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00:08Go forth, in faith, to face foes greater and mightier than ourselves.
00:21Giants, great and tall.
00:25Giants, cunning and cruel.
00:30But let us not run from the battle, run to victory.
00:37For our God goes before us as a consuming fire that we may fight the giant of fear.
00:46Destroy the giant of discouragement.
00:50Be liberated from loneliness.
00:53Win over worry.
00:56Guard ourselves from guilt.
01:00Tame the giant of temptation.
01:03Attack anger.
01:05Disarm doubt when we feel overtaken.
01:09And find freedom in defeating failure.
01:13Our God will slay the giants in the land and bring them down before us.
01:18Through his power, we shall drive them out and destroy them quickly, as the Lord has promised us.
01:27Do not be afraid.
01:29Our God will be with us.
01:31He will empower us.
01:33We can defeat our giants.
01:37We can win the battle.
01:40We can live victoriously.
01:48And now, here is Dr. Jeremiah with his message, Slaying the Giant of Jealousy.
01:55The Greek word for envy is a very interesting word.
02:00It is a word which means to boil within.
02:05Picture in your mind a seething, boiling jealousy growing within the heart of a man.
02:12Paul wrote about such jealousy in a church, to which he addressed a letter.
02:17The church was the church in Corinth.
02:20And Paul addressed his letter to that church with his warnings to them concerning their spirit of jealousy.
02:28In 1 Corinthians 3, 3 and 4, we read,
02:31For you are still carnal, for where there are envy, strife, and divisions among you, are you not carnal, behaving
02:39like men?
02:40For one says, I am of Paul, and another says, I am of Apollos.
02:44Are you not carnal?
02:46What was happening in the church at Corinth was they were dividing up into little cliques,
02:50and they became envious one of another.
02:53And the envy began to feed and to drive the jealousy within their midst,
02:58to the point where it was destroying the unity in the church.
03:01And Paul scored them for their evil attitudes.
03:07Whenever we speak of the word jealousy, we always seem to use it interchangeably with the word envy.
03:15And the word jealousy and the word envy are used interchangeably in the word of God.
03:19But there is a subtle difference between the two words.
03:25Envy stands at the bottom of the pile, breathing ill will at everyone who is above it.
03:32Jealousy is afraid that what it owns will be taken away by someone else.
03:37Envy begins with empty hands, mourning its lack, and joying when others lose their superiority.
03:45Jealousy begins with full hands, fearful of losing what it already has.
03:51Jealousy is coarse and cruel.
03:54Envy is sneaky and subtle.
03:58Jealousy clutches and smothers.
04:00Envy is forever reaching and longing and squinting and thinking and making sinister insinuations.
04:06Envy and jealousy are sleepless bedfellows that keep each other awake day and night in fitful agitation.
04:15We're going to learn how to face the giant of jealousy.
04:19Let's begin by understanding that jealousy travels in circles.
04:24It's a very interesting thought, but stay with me,
04:27and I think you will understand jealousy better when we're finished.
04:30The circles of jealousy.
04:33Jealousy travels in pretty defined rotation.
04:37For instance, you will find jealousy often in the circle of proprietary things,
04:46in proprietary circles.
04:48What I'm talking about here is that when people have possessions,
04:52when they have wealth, when they have a lot of stuff,
04:56sometimes jealousy is found in those circles.
05:00For instance, in the Old Testament, there's a writing concerning Isaac,
05:04the son of Abraham, and it says in Genesis 26, 13 and 14,
05:08the man began to prosper.
05:10Now watch this.
05:11And continued prospering until he became very prosperous.
05:16For he had possessions of flocks and possessions of herds
05:19and a great number of servants, so the Philistines envied him.
05:24Now you have to note this verse that Isaac was rich.
05:27For the word possessions is here three times.
05:29He began to prosper, and he continued prospering until he became very prosperous.
05:36Isaac had a lot of stuff.
05:38But the Philistines saw him and became envious of him.
05:42Jealousy often travels in the circles of the affluent,
05:45who though they have accomplished much and gained much and accrued much,
05:50always have their eye on another who has a little bit more.
05:54I am not here putting down those to whom God has given a great stewardship of blessing.
05:59For it is possible to have all of these things and still be godly and be thankful for what you
06:05have.
06:05But it is true that when you travel among the affluent,
06:09no matter how much they have, and sometimes we stagger at their possessions,
06:13you listen long enough and they're talking about what somebody else has that's more than what they have.
06:18How easy it is for jealousy to travel in proprietary circles,
06:23but then jealousy travels secondly in power circles.
06:28In the Old Testament, we read about Miriam and Aaron and Korah,
06:32who envied the leadership of Moses.
06:36On one occasion, they said to Moses,
06:37Moses, you take too much upon yourself.
06:40And in the book of Psalms, we are told that they envied Moses in the camp.
06:47If you read the Old Testament book of Kings and Chronicles,
06:50you will see story after story of very powerful kings
06:56who gained their power, many of them, by traitorous acts,
07:00usurping the power of another,
07:03only to have that very same thing happen to them once they reach the pinnacle of power.
07:07There is great jealousy among the powerful.
07:10Sometimes jealousy runs in power circles.
07:13You see a person in a position in the business world.
07:17He's gained a certain domain over which he is responsible,
07:20but he is not happy because there's somebody he knows
07:23that has more people working for him and more responsibility than he has.
07:27And before you know it, he's lost sight of his stewardship
07:30because he's so jealous of the stewardship of another.
07:34Then jealousy travels in performance circles.
07:38May I suggest to you this morning that if there's any one of these circles
07:41where we all are vulnerable, this would be the one.
07:44And that's true not only individually, but it's true for us as a church.
07:50The performance circle is illustrated by two men in the Old Testament
07:56whom we've learned to know well, Saul and David.
08:00And you remember the story of how David came to the battlefront
08:05and volunteered to go and fight against the giant.
08:08And when he went and in the power of Almighty God,
08:11he slew Goliath and removed his head from his body.
08:14He came back, and as he was coming back from the war,
08:17the maidens of Israel began to sing,
08:19Saul has slain his thousands, but David his ten thousands.
08:23And the green sickness began to grow in the heart of Saul.
08:27So much so that you read in the Old Testament
08:30that Saul spent the rest of his life tracking down David
08:33in his attempt to kill him out of the anger and jealousy in his own heart.
08:41You will never find performance jealousy more prominent than in a local church.
08:47It sticks its ugly head up when you least expect it,
08:51in a place where you do not expect it.
08:55People who feel like they should have been given the solo instead of someone else,
09:01they didn't get as much applause as the other person.
09:04Their ministry isn't given the primary focus that some other ministry is given.
09:09They're not elected to this board or to that board.
09:13And while serving Almighty God,
09:16we succumb to the temptation to be envious of one another.
09:19How subtle is the enemy?
09:22Envy runs in performance circles,
09:24but then let me remind you that envy travels in professional circles as well.
09:28There's a passage in the New Testament that has always intrigued me.
09:31Paul is writing to the Philippian believers in the first chapter,
09:35and he's writing from his cell in the Roman prison.
09:39And as he writes to introduce his letter,
09:41he says,
09:42I need to tell you, Philippians,
09:45that some have taken advantage of my imprisonment,
09:48and they are preaching out of envy.
09:51They are preaching to gain promotion for themselves
09:56while I am incarcerated here in the Roman cell.
10:00Philippians 1, 15, and 16 says it this way,
10:03Some indeed preach Christ even from envy and strife,
10:07and some also from goodwill.
10:10Former preach Christ from selfish ambition,
10:13not sincerely supposing to add affliction to my chains.
10:17Paul could have responded to that badly,
10:20but you know what he did?
10:22Here's a good clue.
10:23He said,
10:24You know what?
10:24They're doing it,
10:25and they're doing it wrong,
10:26and for the wrong reasons,
10:27but I can't get into all that right now.
10:28What I'm going to do is just rejoice
10:30that the gospel gets preached
10:32and go on with my life.
10:34And that's what he did.
10:35Jealousy runs in professional circles.
10:38And then jealousy runs, finally, in personal circles.
10:42This is probably where we see it the most,
10:44and certainly where we see it the most in the Bible.
10:48Jealousy comes into our families
10:50and destroys our own family fellowship.
10:53There are more illustrations about family jealousy
10:56than in any other circle.
10:58We see Cain jealous of Abel.
11:00There's the story of Ishmael mocking Isaac
11:03the day he was weaned.
11:04And at birth, we discover that Jacob and Esau
11:07are going to live a life of jealousy,
11:09one of the other.
11:10In the New Testament,
11:11there's the story of the prodigal son.
11:13Often we lose the prodigal son's story
11:15because we're so wrapped up in the boy
11:17who ran away from home.
11:18We forget about the boy
11:19who didn't run away from home.
11:21And you remember when the boy
11:22who ran away from home came back,
11:24his father was so happy to see him.
11:26He greeted him and hugged him
11:27and threw a party for him,
11:30killed the fatted calf for him,
11:31put a robe on him and a ring on him.
11:34A little bit later on,
11:35sort of incidentally in the story,
11:36we read that the older brother
11:39wasn't as happy as he might ought to have been.
11:42He answered and said to his father,
11:44Lo, these many years I have been serving you,
11:47and I never transgressed
11:48your commandment at any time.
11:50And yet you never gave me a young goat
11:52that I might make merry with my friends.
11:56And you can see the jealousy in his heart
11:59over what has happened to his brother.
12:02Perhaps the greatest illustration
12:03of family jealousy
12:05is in the life of Joseph,
12:06whose brothers so envied him
12:08that they sold him into slavery in Egypt.
12:12Because Joseph had the gall to tell them his dream.
12:17And his dream was that his brothers
12:20were going to bow down before him
12:22and that he was to be their ruler.
12:24Probably not a good thing
12:25to tell your brothers a dream like that.
12:27They were so filled with jealousy
12:29that the whole story of Joseph
12:31is wrapped up in the intrigue
12:33between the brothers in the family of Jacob.
12:36When jealousy enters the front door, my friends,
12:39let me just remind you,
12:41love goes out the back door.
12:43Jealousy intrudes to destroy.
12:46Now, I want to remind you,
12:48as we think about this,
12:49that jealousy travels in circles.
12:53It may surprise you to learn
12:56that I have never been personally jealous
12:59of a professional wrestler.
13:01Never have.
13:05I have never been tempted
13:07to be jealous of painters or plumbers
13:09as much as I may admire what they do.
13:11I am not jealous of bank presidents.
13:14I do not have jealousy over music directors.
13:18My problem with jealousy
13:20will always run in the circles where I live.
13:24I need to be careful
13:26not to look with green eyes
13:27at the other guy who does what I do
13:29better than I do it.
13:31So, what are the characteristics
13:33of this jealousy that travels in circles?
13:36First of all, it destroys others.
13:38I don't have to demonstrate that.
13:39I don't have to really illustrate it.
13:41Go through the Bible, and you will find it.
13:43Cain killed Abel, remember?
13:46Saul tried to kill David,
13:48and Herod was going to kill every baby
13:50that was born in that generation
13:51because he was so jealous
13:53of any would-be rival
13:54who would come to the throne.
13:56Jealousy not only destroys others,
13:58but jealousy destroys ourselves.
14:00That's the tragedy of it.
14:02Far more than the objects of our jealous hate
14:04is the pain that we wreak upon ourselves,
14:07how we hurt and destroy our own lives by jealousy.
14:11And it always seems to come back on us.
14:13Remember Haman,
14:14who was hanged on the gallows
14:16that he originally built
14:17for the object of his own jealousy?
14:19And then there were the people
14:21who were so jealous of Daniel
14:22that they were going to have him
14:24thrown in the lion's den,
14:25and when Daniel came out unscathed,
14:27they themselves were thrown in the lion's den.
14:29And the Bible says that the lions
14:31had them totally devoured
14:32before they could ever hit the floor of the cave.
14:35So envy and jealousy comes back upon us,
14:38and that brings us to the final question.
14:39What do we do about it?
14:41Face the giant of jealousy.
14:43How do we face it?
14:45Well, you're not going to like
14:46what I'm going to tell you
14:49because I don't particularly like it myself.
14:53But it's the only thing I know to tell you
14:54because it's the truth of the Word of God,
14:56and it's very similar to what we've said
14:57in some of the other giants that we've faced.
15:00To fight against the giant of jealousy,
15:03we necessarily must renounce jealousy as sin.
15:08Please hear me this morning.
15:09Jealousy is not just a personality disorder.
15:12It is not something you inherited in your temperament.
15:18Jealousy is sin.
15:20It is included in the works of evil
15:23listed in the book of Galatians.
15:25Peter says we're to lay it aside and leave it.
15:29James says that where envy and self-seeking exist,
15:32confusion and every evil thing are there.
15:35Paul wrote to the Romans about jealousy,
15:38and he said,
15:39let us walk properly as in the day,
15:41not in revelry and drunkenness,
15:43not in lewdness and lust,
15:45not in strife and in envy.
15:48Jealousy and envy is sin.
15:50And if you don't understand this,
15:53let me help you with it this way.
15:55The Bible tells us in the New Testament
15:57in the book of Matthew
15:58that Jesus Christ was nailed to the cross
16:01because of envy.
16:04Pilate said he knew that they handed him over
16:07because of their envy.
16:10Every time I'm tempted to be jealous of someone
16:13who's accomplished far more than I could accomplish,
16:16I need to be reminded of this truth,
16:18that my very jealous heart,
16:20my envious spirit,
16:22is the very thing that nailed Jesus Christ to the cross.
16:26And I should resist it with all of my heart
16:28and the power of the Holy Spirit.
16:31When you find that you have jealousy in your heart,
16:34you must first of all renounce it as sin,
16:36and secondly,
16:37you must remember your rival in prayer.
16:40You say,
16:40no, wait a minute.
16:41There is no way I can pray for her.
16:43No way I can pray for him.
16:44But let me just ask you,
16:46what else can you do?
16:47The Bible says that we're to pray for those
16:49who despitefully use us.
16:51When you begin to pray for someone
16:53who is the object of your jealousy,
16:55all of a sudden your heart begins to change.
16:59And then,
17:00not only remember your rival in prayer,
17:02but reaffirm God's goodness to you.
17:03Let me just tell you something
17:04I've been learning about this whole problem
17:06of jealousy and envy.
17:07Listen carefully.
17:08Whenever we're jealous of somebody else,
17:10young people,
17:11here's something to kind of put in your notes.
17:12Whenever you start to be a little jealous
17:14of somebody else,
17:14it's always because you don't think
17:16God has been as good to you
17:18as you think he should have been.
17:19Because if you have everything God wants you to have,
17:23why would you ever be jealous of somebody else?
17:24When you start thinking about
17:26how God has blessed someone else,
17:27you have forgotten how he's blessed you.
17:30So the way you get over that
17:32is you begin to take inventory
17:33and you start saying,
17:34Almighty God, thank you.
17:35Thank you for how you have blessed my life.
17:38I have more.
17:39You've given me more.
17:41I've done more.
17:42I've been more places.
17:43I've experienced more than I ever deserved.
17:45And Lord God,
17:46how can I be jealous of that person
17:48when I look back at the way you have blessed me?
17:51So you begin to thank God
17:53for his goodness to your life.
17:55And finally,
17:56you rekindle God's love in your heart.
17:59Let me tell you something that the Bible tells you.
18:02In 1 Corinthians 13, verse 4,
18:04we read that love does not envy.
18:08Isn't that interesting?
18:10Where there is love,
18:11there cannot be envy.
18:13When love comes in the front door,
18:15it'll push envy out the back.
18:16When envy comes in the front door,
18:18it'll push love out the back.
18:19But when you rekindle God's love in your heart,
18:22God's love will be so overwhelming
18:25that envy won't be able to exist in the environment.
18:27You say,
18:28how do I rekindle God's love in my heart?
18:30Through the reading of the Word of God
18:31and through prayer.
18:32There's no other way.
18:33And God begins to help you understand.
18:36The love of God becomes shed abroad in your heart,
18:39says the Scripture.
18:42And envy will be defeated.
18:45There were once two men, both seriously ill,
18:49in the same room of a great hospital,
18:52quite a small room,
18:53just large enough for the two of them,
18:55and two beds and two bedside lockers,
18:57and a door opening on the hall,
18:59and a window looking out on the world.
19:03One of the men, as part of his treatment,
19:06was allowed to sit up for one hour every afternoon,
19:10something that had to do with draining the fluid
19:12from his lungs.
19:14And his bed was next to the window.
19:17But the other man had to spend all of his time
19:20flat on his back,
19:21and both of them had to be kept quiet and still,
19:24which was the reason they were in this small room
19:26by themselves,
19:26and they were grateful for peace and privacy,
19:29none of the bustle and clatter
19:30and prying eyes of the general hospital.
19:33Of course, one of the disadvantages of their condition
19:36was that they weren't allowed to do anything.
19:38They couldn't read.
19:38They couldn't listen to the radio.
19:39They couldn't watch television.
19:41They had to just keep quiet and keep still,
19:44just the two of them in that one room.
19:48But when no one else was around,
19:49they would talk by the hour.
19:51They would share with one another
19:53about their wives and their children and their homes
19:55and their former jobs and their hobbies
19:57and the war and vacations and all sort of things.
20:01Every afternoon, the man in the bed next to the window,
20:05when he got his moment to sit up,
20:07would look out of the window
20:09and would pass the time by describing to his friend
20:12what he saw.
20:15As the other man began to live for these hours,
20:18every day when the time came,
20:19he would look out the window
20:20and describe what was going on outside.
20:22The window apparently overlooked a park
20:25and there was a lake where there were ducks and swans
20:28and children throwing them bread
20:31and sailing model boats
20:32and young lovers walking hand in hand.
20:35And there were trees and flowers
20:36and stretches of grass
20:38and games of softball
20:40and people taking their ease in the sunshine.
20:43And behind them all was this fringe of the trees
20:46and a fine view of the city skyline.
20:50And the man on his back would listen to all of this,
20:53enjoying it as if he were experiencing it himself.
20:57Then one fine afternoon,
21:00when there was some sort of parade,
21:02the thought struck him.
21:04Why should he have his bed next to the window?
21:09Why should he have all the pleasure
21:11of seeing what's going on?
21:14Why shouldn't I get that chance?
21:17And he felt ashamed
21:19and he tried not to think about it.
21:21But the more he tried,
21:23the worse he wanted to change.
21:25He'd do anything,
21:26but he couldn't make it go away.
21:29In a few days,
21:30he had turned totally sour.
21:32He should be by the window.
21:34He brooded.
21:35He couldn't sleep.
21:36He grew even more seriously ill,
21:38which the doctors could not understand.
21:40And one night as he stared at the ceiling,
21:44the man by the window suddenly woke up,
21:47coughing and choking,
21:48the fluid congesting in his lungs,
21:50his hands groping for the button
21:52that would bring the night nurse running.
21:55But the man laying flat on his back
21:57watched without moving.
22:00The coughing racked the darkness on and on,
22:04choked off, then stopped.
22:06And the man who laid on his back
22:08continued to stare at the ceiling,
22:11doing nothing.
22:13In the morning,
22:14the day nurse came in with water for their baths
22:17and found the other man dead.
22:20They took away his body,
22:23quietly, with no fuss.
22:25And as soon as it seemed decent,
22:28the man asked if he could be moved
22:30to the bed next to the window.
22:32They moved him,
22:34tucked him in,
22:35made him quite comfortable,
22:37and left him alone to be quiet and still.
22:40The minute they'd gone,
22:42he propped himself up on one elbow,
22:45painfully, laboriously,
22:47and looked out the window
22:49and discovered that it faced a blank wall.
22:56The friend over whom he had been so jealous
23:00had literally been ministering to his bed partner
23:04by telling him from his imagination
23:07the stories of all the things he knew
23:10would make him better.
23:12In his jealousy,
23:14he destroyed the very thing
23:16that had come to give him life
23:19and ended up himself with nothing.
23:23My friend,
23:24I have never heard a story
23:26that describes better
23:27the power of a jealous heart
23:30to ruin those around us
23:33and ultimately to destroy our own peace.
23:37So I tell you today,
23:39don't just face the giant of jealousy.
23:42Fight it
23:42and be victorious over it
23:45through the power of the Holy Spirit
23:47and begin to live your life with joy
23:49as God intended.
23:56Thank you for watching Turning Point.
23:58Dr. Jeremiah would like to offer you
24:00Slaying the Giants in Your Life.
24:02Inside its pages,
24:03Dr. Jeremiah gives practical steps from Scripture
24:05about how to defeat the common
24:07but formidable giants that many of us face,
24:09heralding God's promise
24:10that we can live victoriously
24:12against the forces that discourage us.
24:14Also available,
24:15the Slaying the Giants study set
24:17containing
24:17the Slaying the Giants in Your Life book,
24:19Dr. Jeremiah's entire teaching series
24:22on your choice of CD or DVD,
24:24a correlating study guide,
24:25and the Slaying the Giants in Your Life interview on DVD.
24:28Plus, with any order of the book or set,
24:31you'll receive a free set
24:32of the Giant Slayer Scripture cards.
24:34Slaying the Giants in Your Life book and study set
24:37available now as a thank you
24:38for your generous gift and support of this program
24:41and the ministry of Turning Point.
24:42Call or click today.