Envy Exposed: A Biblical Blueprint to Contentment and Selfless Love w/ Dr. Mike Fabarez

Uncover the hidden layers of envy with Dr. Mike Fabarez in a profound exploration of this stealthy sin's grip on our personal and communal well-being. We sit with the esteemed author of "Envy: A Big Problem You Didn't Know You Had" to dissect the historical roots and biblical narratives that underscore envy's destructive power. Through our engaging conversation, gain invaluable insights into how envy has not just shaped individual lives but also influenced societal dynamics throughout the ages.

Feel the weight of envy lift as we discuss the significance of fostering contentment and celebrate the antidote found in our relationship with God. Dr. Fabarez and I reflect on Cain and Abel's tale and other scriptural lessons to highlight the importance of gratitude in overcoming the corrosive effects of envy on our hearts and relationships. Listeners will find encouragement to embark on a journey toward selfless love by acknowledging our blessings and reframing our perspectives, steering clear of the bitterness that can arise from harmful comparisons.

Wrap up this enlightening discussion with a look at how envy can distort the social landscape, sparking discourse on neo-Marxist ideologies and the quest for societal equality. Dr. Fabarez and I tackle the tough questions, such as whether the redistribution of wealth can truly quell societal discontent, and provide spiritual strategies to counteract envy, including embracing divine love and fostering gratitude. Join us for this episode, and walk away equipped with the wisdom to rise above envy and cultivate a life of love and contentment.

Book: Envy
Website: pastormike.com
Bible: ESV
Favorite App/Website: Logos Software

Transcript

Dr. Mike Fabarez: 0:00

If you think about the seven deadly sins everybody's heard about those.

Dr. Mike Fabarez: 0:03

I mean this church characterized the sins that they found are the root of a bunch of other sins and it was always in the list, right Envy, greed, lust, gluttony, those things. But envy was one that I think went out of favor because I think people found it hard to diagnose Do I, am I really envious? They used words like jealousy, or maybe they knew coveting from the Ten Commandments, but they didn't really see the problem. What they saw is bitterness and anger and frustration and gossip. But I'm saying those are the fruits of envy. If we can deal with envy, we can take care of a lot of other sins.

Ellen Krause: 0:49

Welcome back to the Coffee and Bible Time podcast. For those that may be listening for the first time, our podcast is an offshoot from our main platform, Youtube. Our channel is called Coffee and Bible Time, where our goal is to help people delight in God's Word and thrive in Christian living. We also have a website and storefront with Bible studies, prayer journals, courses, and more. I'm Ellen Krause and today we are going to be talking about the often undetected dangers of envy and how we can stop it from wreaking havoc in our lives. In a world that's driven by materialism and social media, this temptation is pervasive, corroding our hearts and relationships. The solution lies in first recognizing the problem and addressing it head-on.

Ellen Krause: 1:44

Dr Mike Fabarez, author of the book, " Envy A Big Problem you Didn't Know you had, sheds light on biblical stories that reveal the ties to envy, emphasizing the harm caused by our unchecked motives. Today's call to action is to embrace the hope offered by a kind and gracious Father. By open-fledding the biblical principles shared by Dr Fabarez, we can live with satisfaction and contentment and build a deeper capacity for grace and selfless love. Dr Mike Fabarez is the founding pastor of Compass Bible Church and the president of Compass Bible Institute, both located in Elisa Viejo, California. Pastor Mike is a graduate of the Moody Bible Institute, Talbot School of Theology and Westminster Theological Seminary in California. Mike is heard on hundreds of stations on the Focal Point radio program and he has authored several books, including 10 Mistakes People Make About Heaven, Hell and the Afterlife, Raising Men, Not Boys, Lifelines for Tough Times and Preaching that Changes Lives. Mike and his wife Carolyn are parents of three grown children and have four young grandchildren. Please welcome Dr. Mike Fabarez.

Dr. Mike Fabarez: 3:16

Hello.

Ellen Krause: 3:16

Thank you so much for joining us today. You know, given that we also have two Moody graduates in the family, I was super excited to have another Moody graduate as a guest here, and I just wanted to share with you this sort of brief laugh-out-loud moment that I had when I was reading the reviews on the Envy book, particularly the one by Dr Rydel, and he said I just finished reading my friend Pastor Mike Fabarez's new book, Envy, and boy do I wish I had written it. And therein lies the problem. We need this book because we all struggle with envy at times, so I think that kind of hits the nail on the head, would you say.

Dr. Mike Fabarez: 4:06

Oh, it does, and I'll tell you, it's one of these sins that is pervasive across the spectrum. I think pastors and seminary professors and, you know, Bible school presidents everyone is susceptible to this problem. So I think we all need to have a heart check and think through the sin of envy and God's gracious solutions to it.

Ellen Krause: 4:29

Well, let's start out. So in the book you say that there are enemies of the Christian life that are fairly easy to spot, and then others, as you say, are attacking our souls like a camouflaged sniper. They're deadly weapons, muted with a silencer. Tell us about these opponents and why you chose to focus in on Envy.

Dr. Mike Fabarez: 4:55

You know well, it's like I feel like my whole job. I'm trying to look for enemies of sanctification. I'm preaching every week to try and shore up people's Christian lives. I'm preaching, I'm writing, doing all these things and I've seen a lot of devastating sins that have wreaked havoc on other people's lives, on my own life, and I just recognized them so quickly. And there was a week in my ministry when I was just finding problem after problem, trying to diagnose what's the real core issue here, and I was like three meetings in a row I kept thinking it just seems like there's a real envious spirit here in this person and, you know, it seems like envy has taken root in this person's life. And I started thinking I just I never, I never have really focused on that. It was almost like I saw, you know, for a minute, a little movement in the bush, you know, and a camouflaged, you know, a little flash of light, so to speak, to use the metaphor that you chose to highlight there in the book. But I thought, why have I not called that out? And what's funny is when I put it down on a piece of paper in a meeting one day, I just wrote out the word envy. I thought you know what?

Dr. Mike Fabarez: 6:08

I've been to school, I've studied church history. I know this used to be something everyone talked about. I mean, you go back, you know pre-Nicene history, which is like prior to the fourth century, and have all kinds of sermons that were recorded by the early church for the first 300 years where everyone was talking about envy. Matter of fact, they said envy was the sin that started everything. I mean we think about Lucifer falling and I don't know how you would characterize that, but the early church they were just very clear this is an envious heart. The reason Satan fell was because not only he want God's glory but wanting it, he learned to despise and be bitter toward God, the God who made him. And of course we see Cain and Abel and lots of examples in the Bible. But the early church kept saying this is the fountainhead of all sin and certainly I thought we don't give it much attention.

Dr. Mike Fabarez: 7:04

I looked through my library that day and I couldn't find a single book that was really solely dedicated to the concept of envy. Then I went to my sermon database and I thought well, how many times have I preached on this topic? I take very detailed notes on all the sermons I preach. I just couldn't find but two where I even put it as a sub-subject and I thought, wow, this needs attention. So I was at a conference there was someone from Moody Publishing and, as these guys do that have published with me before, they say, well, you know, got anything on your mind, anything on your heart, and I said, nah, you know, just I'm just doing my thing and just preaching. And then I paused and I thought, well, yeah, there is something I've thought about.

Dr. Mike Fabarez: 7:43

I haven't found many books written on envy these days, and that started this whole project. I made myself a lot of work by saying that because the publisher said you need to write that book. And so I set out for the next I don't know nine months to research the topic and put a little book together, purposefully small, 125 pages. It's not big, but just a book. If it's going to be just about one sin, I don't want it to be 300 pages. Right? This is just you dive in quick. Half the books about diagnosing the problem. The other half is about what does God say it takes to solve the problem, and I just think it's a. I'm happy that God put that on my heart and just kind of put it on my radar, because I think we just need another book. I would love to have 10 more books out there by authors helping Christians think through the problem of envy, because it's a bigger problem than we think it is.

Ellen Krause: 8:36

Why do you think that there was such a big push for that topic early on and then you said it kind of just faded away and yeah, well, it has.

Dr. Mike Fabarez: 9:42

I mean, it's had its. You know seasons where people did focus on it, but I just if you think about the seven deadly sins everybody's heard about those. I mean, this church characterized these sins that they found are the root of a bunch of other sins and it was always in the list, right, envy, you know greed, lust, gluttony, those things, but envy was one that I think went out of favor because I think people found it hard to diagnose, right, do I am I really envious? They used words like jealousy, or maybe they knew coveting from the Ten Commandments, but they didn't really see the problem. What they saw is bitterness and anger and frustration and gossip.

Dr. Mike Fabarez: 10:21

But I'm saying those are the fruits of envy. If we can deal with envy, we can take care of a lot of other sins. So I think the church got more focused on the branches and they really lost sight of the root. And I think sometimes it's good for us to get back to the root, and I just don't have an explanation other than Satan is great at camouflaging. You know threats to our Christian life that cause a lot of trouble and that one has been, you know, lying very well camouflaged in the bushes for a long time.

Ellen Krause: 10:53

Can you condorm it there? Well, as you said so, envy is sometimes referred to as a capital sin, you said, because it's the fountain head of a thousand lesser sins. And you just started to kind of hit the tip of what some of those might be. Can you explain sort of what you mean by that concept?

Dr. Mike Fabarez: 11:17

Yeah. Well, if you think about Genesis 4, and you say, what's the problem here between Cain and Abel, you'd say, well, he killed his brother. He's a murderer. Right, cain is a bad man because he's a murderer. Well, the New Testament looks at that and says here's the thing he really was an envious man. And he was an envious man because his deeds were evil and his brothers were righteous. And you think, okay, that really was the concern. But it ended up being as God comes to Cain and says listen, you don't have to be all upset here, right, to paraphrase this, you just can do well between you and I. Let's deal with this. But you've got this sin and it wants to overcome you and you're just going to have to deal with it. You're going to have to overcome it and God is more than happy to help us overcome this. But really it is the source in the heart of a person saying I don't have what he has, or I don't have what she has, and now I've come to the place where I don't like that. They don't have it, and I don't like them because they have it, and that's the problem, really.

Dr. Mike Fabarez: 12:27

One thing that came in concert with all of this and my thinking about writing on it. I didn't even really think about writing, I just thought this is a problem was I was preaching in the book of Acts, where the Pharisees and the leaders of the synagogue were running Paul out of town, and it says because they were envious of him. And I thought about Pilate, looking at the people there that had brought him Jesus, and they said you, pharisees and Sadducees, you're envious of this man. And I thought well, that's true, right, they couldn't fill their synagogues and Jesus was filling countryside's full of people. And the key was they wanted what Jesus had, they wanted the accolades, they wanted the attention, they wanted the popularity, and Jesus had that. And so they hated him.

Dr. Mike Fabarez: 13:11

And I thought okay, how many times do I, how many times am I hypercritical of someone? And I don't even think of why, right, why is it? How is it that I say something disparaging about some other pastor? And I don't even really figure out why? And I think we have to think.

Dr. Mike Fabarez: 13:26

Well, here is the problem of envy, right, the root of it is I don't like you because I don't have what you have and I'd like to have it. And in our world we're never going to get away from it. See, the culture in our day can say well, let's just make everything equal right. And we had this last administration come in. They stopped talking about you know, equality and they started talking about equity. And equity, in their mind, is well, if we just get everything equal, well, you're never going to have everything equal right. Just scroll through your Facebook page and look at everyone's life, right? No, not everyone is equally beautiful, not everyone is equally rich, not everyone is equally talented. We're never going to have equality.

Dr. Mike Fabarez: 14:04

And that's why Jesus tells that story there in Matthew 20, saying you're going to have people that work less and get more, and people that work hard and get less. And what do you do? Right? What do you do? Is you never let envy take hold in your heart?

Dr. Mike Fabarez: 14:18

And when Jesus says, as it's translated in our English text, are you envious? Because I'm generous? And that's the thing we got, to get down to the basics of grace that everything I have, every brain cell that works properly in my head, is a gift of God. And if I start looking at, well, god has been generous to me and he may be generous to me this much. And I look at that guy down the street and he's generous to him that much and even though he's blaming it on his hard work and he's crediting himself because he's come early and stayed late, in the end every good thing we have, that we enjoy, is a gift of God. And if I start saying, why is it that that guy is more handsome and has a better family and has a better wife and smarter kids and lives in a better house and has clearer skin or whatever I just I feel like the bottom line is I have to look at my relationship with God and say this is really ultimately about me and you.

Dr. Mike Fabarez: 15:14

I don't want to begrudge God for for passing out more beauty, brains and brawn to someone else and I've got to deal with God. That's why a lot of this book takes us back to God. It's going to solve relationships on the horizontal. I want to make sure that I'm not critical of the pastor down the street that's got a bigger church than me or on more radio stations or writes books that go further and wider. That is not my focus in the book. The focus in the book is ultimately my relationship with God, and how can that change the way I view my competitor or my fellow pastor or my next door neighbor. So it really is the root that grows from a heart that is not content and that sees other people as doing better than I'm doing, for whatever reason, and now I just begrudge God for being more generous to them. But it leaks out in all kinds of things criticism, factions, hostility, anger, gossip and those are the kinds of things I'm trying to prevent in your life by addressing this for 125 pages.

Ellen Krause: 16:17

Yeah, so you started to check about this relationship with God. How can we become vigilant and equipped to stand strong against this captain of the Legion of Sins?

Dr. Mike Fabarez: 16:35

Yeah, well, I think we should be careful, even in just some very simple logical steps. When God says things like in the Ten Commandments, commandment number 10, don't covet. Don't covet your neighbor's wife, don't covet his property, don't covet his flocks. I need to be careful how I spend my time. If my focus is often on the lateral relationships that I have, there are people listening to this right now. They're watching this and they're spending way too much time scrolling through social media and looking at other people's lives and voyeuristically thinking about how great it would be if I had that life or that husband, or those teeth or that hair. And we've got to stop focusing on everybody else, right? We really need to focus on the Lord, who is going to drive us to care for other people. I am going to be others oriented, but I'm going to do it with a completely different mindset, and so I guard my heart, in part by having a much more strong vertical relationship with God. I want to be able to say God every day. I want to see my life as a stewardship, that you have entrusted some things to me and you have given me capacities to be a blessing to society through whatever job I do I create widgets or I provide this service for my community, or you know, whatever you do, right, you should do your work hardily. As for the Lord, I want to benefit Society, I want to benefit my community, I want to benefit the people around me, and I recognize that some of those people I'm gonna think are more blessed and more gifted than I am, and that should not matter, just like it wouldn't matter if that person was more gifted was my own son. Think about that. Right, if you have a child that does better than you, right, you've got kids and they start a podcast, let's say, and it does way better than yours, right, you would not for a minute go. I can't believe it. And you know she was really a bad kid and she was really rebellious and she wet her bed and you would never go there, right, because you love, you love her, right, you think I want her to do better than me. And so a lot of this comes back to focusing on the Lord, who loved me and wants me to love others the way he loves me. And the Lord rejoices, right, when we we are productive. He loves it. Look at all the passages Jesus talks about, where he lavishes praise and commendation on the servants that do well, and I want to do the same with the people around me and I want to love them as much as I would love my own children when they succeed. Right when my son is more handsome and more, more more intelligent and more insightful and a better preacher, I just praise God. I want that, I want you to excel. It's the other guy I just hired that everyone seems to be thinking is doing better than I am.

Dr. Mike Fabarez: 19:22

Think about Saul. Right, David comes on the scene. He's the head of an army. He should be really excited that he has got a guy on his team that's able to kill giants with a slingshot. He should be very excited that he's killing all the Philistines that are the enemies of God and enemies of Israel. But instead the Bible says he looked at him with envy because people were saying, hey, look at how many people he's killed. And he starts saying you know what he's getting the praise I want. He didn't think like a steward. He didn't think like he is someone who's given responsibility and he should be pleased that God has brought talented people around him that do better than him on the battlefield. He just couldn't handle that, just like Cain couldn't handle able getting more praise from God than he got, just like so many of us like that, like the synagogue leaders couldn't handle it, Paul, when he came into town, gathered a bigger crowd than they did.

Dr. Mike Fabarez: 20:14

We have to be very careful in our own hearts that we love, because, as 1 Corinthians 13 says, the first thing on the list that is a prohibition, is love does not envy. It's at the top of this that what love does not do. And you and I know the people we truly love, deeply love right. We never have any concern with their success. We cheer them on, we rejoice with those who rejoice.

Dr. Mike Fabarez: 20:39

And it's the problem I have with people that I don't truly love. That's why one section of the book is all about. Here's one of the biggest things we can solve the problem if we truly love the way we should. And again it gets back to how am I going to learn to love if I don't look upward, if I don't have a good, solid relationship with God and sense his love in my life? And then I want to love like he loved. I want to love others the way he loved me, and that, I just think, is the key. It really is the key, it's the safeguard in my life is looking up the way I ought to, as a steward who recognizes God has been so gracious to me and he's been so generous to me, even if I don't feel like he's been as generous to me as he has to the guy down the hall, it's okay. I want to rejoice with all that God is doing in other people's lives.

Ellen Krause: 21:24

It's so important. Is there a specific biblical definition of envy?

Dr. Mike Fabarez: 21:33

Yeah, it's interesting that the word itself really has to do with what your eyes are doing.

Dr. Mike Fabarez: 21:41

Even in the passage that I paraphrased about Saul, Saul, it says, kept his eye on David like he eyed him from that day forward when he started feeling bitterness about him. He kept his eye on him, and it's an eye of scrutiny and it's an eye of like finding things to fault person with. And so the concept in scripture literally is you have a bad eye, which I know is a word that just symptomatic of the problem. But I love that. The graphic artists at Moody who, without my instruction, put these eyeballs on the front of the cover, is perfect. I mean I thought that guy needs a raise or gal needs a raise, because that's that's precise. I thought maybe they read the book right, which you're kind of hoping the graphic artists will do, because it nailed it. That is even what Jesus says. I mean the literal translation of the Greek New Testament in Matthew 20, in that passage about the day laborers is you know, is your eye bad? Because I am good, I'm generous, and so what is your eye doing? And that's what. That's why this isn't really about just the secret thing that's going on in your heart. Coveting is the secret thing that goes on in your heart.

Dr. Mike Fabarez: 22:56

The thing that comes out of that right is that I'm now looking at people as scants. I'm not looking at them anymore with open eyes of you know, generosity and kindness and and love. I'm looking at them like with that critical, furled brow. And I think that's where the Bible is is focusing on the way it linguistically communicates the idea of envy. Even the word in English, envy, comes from the Latin word in video, and in video we get the word video from that. It's looking right. We stare at a video screen. It's like you're staring at that gal. Matter of fact, the people you may really have the biggest problem with in terms of envy are the people you probably go to their page the most on social media. That gal, you keep looking at that, the person that you keep seeing his business success, and you're envious and you're really looking at them not just to celebrate their victories but to kind of find the chinks in the armor. I think that's where you got to be careful that you understand that the biblical word is really about you eyeing them. And in our day of social media it's so easy to do and I can eye them and I'm eyeing them with a sense of not admiration. I'm eyeing them like Cain eyed able, like when am I going to get my chance to put my you know my dominance over them? When can I excel past them? So I just think we have to be very careful about knowing that the words in the Bible that are used for this always are going laterally, Like I'm looking at other people wrongly, and I mean that's the essence of the word and that's how it's distinguished from coveting.

Dr. Mike Fabarez: 24:29

Coveting in the Bible is having a strong desire for something. I might have a strong desire for success, and yet I'm eyeing someone else that has the kind of success that I want. I may be wanting desiring coveting, which is also seen like a big paycheck. Right, I want to be rich. Well then, I see the rich guy that I know and I, I I him, I look at him with criticism and it's not about, it's not like me.

Dr. Mike Fabarez: 24:54

I'm not envious of people I don't know Like. If it's Brad Pitt, you know, I want to be, I want to have all of his Ferraris and I want to, I want to be loved like he is. Those are people far away and that's where one book I reference in the book is the only like fairly recent book on envy that I could find from a Christian perspective. She says it well that envy is a sin. That's nearby right. It's about people. I know the real problem with envy is going to be with your family members, your sister-in-law, your, your people in your small group, people you go to church with right, the people that you call your friends online. Even those are the people that I think you're susceptible to be envious of when you see God being generous to them. But the definition is definitely one that that that just speaks to how you see them.

Ellen Krause: 25:43

Yeah, that is so helpful and I think actually that's something that will really resonate with me from the book. You know, as you mentioned going forward, being vigilant, and I really that gives me something to to wrap my mind around and say, okay, am I experiencing that right now? Well, let's talk about the, the costs of letting envy go unchecked in our lives. What are some examples of the internal costs?

Dr. Mike Fabarez: 26:13

Yeah, we'll just think even about what we've said so far. What would be great is if I really loved everyone in my small group at church. I mean truly love them the way Jesus does. Right. Love, joy, peace. Let's just start with those three first. You know, fruit of the spirit, designations I I want to have those things that God's spirit wants to produce in my life. Envy steals them all Right. Envy doesn't let me love the way I should, right. It doesn't let me rejoice the way I should with the victories, corporately, that we have in my circle of friends or my co-workers or the people of my church, and certainly doesn't get me peace. Right.

Dr. Mike Fabarez: 26:52

If you think about envy and I try to do this in the book, if you put this all on a spectrum, right. If God wants over here in my life for me to be at peace. Here's a good word for it contented, and I'm content with what I got. I'm content with my wife, I'm content with my kids, I'm content with my car, I'm content with my computer. I'm content with what I've got. You enjoy the things that I have. As the Bible says, he gives us all good things for our enjoyment. Enjoy it. I lose all of that the minute I look at a guy over there and I envy him, all of that starts to dissipate, like it's on the spectrum. You're moving and sliding on that spectrum away from the thing God wants you to have.

Dr. Mike Fabarez: 27:31

So one of the internal costs is I don't have a sense of love for my friends, my brothers and sisters in Christ. I don't have, you know, joy when something good happens to them. They get a raise, they go on vacation, whatever. I can't rejoice with them the way I should and I'm never going to be at peace in my heart to even enjoy the things that God has given me. Right, I go, and I mean I use over my shoulder my study here. I got a great library. It's a great library. Well, I went not long ago to another pastor's library and it was amazing. The books he had and the rare finds and the moment of that. Wow, that's great. Well, I have a great library. It's not as great as his library, but I need to enjoy what I have.

Dr. Mike Fabarez: 28:15

I can't if I envy him, I can't if I just get consumed with a covetousness that then leads to me looking at him differently because he has what I want. Right, I need to manage my wants and I need to manage this sense of what do I think about people that have what I want and I don't want? I want to love, I want to have joy, I want to have peace and God wants me to have those things. And if I don't really check this sin of envy, all those internal virtues start to just the plug gets pulled and they swirl down the drain. So in a sense you could title this book you know how to have More Love, joy and Peace, right. But you got to deal with the problem, and the problem is is envy?

Ellen Krause: 29:00

That is so helpful, because I think there's times where we we don't recognize it in ourselves, but you've given us kind of a framework here that helps us do that I'd like to talk. Switch, then, to more of the external damages of envy, and I was really fascinated where you mentioned that envy damages relationships. Okay, not only in our family, friends circles that you've talked about, but in churches and throughout Western civilization. Can you elaborate on that a little bit?

Dr. Mike Fabarez: 29:44

Yeah, and, depending on who's listening to this, this may not be popular to point out, but I just think this new resurgence of this neo Marxist thinking in our culture. You really have a lot of soft hearted people that say they want, you know, to champion the downtrodden, when in fact the kinds of things that express themselves in society at large in our day, which are reflecting more and more of Marxist thinking, is built on the disgruntled sense of I'm not, I don't have what the next guy have. You cannot have the kind of class warfare that we have going on and is fueled and whipped into a frenzy by the people that have the microphone in the cultural elite these days If you don't have envy at the heart of it. Envy drives it right. It's not. It's not just greed, because it agreed would be that I just want more for the people that don't have a lot right, and I'm greedy if I'm a part of that group. I want more.

Dr. Mike Fabarez: 30:46

If I said right now and another pastor I can credit with giving this little thought experiment, but if I said everyone in my town, because I got poor people in our town, I look out at my town, I got rich people over there and I think I want to take. I want to take the poor in our town and I want to. I want to make sure they all make 200,000, I'm going to give them $200,000 a year and that would be like man, they can get all the iPhones they want they can. They can get a nice car, live in a nice. You know condo whatever I say condo in our part of town here you better give them $500,000 a year. They live in a house. Now, let's say, if I made the poor in my town rich, but then I told them here's the deal though, the richest people in town are going to be 10 times richer, right, I'm going to make you, you know, five times richer or 15 times richer, but they're going to be 50 times richer. Right, the problem wouldn't go away if what's stoking the fuel of this class warfare? The. You know the anger against, you know, the 1%. It's never going to go away until you take down that disparity. Right, they talk about the gap between the rich and the poor. Well, I'm just saying, really, that is one expression of an envious heart where, in reality, we've got to say it's we're never going to be equal and we're never going to, we're never going to be equally beautiful, we're never going to be equally talented and we're never going to be equally wealthy. It's just not going to happen and it won't happen in the kingdom.

Dr. Mike Fabarez: 32:13

Think about that In the, in the New Jerusalem, when God brings down this eternal state. Some people think of it as some kind of celestial communism, but it's not Right. The Bible is very clear. You take charge of five cities. You take charge of 10 cities. Right, you take charge of one city. And the difference between the eternal state and the present state isn't that some people in the present state have more than others, and in the eternal state they all have the same. That's not the difference. The difference is there's no envy, there's no jealousy, there's no strife, there's no bitterness.

Dr. Mike Fabarez: 32:46

Right, people really rejoice that that Peter's name is written on the foundational stones of the New Jerusalem's walls. Right, and they don't go well. It's not my name. You know some, some person, you know Martin Luther doesn't go well. I struggled a ton. I don't know why. I'm not on the wall Right. Martin Luther will be very pleased that Peter the fisherman is on the wall Right. The greatest theologian of church history is going to be absolutely thrilled that Andrew's name is on the wall, he's not going to go. Well, I was smarter than he was. I made a bigger difference. You know, in my, you know my generation, no one's going to think that way. And yet there will be distinctions, even when.

Dr. Mike Fabarez: 33:21

Remember when sons of Zebedee had the mother come in, the two of the disciples, just to simplify it and say, hey, I want my sons to be the two top dogs in the kingdom, right, it wasn't that. Jesus said well, no, everyone's going to be equal there, right, because it's the ultimate Marxist paradise. No, he didn't say that. He said really it's not. I mean, first he asked are they willing to drink the cup that I'm going to be able to bear that cup? It's going to be hard for me, are they? Because whoever's going to sit at that top spot, right, there's going to be things that Jesus will reward them for, including the suffering and sacrifice that they've gone through. And all all he then goes on to say is it's not, not for, not for them to figure this out, not for me to tell you, the father has appointed those spots of priority and the top of the pyramid. So it's it's like he doesn't take the system and tear it down.

Dr. Mike Fabarez: 34:13

He says you got to stop with your, your jealous, your, your greedy and your covetous heart. And and ultimately, when they, when they heard that some people were thinking they were better than others among the disciples right, they. They were mad at each other. Right, that's envy. They didn't like each other because they thought I don't like the fact that they're trying to vie for the top spot. That's the problem, is the heart of the response of someone who's got more than someone else.

Dr. Mike Fabarez: 34:41

It's not that someone has more than else, more than someone else, and all I'm saying is today's social like cultural, the mores of our 21st century Western culture is based ultimately on envy, and it really isn't about greed, it's not about helping the poor. It's really ultimately about we can't stand that someone has more than we do and, to quote the words of Jesus, their eye is bad, their envious because God is generous and unfortunately, we just kind of we're going to have to sit there and recognize that I need to start to practice eternal kingdom virtues now if I'm going to survive in this age, because the inequities are always going to be there. We want equality, which means we treat everyone as though they are a person made in the image of God. We respect them, right, but I cannot force equity where I want everyone to have the same thing. It's never going to happen and it won't happen. It's not a part of God's economy to make that happen, even in the eternal state, which will be perfect.

Ellen Krause: 35:44

Yeah, that's.

Dr. Mike Fabarez: 35:46

You can see why that's controversial for some people, right.

Ellen Krause: 35:49

Yeah, it sure can be. It kind of. This reminds me of the movie After Death.

Ellen Krause: 35:58

I'm not sure if you've seen that by Angel Studios, but that part of the movie and the scientific evidence of interviewing people that had had this after death experience. They said that they each individually felt someone's life. They felt so much love from God and it was as you're describing, without envy, like they felt like they had all the love of God in the entire universe. Yet every single person felt that way and I just it kind of gave me this perspective. It's sort of helpful, I think, in dealing with this concept of envy envy that trying to think of you know how much God really does love me beyond you know, the grains of sand, and there's so many good verses about that too in Psalms 139. Well, as we start to kind of wrap things up here, I know there's so many different aspects that we could talk about as it relates to this, but let's kind of leave on the note of what would be an example of a practice or discipline prescribed in God's word that can be effective in combating envy.

Dr. Mike Fabarez: 37:30

Well, since we kind of ended on this concept of this class warfare, I do think it's important that we look at the things that God gives us and we learn to enjoy those things. And I think, if you focus on enjoying what you have right, think about just having that sense of I know this is what God has given me. I'm going to like this, I'm going to find God's pleasure and love in the thing he's given me. You know, I think of the speaking of movies, the old chariot of chariots of fire movie, right, I find the pleasure of the Lord when I run right, like, okay, well, he's not a preacher, he's not a, he's not a scientist, he's not, but he's a runner and whatever the lot is that God has given you, to quote Solomon, now, right, I should rejoice in that. So I would say that, the discipline of every day saying I am who I am, by God's grace, this is my life. Stop looking across the street for greener grass, right? Stop looking for a better spouse and stop looking for a better house and stop looking for a better car. Just enjoy what you have. Of course, there'll be a day you need to move, there'll be a day you need a new car. But let's just think about that later. Let's think right now about how to make this home, you know, a home of contentment and love and mercy and grace and peace, and let's just, let's just enjoy the stewardship I have today. So that's one thing. I think that just is easy for us to well, it's simple for us to understand and hard for us to do, but it's what we need to do. And then I would say, really focus on that, that very simple verse right, love does not envy. And just know that what I want to do is to love the people around me the way that I would love my own children, which is I want their success, I want them to do well, I want them to have a great vacation, I want them to have a nice car, I want them to have a good conversation with people at the church, whatever it is that I think is good. I want them to have that and I want to cheer them on in that. And I know what that feels like. I get it. It feels like we're letting go of, like, my own concern, like if I don't worry about getting what they have, like who's going to take care of me. Well, that's a good place to be right. God's going to have to take care of me. God's going to have to meet my needs. I just want to rejoice in the good that's going on in their lives.

Dr. Mike Fabarez: 39:45

And when people read that verse, to weep with those who weep, right, rejoice with those who rejoice. They think the hard part is weeping with those who weep, and I make this point in the book. That's, I think, a lot easier. I was sitting by a car today.

Dr. Mike Fabarez: 39:57

I was studying Saturday, this Saturday, for a sermon that I was preaching, and I was just in the middle of it I got a call that a friend of mine was in ICU, collapsed while he was out running. I got in my car and went down. I had no problem feeling the pain of this guy in the ICU at the trauma center here, holding his hand and caring for him. So I felt bad for him. Easy, right. But if I get a call that someone just got a great deal on this amazing house the kind of house I would like to live in that's harder for me to rejoice with those who are. So I would say let's get to that focus of love and say how can I love people better? I want to love them. Well, without reference to myself and those two things, there's more to be said in the book, but I just think thinking more about enjoying what God gives me and loving the people around me I think will be a great safeguard against them?

Ellen Krause: 40:48

Absolutely, boy. If you're listening to this, I would be writing both of those down and even maybe finding an accountability part, or you know, your spouse or someone. Could you sharpen me if you see me going off on a tangent that's out of line with this? That's so incredibly helpful. Thank you so much, Dr. Fabarez. Where can people go to learn more about you and your book?

Dr. Mike Fabarez: 41:15

Well, it sounds funny, but just go to PastorMike. com. Pastormike. com is really a launching page for a lot of things that we do Radio, and I'm sure you can find I haven't been on it here lately, but it's they keep it up. A lot of free material, a lot of sermons that are recording, find out where I'm on the radio or what I've written. So, pastormike. com, that's the easiest place to go and easy to remember and just plug that in and that'll take you to a lot of information about me and my ministry.

Ellen Krause: 41:46

Fantastic. Well, we will definitely have a link to that in our show notes. Before we go, though, I have to ask you just a couple of quick questions about your favorite Bible study tools. What Bible, which I'm sure you have many, but what is your like go-to Bible, and what translation is it?

Dr. Mike Fabarez: 42:06

Well, I do like to read from a variety of translations, but the translation that I've chosen to preach from. And when I write I try to stay focused on quoting one translation only, for the sake of consistency and to let people know that you can trust your English translation. There are good translations if it's a good evangelical translation, but I use the English standard version. And I do that because, in my role as an exposer of the scriptures, I want to choose a translation that tries to be as literal as it can and still be readable.

Dr. Mike Fabarez: 42:40

And of course, you know, in the spectrum of translation theory, you can lean toward a paraphrase or you can go toward a more literal translation. You think about passages like gird up the loins of your mind, right, I mean, that's very literal to take that into English. But I'd rather, as an expositor and a teacher, try and help explain what that means than to simply say you know, just kind of prepare your brain, you know. So I use the English Standard Version. That's my go-to translation for what I do, but I do think it's a good discipline to read in a lot of different translations.

Ellen Krause: 43:12

I agree. I agree with both of those. Yes, our church uses that one as well. All right, do you have any favorite journaling supplies or anything that you like to use to enhance your Bible study experience?

Dr. Mike Fabarez: 43:26

I do, and here's the thing I grew up, of course, like most people, with books I mean, you can see books around me but I made the decision to go all in on electronic Bibles, matter of fact. I have one right in front of me right now and the tools that I have found in Logos Bible Software have been so helpful for me. There's so many things that Logos will do. Logos Bible Software by Faithlife. I have no vested interest in it, I don't own stock in it, I don't even know if they have stock offerings.

Dr. Mike Fabarez: 43:55

But I am saying I have spent a lot of money in buying resources in Logos and I don't regret any of it because I'm able to do things even with my Bible that I've opened right here, and I can say like in English we have the word you like, the second person pronoun, and it can be second person singular or it can be second person plural. Well, I want to know when it's plural and if I'm in, you know Georgia, they'll say y'all, and I know they mean a plural, you, everybody. But I don't know it in English, and so I can tell my, my software, to say every time it's a plural, I want, I want you, second person pronoun. I want it underlined so I know if Jesus is saying something about like when Jesus comes to Peter and says I want to sift you like wheat, is he talking about all the disciples or is he talking about Peter? Well, the difference is going to be seen by whether or not that you in my Bible study tool is underlined and of course it highlights and what I love the books over my shoulder I don't like to highlight in my books, although I know it's very valuable.

Dr. Mike Fabarez: 44:59

But I think about, I don't know I may change my focus. I love software books because I can highlight them all up in all different colors and then say I'm going to change that, right, I'm going to erase that highlight. I just love that about my digital books and I know there's lots of disadvantages and I've read books about not favoring electronic books. But I am all in on Logist Bible Software and if you just click around on all the tools for your study, the way you can mark up your Bible, the way you can tell it to show you things that can't be seen easily in English, I just love that and I highly recommend it and I have no vested interest in it, but I always try to recommend for people to spend money on Bible software, if they can.

Ellen Krause: 45:42

Yes, yes, we use it as well, and it is absolutely incredible. In fact, I try to take a webinar every single week to learn one more new thing, because it's really mind blowing all that's in there, so that's an awesome recommendation. Well, dr Fabares, thank you so much for joining us to discuss this topic of Envy. I think today has been a great reminder for us to pause and self assess the role that Envy has in our lives, so that we can take action. So well.

Dr. Mike Fabarez: 46:24

Thank you, ellen Been. Great to be here. I've loved it. Thank you so much for having me today.

Ellen Krause: 46:28

You are welcome and for our listeners, I encourage you to get a copy of Dr Fabarez' book, Envy, today. You can find the link in our show notes. We love you all and we appreciate you listening. Have a blessed day.