Seven—A Lenten Series :: 3/9/25 :: Katie Gayle

Welcome to Wellspring Church!

What happens when comparison takes root in our hearts? In this message, Pastor Katie Gayle, Executive Pastor of Ministry, explores the dangers of envy—how it distorts our identity, disrupts our relationships, and robs us of gratitude.

Looking at James 3 and John 8, we see that envy stems from a comparative mindset, making us feel less than or lacking. But Jesus offers true freedom—an identity rooted in God’s unconditional love, not in how we measure up to others.

📖 Key Themes in This Message:

🔹 How comparison fuels envy and distances us from God and others

🔹 Why envy is spiritually destructive and leads to restlessness

🔹 The truth of Jesus that sets us free from the need to compare

🔹 Practical ways to overcome envy through contentment and blessing others

Envy thrives in comparison, but freedom is found in knowing we are fully loved by God. As we surrender envy, we are free to bless others instead of competing with them.

📅 Join us this week at Wellspring Church! Looking for ways to deepen your faith this Lent? Visit www.wellspringenglewood.com to learn more.

Transcript

Well again, good morning. The few, the mighty first servicers, we're so glad you're here today. If we haven't met yet. My name is Katie Gail. I serve here as the executive pastor of ministry. And as you've noticed, because it's so dark and gloomy in here, our construction project has begun, which is great. And as it's began, we are starting to dream about the future of this building, and there's a little small team of our staff who are thinking about the lobby and our Connecting spaces. And so we've started visiting other churches because we want to see how are people doing the flow and what information needs to be displayed, and where should children's check and go, and how do we have lingering connecting spaces? And it's really helpful to find like real life examples to go and look at. So a few weeks ago, our little team was at a church in the area, and they were so gracious to us, and they were so generous with their time, and they walked us through their entire building, and they explained why they made every decision and how it served their community. And as we were walking through, I was just in awe. They had an actual entrance into the building that people could find.

And they had not just one parking lot, but two parking lots. They had so many spots they didn't even use them all on a Sunday morning. And get this, they had an actual playground with real playground equipment and a fence around it that didn't blow over with the slightest bit of wind. And they had these like spaces that people could sit and talk and not get kicked out of when the next service started.

Can you believe that? You know, as we were walking through this church's lobby and these gracious staff members. My excitement for that community slowly mixed with another quieter, more sinister emotion, envy,

and I found myself asking questions to try to posture our church a little bit and prove our value. Like, well, how many people do you see on a Sunday, and how many under resourced people are you helping? Well, it turns out they had an incredible food pantry, and they were doing great things in their neighborhood, but this slow, creeping, ugly comparison driven emotion of envy that I find found rising to the surface inside of me was choking out gratitude and contentment for the good and beautiful things that God was doing. This envy moved me into an us versus them mentality, where I was judging their worth and value and our worth and value through comparison and scarcity. Now I know that's kind of a silly example, although I do wish that we had a better entrance into this building, but it does point to a real struggle for many of us, and that's a struggle of envy. We look at others around us, and our comparison with them turns into this burning, consuming envy. They're more successful than I am. They have more money than I do. They have more friends than I do. They just seem just things just seem to come easier to them. People acknowledge them more. They're just able to handle parenting better than I can the church father, John Chrysostom wrote as a moth nausea garment. So doth envy consume a man. See envy can consume us. So today, like we said, this is the first Sunday of Lent, and Lent is a season of reflection and repentance. And you'll notice things in our service, our liturgy, our music, everything changes to try to orient ourselves to reflect. Where have I placed my hope? What have I placed my identity into? That is not Jesus. We acknowledge these areas and we repent of them. We turn from death to life, just like in our baptismal vows that we talked about in our previous sermon series, we turn from the world the flesh and the devil towards receiving Jesus. That is our invitation during the season of Lent, and our sermon series is going to be on the seven deadly sins. I know that sounds very ominous, but I want you to hear on the front end that it is God's kindness to us, His love, His mercy, that leads us to repentance. God wants to call out those places of sin in our hearts, to call them out and bring freedom and healing in our hearts, in our lives. Romans 623 says, For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ, Jesus, our Lord, here is our invitation to move from sin and death to life in Christ. So during this sermon series, we're going to talk on the sin of sloth, wrath, lust, gluttony, pride, greed, and today, we begin with envy.

I'll speak from personal experience, because I have a head start on all of you knowing that the service this sermon series was coming, but God is doing a great work of rooting out envy in my heart. It.

Been uncomfortable. I didn't realize how deeply ingrained this was in my life, and when Billy was putting together this sermon series, he just assigned me this date and randomly gave me the sin of envy to preach on. He didn't know, or I don't think he knew, that this is probably the one I struggle with the most, because the root of envy is comparison,

and it's been uncomfortable. And also, God is bringing things into the light because he wants to set me free and draw me closer to him, and that is my hope for all of us for the next six weeks, God wants to bring freedom, and that's why we're going through this sermon series. So today, as we look at envy, I want us to look at what is envy? Why is it so destructive, and what is the remedy to envy?

So my sermon today, and probably throughout this series, is going to be very indebted to the book glittering vices by Rebecca de Young. Super great, helpful book. She gives a lot of great historical background and theological and biblical definitions. So you will hear me quote her a lot, but she's it's a great book. It's very helpful. So let's look first, actually, before we jump in. Let's pray,

Lord, we turn our hearts to you.

You are our vision. You are our hope.

Anything else, Lord, anything else is nothing.

God, I pray that You would speak to us today,

bring into the light what's hidden in darkness.

Thank you for your love and your mercy, Your Grace, your kindness to us.

We do all this for your glory. Jesus, amen.

Okay, first, what is envy?

Envy is a feeling of discontent or resentment that arises when we compare ourselves to others and we perceive that the other is something that we need or want but do not have. So our comparison leads us to feeling less than or lacking. De young describes the envious as the have nots. Now covedness, or greed, which is another deadly sin we'll look at later in the series, is more focused on possessions, like I want that thing. Envy, on the other hand, is typically more concerned with who we are. So envy targets the internal qualities that give a person worth, honor, standing status. So our envy, and in our envy, we compare to others, and that impacts how we view our worth and value. Francis Bacon said, envy is ever joined to the comparing of a man's self and where there is no comparison, no envy. So as we compare, we perceive our worth and value in relation to another person, and this can lead to insecurity, bitterness, resentment, isolation, judgment of others or ourselves. This is why this is called a deadly sin. This eats away at us. An envy is interesting, because the rival of our envy is typically someone in our sphere of life. Rebecca DeYoung says enviers don't usually envy those who are far removed from their lives and lifestyles, who are vastly more talented or successful than they are. They tend to envy people to whom they might actually be compared unfavorably. That is those who are just like them, only better. So a writer couldn't care less if an Olympic athlete wins gold in the 5000 meter run, while she can barely finish a local 5k Road Race, but she burns when her colleague gets a rave review on his new novel, while her own published work gets only half hearted notice. So envy hits really close to home. Our envy is influenced very much by the people that we know and love and interact with every day. That's why this sin is so prevalent and challenging to navigate. It can come out constantly as we interact with our friends or our coworkers or a parent at school pickup or someone that we regularly interact with at the gym, we are bombarded with comparison, and it can lead us to this temptation to envy, to bitterness just throughout our regular day. Again, the Young says, If we reflect on whom we envy, we are likely to discover how we define our own identity and where we see that identity as most vulnerable.

This is so important. If we find our identity and how successful we are, how productive we can be, we will envy those who are doing it better. If our worth is in our appearance, then we're going to envy those who look better, who are more attractive, who bounced back quicker after their second kid, not that I'm speaking from experience.

If we find our value in our intelligence, we will envy those who are smarter. If our worth comes from affirmation or from receiving attention or affection or love from others, then we have the propensity to envy those who we perceive.

We are receiving more than we do as we compare ourselves to others, our envy reveals where we are placing our worth and value. And what's really tricky about envy is that the goal of envy is not just that I get more of what I need, but actually that the person I envy gets less see in order for me to feel better about myself. I need you to feel worse.

The envious person wants the very thing the rival has, and also that their rival not have it. So I envy your success, and I need to be more successful, but I also need you to be less successful. We secretly relish when those we envy fail or fall, we look for ways that we are better than the person we envy to make ourselves feel better, more valuable, more lovable. Envy view of the world is essentially antagonistic. It's me versus you, my good or your good. It's never both. Do you see how envy leads us towards death and destruction. This comparison game can cause resentment, bitterness, judgment, dissatisfaction just eats away at us. We're called to live out the greatest commandment, we said that at the opening of this sermon or of this liturgy today, to love God and love our neighbors as ourselves, but when we are stuck in the sin of envy, we can do none of it. We do not love God above every empty promise of this world because we're grasping at other things. We do not love our neighbor because we're not seeking their flourishing. We do not love ourselves because we've forgotten that our belovedness has already been established not by what we have earned, but by what we have received. In Christ,

envy is the discontent or resentment that arises when we compare ourselves to others and define our worth and value by that comparison and envy leads towards death, not life. So that's the definition of envy. And now I want us to look at the destructive power of envy. So if you have your scriptures, we're going to look at our passage out of James 313,

through 18. James says, who is wise and understanding among you? Let them show it by their good life, by deeds done in the humility that comes from wisdom. But if you harbor bitter envy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast about it or deny the truth. Such wisdom does not come down from heaven, but is earthly and spiritual demonic. For where you have envy and selfish ambition, there you find disorder in every evil practice, but the wisdom that comes from heaven is, first of all, pure and peace, loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere peacemakers who sow in peace reap a harvest of righteousness. So James is contrasting two different kinds of people in this passage, the first are those who are wise and understanding. This is a group who is walking obediently with God, who is the giver of all wisdom. James says in chapter one, verse five, ask God for wisdom. He will give it generously So, and it will be revealed that these people are walking with God by their good, their good deeds done in humility, the one who the ones who walk by God's wisdom, will live as peacemakers. They will sow righteousness, some similarly to what Paul describes in Galatians five as those who walk by the Spirit, who display the fruit of the Spirit, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self control. This is the first group who are walking in step with God, walking in step with the Spirit. And then there's this other group who harbor bitter envy and selfish ambition. And James says that envy does not come from God, but envy is earthly, unspiritual and demonic. Another way to say that is it's characterized by the world, the flesh and the devil.

And if that sounds familiar, that's exactly what we said in our last sermon series, that we renounce. We turn from that and turn towards God.

He says, Those who think they are wise and understanding, but harbor bitter envy and selfish ambition. Are not walking in the truth. They're living a lie, because they're walking by the flesh and not by the Spirit of God. And

he says, we when we live out of envy, we find disorder in every evil practice.

The word that James uses for disorder is also translated in other passages as double minded, unstable or restless. So when we harbor bitter envy and we seek our own selfish ambition, it leads to disordered priorities, discontent, restlessness in what we have.

Instability in our identity, and it can lead us to every evil practice. Don't we know this to be true when I envy someone for their home that's better than mine, or their appearance that I wish I looked like, or their financial situation, or their kids that are more well behaved than my children,

that envy robs me of contentment and gratitude, peace, blessing. I become restless in my discontent and bitter in my heart, and I begin to desire evil, not good for the other person.

Envy does not lead to life and peace. It leads to pain and destruction. Proverbs, Proverbs 1430 says, a heart at peace gives life to the body, but envy rots the bones.

So that is why envy is so destructive. Now, what is the remedy to envy? And for that, I want us to look at our Gospel passage out of John 831, to 36

says to the Jews who had believed Jesus. Jesus said, If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples, then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free. They answered him, We are Abraham's descendants and have never been slaves of anyone. How can you say that we shall be set free? Jesus replied, Very truly, I tell you, everyone who sins is a slave to sin. Now, a slave has no permanent place in the family, but a son belongs to it forever. So if the Son sets you free, you will be free. Indeed,

many of the early Jewish followers of Jesus were very compelled by His miracles and His emphasis on Liberation and Justice, because they thought that he was going to be a political leader. Thought they were going to set he was going to set them free from the oversight and the captivity of Rome, that he would be this political King. They didn't think they needed to be set free internally. They

didn't think they were enslaved by their sin. That's why they say in verse 33 we are Abraham's descendants and have never been slaves of anyone. Why do you need to say we need to be set free? That's such an interesting statement, because politically, it's not true. There were many major powers that the Jews had been enslaved by. We see that all throughout the Old Testament, Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Greece, Syria and Rome, they'd all held Jews in political captivity in some way. So here they're actually talking about their spiritual freedom. They felt that as descendants of Abraham, they've been given the law so they were righteous. They didn't have a need for a Savior of their souls.

And yet Jesus says very truly, I tell you, everyone who sins is a slave to sin.

We are all enslaved. We need to be set free from the sin that enslaves us, and the only thing that sets us free is being united to the Son, Jesus Christ. It is not our own obedience, it's not our own righteousness. It's not that I'm slightly better than the person next to me,

as Billy said on Ash Wednesday, that it's the cross and the resurrection that are the key to our freedom. So we need to come to Jesus. We surrender to Him. We lay all our sins at the foot of the cross, and as we receive Jesus, we also receive our identity as sons and daughters of God. Jesus says a slave has no permanent place in the family, but a son belongs to it forever. The remedy of our enslavement to sin is to be set free by the cross of Christ and to live out our identity as beloved and redeemed children of God.

Jesus sets us free, and here's our remedy for the sin of envy.

De Young says the only escape from this vice of envy is to find a completely different foundation for our self worth. Envy depends on a comparative self value. So my value goes up if I think I'm better than you, my value goes down if I'm comparing and you're better than me, and that leads to envy. And the cure for envy requires getting out of the comparative game of engineering self worth altogether. And she asks, what would it be like to have a self whose worth and value were unconditional and non comparative?

Church, we find this in Christ. Our worth and value come from being loved and redeemed by the King of kings. We are loved already and unconditionally, not because of our moral worthiness, our attractiveness, our worldly achievements, but simply because we are God's own children.

De Young says so clearly and distinctly, God's love is non comparative and unconditionally bestowed.

God's love is non comparative. He doesn't love me because I'm a little bit better than someone else, and it is unconditional.

Emotionally bestowed because of who he is and his love for us. When we receive this, when we walk in it, we are set free from the sin of envy.

So how do we respond? As we looked at it Ash Wednesday, and we'll probably come back to throughout the sermon series, we'll look at Psalm 139, 23 to 24

search me God and know my heart, test me and know my anxious thoughts, see if there's any offensive way in me and lead me in the way everlasting. Our first step is to ask God to search your heart and reveal those places of envy that need to be rooted out.

And the last month, I realized God has brought to the light that there's this person in my life, that whatever I'm around them, I just feel really bad about myself, and it's not their problem. It's mine. I'm comparing to what they do and what they look like and who they are, and in that comparison, that has just led to lower my sense of worth and value, and in that comparison, I find myself also trying to judge this person, like, how can I my mind put them down so that I feel better about myself? Is that helping our relationship? Is that helping me love this person? Well, no, it's creating a chasm of distance between us. That's the way this is called a deadly sin. Envy leads to the death of relationships, to bitterness and resentment that eats away at us, and God has brought that to light in me, and the first step was to name it, to acknowledge that sin of envy, I needed to recognize the repercussions of my envy in the ways that I was grasping for affirmation and self worth. And then the second step is to speak the truth of God's non comparative and unconditional love into the sin of envy. To speak God's Word, God's love speaks a better word than the sin of envy. Henry now and says, being the beloved expresses the core truth of our existence.

My belovedness is the core thing about me.

When we bring the sin of envy into the light and ask God to speak His truth and love over us, we will be set free to walk in our belovedness, our value does not come from comparing ourselves to others. Our contentment does not come from thinking we are better than someone else. Our peace does not come from pushing someone else down so that we can get ahead. Our freedom and peace come from being known by the God of the universe by being in relationship with Jesus. That's why he says, if the sun sets you free, you will be free. Indeed.

Now, this process of bringing something into the light and speaking God's truth, it takes humility, and it takes repentance, and it's probably not just a one time prayer,

it's a continual acknowledgement when envy and comparison rear its ugly head, that we need again and again to come to God, and we need to ask him to speak his love, his freedom, his truth, into the places that we are grasping For our worth and identity through envy in comparison.

So we ask God to bring it to the light, and then we turn from it by living into God's non comparative and unconditional love,

because it is Lent. I want to challenge us to do two things. I want us to think about something that we need to give up and something that we can add as we think about the sin of envy.

Are there the first What's something to give up? Are there activities or situations that you are putting yourself into that are feeding your envy? Now we all struggle with envy in different ways, so there's not one size fits all, but if you find yourself envying someone's situation in life, their circumstance, their life, just looks so great, and it's just causing you to find discontent. You might want to consider giving up social media,

because the images that are presented are leading you to this place of envy and discontent. Or if you find yourself envying someone's financial situation, you just wish we could you could keep up with the Joneses more. Maybe there's some sort of spending that you need to fast from in this season of Lent. Because as we fast from that practice, we ask God to free us from that envy. Or if it's something to do with body image, maybe there's a situation, there's an activity that you continually put yourself in that you need to remove during this season and ask Jesus to remind you who you are when we fast from something. It's an intentional practice of turning from the things of this world and turning to Jesus, he is all that we need. We lay something down.

In order to pick up God's truth.

And as we walk in our secure identity in Christ, we are free to live differently, and that's related to the something we can add in the season again, DeYoung says, I told you I was going to quote her a lot. It was just so great. But this is the last quote by her. She says, a self secure in its unconditional worth, a self secure in its unconditional worth, a worth based on God's love. Is a self free to affirm others gifts without feeling threatened or thereby made inferior. It is a self free to love without anxiety that its own contributions will be compared to another's and found wanting

when we are walking in freedom from envy, from that comparison and posturing and the scarcity mentality that you need to be less so that I can be more. When we're free from that, we are free to bless others, and it's a joy. So the second thing I want us to think about is there a practice that we can add in this season to bless others, and maybe it's, you know, that person, every time they pop in our minds and we have the temptation of envy, we just pray a blessing over them. Lord, I pray for their flourishing, for good, for healing for them.

Maybe it's adding some sort of practice of financial generosity, that as you give away your money, you get to bless others and walk in the freedom of that. Or maybe it's an intentional practice of affirmation our words matter. And you could be in a meeting with a co worker, and instead of wondering, you know, am I getting enough? You know, accolades here, you just think you want to tell someone good job. Or

we want to intentionally serve our neighbors. Instead of being envious of the new car in their driveway. We want to serve them and love them when we walk in the freedom from envy, we are free to bless others. Christ's invitation to us in this season of Lent, as we go through the seven deadly sins, as he wants to root out those areas of sin that are bringing death and destruction

and envy with this root of comparison and grasping after earthly worth and value

is something that God wants to set you free from.

So I pray as a community that as we turn to Jesus, we will walk in God's non comparative and unconditional love for us. Let's pray Amen.