just wanna see something I see in you.

You have such a dedicated heart. You show up every week. You’re so faithful. Thank you. Hey, come here. Here’s what I see in you. Here’s what I, man, you’re generous. I wish I had that generous spirit. Here’s what I see in you, and this is how we take off envy and put on peace. So I love for us to stand and give space to respond, give space for the Holy Spirit to speak to us as honestly we respond to him.