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This edition of Ask the Camp Pastor features Pastors Adam Sanders, Colby Houchin, and Art Devos.
Art Devos
We love having these questions come in! The first one is a recent question that came in and it says, "Is it bad to envy a good quality of someone else?" For example, humbleness, love or charity?
Colby Houchin
Man, that's a good question. That's a deep question. And, I don't know. I think a lot of our listeners wouldn't realize how deep that question can be at face value. So the first thing I wanted to say, "is it is a very good thing to desire to have the good qualities of others?" The good godly qualities that others possess is a really good thing for us to want to pursue those things.
Art Devos
And the first time this question came out, I showed it to Adam, and the very first thing we said was, "it's great to emulate, right?" To emulate those qualities in someone else. Just as we're seeking to emulate Christ, right? To be Christlike, it doesn't mean that we're envious of that. It means that we're striving to be like that. When you see that good quality in someone, you could recognize that when you see someone who is just so good at loving people, just loving people, you can see that in them. And there are times that I'm like, "man, I wish I could love people. They love people." And I need to maybe be a little bit more earnest in my attempt to do that. And I don't believe that's envy. I think that's close to envy. "I'm striving to emulate that in someone," right?
Colby Houchin
Yeah, I think we talked before this of the importance of defining the word envy. I had my own analogy, but Adam's actually was much better than mine. And so I am going to kind of set him up to talk about it, cause we all have coffee in front of us. So words that we commonly use today that I think we often get mixed on what they actually are supposed to mean; so we have this word envy. We have words like jealousy. We have words like coveting, and so you might recognize that word from one of the 10 Commandments. We have words like greed, we have pride. We have these different things that tend to be, I'd say misused, or we kind of see them as synonyms, but each one of those is actually a specific state in a specific heart issue. And I think we should start by defining those. So again, I was going to have my own analogy, but then Adam's was way better. So Adam, what did you say as far as when it comes to mine, yours, coffee cups, what's the difference between Envy, Jealousy, and Coveting?
Adam Sanders
Sure. No, absolutely. I think, yeah, defining the word is very important, and I think especially when it comes to envy there, I think we'd all agree it is maybe the most sinister of all of the words that could be used. I'm not saying that to attack the questioner, but just for the sake of asking the question in a helpful way and understanding that. And yeah, that was kind of the analogy, we were thinking of talking about coffee. And we mentioned that something like jealousy would say, "this is my coffee and I don't want anyone to take it from me." We would say covetousness would be like, "oh, Art's coffee looks way better, and I want his." Envy, as maybe the most sinister of them all, would say, "you have coffee and I don't. I'm jealous. I hope you spill it, and no one gets coffee." There's almost like a vindictive nature to it in the sense of like, "Hey, I would rather nobody get it than you have it." And I was even thinking of, I mean, we preached in our church on Sunday on Cain and Abel. And just that nature of envy being found in the sense of wanting someone else to fail rather than succeed.
Art Devos
And that's Genesis 4, if you want to go through the story again of Cain and Abel. I went to James 3, and I'm going to read that here for us. James 3:13-18, "Who is wise and understanding among you? Let him show good conduct that his works are done in the meekness of wisdom. But if you have bitter envy and self-seeking in your hearts, do not boast and lie against the truth. This wisdom does not descend from above, but is earthly, sensual, demonic. For where envy and self-seeking exist, confusion and every evil thing are there. But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield; full of mercy and good fruits without partiality and without hypocrisy. Now the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace." So envy stems from, a lot of times, the dissatisfaction in one's own life, right? That's kind of where it comes from. And so, when you start to recognize this, what do we need to do about this? If this is truly something that you are struggling with and having that real envy in your life, first of all, envy is inherently evil. We need to understand that, and we need to turn away from that. So being repentant of that, but we need to humble ourselves in that, right? And we need to ask God to reveal, "what is our motivation behind it?" Because envy, there's always that motivating factor behind it. And if we can get to the root of that, we can start to understand, I think, a little bit more about what this is. And then you can read a little bit further on in James as well. When you get to chapter 4, starting in verse 7, it talks a little bit more about pride and things like that right before it. But then it says this, "therefore, submit to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts. You double-minded lament and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord and he will lift you up." Again, it's all about seeing what that motivation is. Humbling yourself and just submitting to God even in these good qualities that we see in somebody, if we're going to do that, what's your motivation behind it in there and stuff too? So how can we get past that? There's our answer right there.
Colby Houchin
And I think that leads us into a good conversation about our relationships with other people. Even when we acknowledge good things about other people, we have our heart in a place where we can be in proper relationship with them, we can be joyful. So let's say that Adam did, again, Adam and I are pastors of different churches, love each other, we feel like we're partners in ministry just because we believe in the same things, but we're in different churches, different congregations, different flocks. Let's say that he had a youth group event and 450 kids showed up and gave their lives to Christ. That would be a massive praise. That would be amazing for me to have a proper relationship with Adam. And I'd argue with the Lord. I would want to celebrate that type of moment. I would want to see a good quality or maybe whether it's because Adam's just such a wonderful preacher that the spirit moved in him in a mighty way and used him to bring those people to Christ. And I'm just putting words in my own mouth. I'm not saying anything about you or Adam. "Adam's a terrible preacher, but the Lord used him anyway." And that we get to acknowledge that Adam, Adam was able to do this wonderful ministry. And if I was moved in a way of, "man, I know that a lot of people gave their lives to Christ, but like, man, wouldn't I have been a better fit for that?" So here's the--- Go ahead.
Art Devos
Oh, I was going to say, when I came here to Camp Rock, there was a question that I actually got asked frequently. And when I say frequently, I really mean I was getting this question asked a couple times a year for a period of a couple years. And it was always, "Don't you hate Maranatha? Aren't you getting sick of Maranatha?" Maranatha is another camp that has the same mission, the same purpose that we have. And in order for me to hate them, it would literally mean that I am envious of their success because of their numbers that they have every summer. And what I would desire is: that they start to fail so I can start taking their kids. And if I can't have their kids, then nobody should be able to have their kids. And I am like, "No." In fact, I support them fully, because if they're going to be true to teaching the word of God, then I'm their biggest fan. I want kids to go to Maranatha and hear about that, and they should want the same for us. And so that's kind of what I started to think about too in this question and that thought process.
Colby Houchin
Absolutely. And that would be a classic definition of envy. Again, the difference, and you did, I love that coffee analogy. The difference between, for example, coveting and envy. Coveting is wanting something specific. So I'm like, "I want that coffee cup. I don't want a coffee cup." Greed would obviously be if I took all three of these coffee cups and I said, "they're all mine." Right? These are all similar. And jealousy is, and again, jealousy is often misdefined because we'll say, "I'm jealous of you." No. Jealousy is, "I'm afraid that this is going to be taken from me." And so no, "I'm jealous and get away from me!" But envy is---it's that classic---it's a step away from hate. And it starts with that comparison game when you're not in proper relationship with God or other people. Where I'm going to go, "you know what? There's something about Adam that I want to see in myself. I want to have the success he has." Or, "I want to have the good looks that he has," or "I want to have the skills and talents that he has." And because of that, and again, that's not envy. Envy is, "And because of that, I want to see him fall. I want to see him fail. I want," it wouldn't even be about, "Hey, what if I gained the gifts of Adam? And we were very similar. No, no, no, I don't want to see Adam succeed." And so, it is a step away from hatred. That's the reality of it. And I think we see a really interesting example of that playing out in 1 Samuel 18 with the story of David, shortly after David and Goliath, everybody's favorite Bible story growing up. Shortly, the story continues on after that. There's this really interesting line, this interesting song that's being chanted as Saul and David and the army comes into town. And so the women of the town are singing and dancing, and they say, "Saul has slain thousands, David has slain tens of thousands." We don't really have time to talk about the slain thousands and 10 thousands of people in battle, but let's go with just the comparison game really, really quickly of where the heart's at there. So what happens after that, is a dark ungodly spirit takes over Saul because he allowed that comparison to just warp his view of David. And it got to the point where he wanted to kill him. He wanted to strike him down because he recognized, "I'm only attributed to a thousand, but he's attributed to 10,000 or tens of thousands," and that's hyperbole. This was shortly after the David and Goliath narrative. So it's not like, David immediately went out and slayed 30,000 people with his own hand. This is a hyperbolic moment to exaggeration. But it really shows us the dangers of even good things like, "Man, Adam is just such a wonderful pastor and shepherd and just so gifted at that." We can still see the good things in others, and respond sinfully towards them. And so really, we talked about envy in the fall, at my youth group. And one of the things that we talked about as a remedy is really going back to the source of recognizing the love of God and the way that He loves all of us. And really just finding, what is it about yourself? What is it in your heart that does not allow other people to be blessed by God? Well, why is it that I can't love Adam as he is blessed or through his gifting?
Art Devos
And when we see those gifts in other people, we should be intentional about encouraging them in those gifts. I mean, really, that's what we should be doing. If I see someone that is truly, again, just a very giving person, somebody who will do anything for anybody and serve them and serve them well, encourage them in that. Lift them up, build them up, and be supportive and learn from them in that. Rather than taking that on, even where it starts to build towards that envy. I don't think for a lot of this, especially in good qualities, it generally doesn't start as envy, just flat out. It builds to it.
Colby Houchin
It festers like a wound. And that's kind of like when you read that story in 1 Samuel, that's what happens with Saul. It's not like he went, "oh, David killed 10,000. I only killed a thousand. I'm going to turn and stab him with my spear." There was this, kind of narrative of him just building and pacing and almost being tormented in his selfishness and in his twisted logic, and it led to a place of envy.
Adam Sanders
Yeah, for sure. I think you guys have really nailed it. I really, I just want to double down on the notion of, there are probably a few things better that we could posture ourselves to doing than to aspirationally look around and see greatness in other people and want to be like that. I mean, that is essentially the call of a Christian. I think we've said it many times, but to be Christlike is to imitate Christ. We see even the Apostle Paul mentioning, "Do as I do. Follow my footsteps of faithfulness." And so we see that there is an appropriate nature of seeing these things and recognizing the quality that I have and the blessing it is to other people and how it enriches our own lives and wanting to follow forward in those footsteps. And so it really is the heart. I think that's what we've been nailing down over time is at what point, if we let it shift to that, "Hey, it's not that I want to be good. Because the Lord has called me into these things and because it's a blessing to others and myself and my community and my family, I want the recognition he has, and if he has it and I don't have it, it's attack on my character, my quality, my personhood." And that's when we really start to lose the plot on that.
Colby Houchin
One thing I wanted to say real quick, and then we should probably move to the next question is, because I think the inevitable question is, "okay, but is it bad to envy people that are doing bad things? Is it a good thing to desire to see bad people fall," For example, bad people that are doing bad things. To see them fall? And this is a question I was asked in the fall when we were at youth group discussing envy, and I don't think I had a great answer. But I think I found an acceptable answer over the last few days as I've been doing some studies of missions and cultural exegesis through seminary. And one thing that the book I was reading talked about was the, "how do you do effective missions to lead inevitably to the development of the people group towards Christ?" So you get past the initial needs, you get past maybe the sin issues, but then what you do is you work towards seeing them become closer to their right relationship with God. And what I would say is, if you're like, "well, I know it's bad to envy good qualities, but what about people that are sinners or that are drunkard or that are cheaters or that are terrible, awful people that do terrible things?" What I would say is, your desire should not be to see them fall. Your desire should still be to see them move closer to Christ. And if God decides that they're going to fall, that's His choice, and there's a good chance that will happen because pride leads to destruction. And so, prideful people that are living in their sin often need a hardship in order to turn to Christ, but that's not our job to decide. I want to see them fall for the glory of God. Now, God can decide that, but our desire should just be, "I want to see them turn to Christ." I want to see that.