For the body does not consist of one member but of many. If the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would be the sense of hearing? If the whole body were an ear, where would be the sense of smell? But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose. If all were a single member, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, yet one body.

The eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of you,” nor again the head to the feet, “I have no need of you.” On the contrary, the parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and on those parts of the body that we think less honorable we bestow the greater honor, and our unpresentable parts are treated with greater modesty, which our more presentable parts do not require. But God has so composed the body, giving greater honor to the part that lacked it, that there may be no division in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another. If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together.—1 Corinthians 12:14–26

Last week we walked through 1 Samuel 18 in order to grow in our ability to identify envy and its pack of wolves. We saw the different faces of envy in jealousy, covetousness, perverse comparison, rivalry, resentment, malice, fear, admiration, flattery, and hatred. We explored the mechanics of envy: how it always follows success with a greedy eye and incessant questions (What about me? Why not me? That’s not fair), how it attacks our closest relationships and makes koinonia impossible, and how it is fueled by a corrupt form of imitation and triangular desire, in which we desire something because someone else desires it first. We then adopted a simple test to evaluate whether we are eaten up by envy:

How do you respond to the blessing and success of others? Do you murmur about it, or do you celebrate with them? Are you filled with gratitude or carping rivalry? When it comes to the success and fruitfulness of others, are you their biggest fan or their biggest critic?

We closed with a gospel-fueled exhortation to be like Jonathan, who joyfully and gladly celebrated the success of David despite the threat it posed to his own future rule. We want to be so rooted in God’s glad approval of us in Christ, in the gospel’s gift of a well-pleased Father, that we are no longer enslaved to the gifts, talents, abilities, and opportunities of others but can freely celebrate with them and for them. 

This week I want to continue to explore envy’s pervasiveness in the Bible and our culture by unmasking one of its subtler disguises. Then I want to spend the last half of the sermon sharpening our biblical weapons so that we can put the wolf pack of envy to death whenever it rears its ugly head.

Envy Is Central to the Story Line of the Bible

The Bible is a great war story between the living God and the Dragon, between the Seed of the Woman and the Seed of the Serpent. God establishes enmity and warfare between the two Seeds as a part of the Great Curse, and one of the central mechanisms of this war is the wolf pack of envy. Some examples:

• Cain envies God’s approval of Abel and murders him.
• Sarah and Hagar vie for the affection of Abraham.
• Jacob and Esau are rivals for the blessing of Isaac.
• Rachel envies Leah’s fruitfulness; Leah is disheartened by Jacob’s greater affection for Rachel.
• Joseph’s brothers are jealous of Jacob’s love for him and God’s promise to him and so they conspire against him.
• Envy’s cousin covetousness is serious enough to be included in the 10 Commandments.
• Saul and David are rivals for the throne.
• The disciples of Jesus dispute with each other over who is the greatest in the kingdom.
• The older brother of the prodigal son resents the celebration of his brother’s return.
• In Philippians, Paul draws attention to ministers of the gospel who preach Christ from envy and rivalry.
• Paul celebrates the unfathomable wisdom of God in provoking the Jews to jealousy by embracing and elevating the Gentiles in Christ.
• Some theologians argue that Satan’s assault on the human race was driven by envy. When his own pride recognized God’s intention to elevate man, when he realized that though man was made temporarily lower than the angels, man's greater destiny was to be elevated above the angelic hosts, Satan lashed out in envy and sought to destroy this threat to his own supremacy. His means to induce the Fall is to awaken covetousness in Eve, who grasps for the fruit because it will make her like God.

And other examples could be mentioned. The point is that envy, rivalry, covetousness, and the rest are some of the driving forces of the biblical narrative and that God has given us ample warning about this destructive sin so that we see the truth of Proverbs 27:4:

Wrath is cruel, anger is overwhelming, but who can stand before envy?

Envy in Our Culture

Last week I noted that one of envy’s favorite disguises is righteous indignation. Envy is the petty, whining, and pathetic expression of pride and self-will. This is why we often feel more comfortable confessing the sin of pride or arrogance. Acknowledging pride carries along with it the implication that we have something objective to be proud about. “I think I’ve been boasting in all of the success God has sent me lately” includes within it a note of objective superiority. Envy, though it is the same impulse, is in the opposite position. Envy can’t name itself because in addition to acknowledging the sin, you have to acknowledge the inferiority that is fueling the sin. To confess “I’m eaten up with envy” is to confess that I’m down here craving something up there. And this is the hardest thing for self-will and self-love and selfish ambition to do. Therefore, it has to hide. So envy is a master of co-opting seemingly good things and hiding behind them and within them, using them as weapons and tools of manipulation. Let me note a couple of ways that envy hides in our culture:

Envy Hides Behind Democracy

C.S. Lewis argues that in the modern world appeals to democracy or the democratic ideal are often nothing more than thinly-disguised envy. Screwtape encourages other demons to use the word ‘democracy’ as an incantation, a magic word that enables people to celebrate the ugly and false feeling “I’m as good as you,” the “itching, smarting, writhing awareness of an inferiority that the patient refuses to accept.” Democracy as an empty slogan enables the demons to make envy and rivalry and malice into respectable and praiseworthy virtues, and therefore, it encourages people to feel a righteous satisfaction in their efforts to pull everyone above them down to their own level. If you think of envy as a revolt against all forms of superiority, then in our culture it hides behind the noble and cherished American ideal of democracy, of the wisdom of the People.

Envy Hides Behind Social Justice

Envy also regularly masquerades as a concern for injustice, and in the public square as a concern for social justice. One prominent economist has written, “Envy + Rhetoric = Social Justice.” To some, this may seem like an overly broad conclusion, so let me offer a few test to determine whether a particular concern for “social justice” is in fact driven by envy.

1. If it adopts a kind of zero-sum thinking, in which by definition one person’s success must come at another person’s expense—if someone goes up, someone else must go down, if someone gets a bigger piece of the pie, someone else must get a smaller piece—then we’re dealing with envy and not biblical justice. Zero-sum thinking believes that all forms of blessing (wealth, success, etc.) are inherently limited, and therefore any increase on your part must by definition be unjust. This is a form of unbelief, and envy loves to spread it so that envy can strike at the successful in the name of social justice.
2. If it is more concerned with bringing down the rich than elevating the poor, then it’s shot through with envy. Dorothy Sayers once wrote, “Envy is the great Leveller, and it always levels down.” A genuine concern for the poor wants to lift their boats; an envious grasping at the rich wants to use the poor as a weapon to sink the boats of the wealthy or the successful.

Let me get a little more concrete with a test I picked up from another author: Imagine that you had a button in front of you. If you push the button, then the real wealth of the bottom 25% of people would double (their health care and education would become twice as good; their house twice as big, etc.), but the real wealth of the top 10% would increase tenfold. Would you push the button? I’m going to let you stew on that and return to it in a minute.

3. If “social justice” insists that the wealthy must pay their “fair share” and is willing to use coercion to make sure that they do, but is incapable of defining when that standard has been met, we’re dealing with envy. “Fairness,” like democracy, becomes a magic word that we use to justify taking what does not belong to us.

Envy Hides Behind Equality

Again, no one saw this as clearly as C.S. Lewis (Present Concerns, “Membership” in Weight of Glory). “The demand for equality has two sources; one of them is among the noblest, the other is the basest, of human emotions. The noble source is the desire for fair play. But the other source is the hatred of superiority.” Therefore, we must distinguish different understandings of equality. Equality of result means that no matter where we begin, we must all end up with the exact same amount. If we adopt this view, then we must call the behavior of the Master in Jesus’s parable of the Laborers in the Vineyard unjust, and we’re dealing with envy. You remember the story: a man hires men to work all day for a denarius. An few hours later he adds more workers and tells them he will pay them what is “right.” He then adds men all day, including some who only work for an hour. Then, when it’s time to pay them, he pays those who worked an hour a full denarius and disappoints the day-laborers by giving them the same. If you find yourself identifying with the grumbling laborers, then envy is lurking in your heart.

Don’t misunderstand me. I’m not advocating for stinginess, greediness, or the love of wealth. Nor am I excusing oppression that enriches oneself through lies or theft or rigging the system in your favor. I’m saying that there is a world of difference between a call for radical and free and voluntary generosity on the part of the rich and a demand for justice that takes from the wealthy to supposedly give it to the poor. It’s the difference between Gospel-driven mercy and compassion and envy-driven Theft and manipulation.

We ought to celebrate certain forms of equality: equality of opportunity in which we refuse to erect barriers that would hinder the opportunities of the poor. Equality before the law in which we insist that no one be shown favoritism because of some kind of connection or in which laws are selectively enforced. It is unjust to impose extra burdens on some that hinder their opportunity, and it’s unjust to show favoritism in application of the law. But it is also unjust to coercively demand equality of result. It’s just envy, leveling the successful because it can’t stomach their success.

The point is that culturally, we are ripe for envy. Envy has many places to hide in America: behind democracy, equality, egalitarianism, social justice, and fairness. These words, when they are not carefully and biblically defined, are masks that protect envy and all of its ruthless pettiness. And the main reason I draw attention to the wider cultural expressions is because the sins that are manifest in the culture are often hidden in the church. We cannot call our nation to repent of its envy and rivalry and malice if we ourselves refuse to make war on our own. Judgment begins with the household of God. It’s the envy in our families and this church that I’m concerned about. So, with that in mind, let’s turn to 1 Corinthians 12 and see what there is to see.

God Loves Inequality

In this passage, Paul is describing the Christian community as the Body of Christ. Notice three things.

1. The arrangement of the Body is God’s wise and sovereign prerogative (12:18, 24)
2. God, in his wisdom, gives different people different gifts and different graces (12:11)
3. Members of the body differ in function (12:17), strength (12:22), honor (12:23), and height (12:31)

So here’s the main thing I want you to see: God loves this kind of inequality. He loves it. He’s thrilled with it. He looks down on the fact that different people have different gifts in unequal measure in the Body, and he breaks into a big smile. The differences in the Body—the fact that you’re an eye and not an ear, or you’re a hand and not a foot—are not to be lamented or managed or overcome. They are to be embraced and celebrated and enjoyed. And these differences between eyes and ears and feet and hands encompass terms like “better” and “worse,” “superior” and “inferior.” Eyes are better at seeing than ears are. Ears are better at hearing than hands are. Hands are better at catching than feet are (unless you’re some of those crazy soccer players who seem to have magnets on their toes). The point is that God looks at the reality that one person is better at something than another and calls it very, very good. 

Now there is equality here too. All members are necessary for the Body to function (12:17, 21). The gifts are given for the common good (12:7). The members should have the same care for one another (12:25). But the sameness of our care for one another does not overthrow the differences in how we are equipped to give that care.

Extending this point out, we can say that all of the lawful differences in the world (meaning all of the differences that are not owing to our cheating or stealing or other sinful means) are not problems to be overcome, but gifts to be used and celebrated. This includes athleticism, beauty, intelligence, personality, communication, musical aptitude, and so forth. It also includes other gifts that God gives in different ways, like the family that you were born into or the country in which you were raised, or the schools that you were able to attend. All of these are gifts of God, and they are given at different times, in different ways, to different degrees, in unequal measure, and God is not bothered by this in the least. And you shouldn’t be either.

Which brings us back to the question about the button. Change the equation and think in terms of spiritual gifts and effectiveness. If you push the button, then the bottom 25% of effective gospel preachers would have their effectiveness doubled, but the top 10% of effective gospel preachers would have their effectiveness increased tenfold. Or what if the health of your marriage would be doubled if you pushed it, but the health of your neighbor’s marriage would be increased tenfold? Or if you pushed it, all the F students in a school would have the aptitutde to get C-, and all of the B students would be able to get A+? Or if you push the button, Bethlehem’s conversion growth would double, but Eaglebrook’s would increase tenfold? Do you see how hesitance on your part displays your envy? Who cares if the gap increases as long as everyone is being improved?

I want you to see this simple and obvious truth about God’s generosity in giving gifts and see all of its implications and manifestations in every other area of your life, and I want to plead with you to not chafe under it, to not resent others, or resent God for giving to each according to his good pleasure. 

Responding to God’s Love for Inequality

1. Place your highest joy in the God who gives the gifts, not in the gifts in isolation. The gifts of God are manifestations of God himself, expressions of his goodness, and they are designed to lead us to God, our exceeding joy.
2. Place your joy in the common good that is the purpose of the gifts, in the building up of the Body of Christ, in the advancement of God’s kingdom on earth, in the extension of God’s glory in the world. Place your joy in the accomplishment of that glorious mission, and then find your place in it. Get a big enough heart that you can receive all that God gives to you personally and all that God gives to his people with joyfulness and gladness of heart. Aim for a kind of self-forgetfulness that just wants to be in the game and isn’t obsessed with one particular role and doesn't demand to always play one particular position. Proverbs 14:30 tells us that envy makes the bones rot, but a tranquil heart gives life to the flesh. There’s a kind of life that comes into you when your heart is content and happy to be participating and isn’t gripped by a demanding desire to occupy one particular place in God’s plan.
3. Pursue excellence as yourself and as no one but yourself. Be the best eye you can be. Be the most fruitful hand you can be. Be the most attentive ear that you can be. Embrace the calling and gifts of God in your life and cultivate them to the full. This is why there is such a thing as godly competition. When you are pursuing excellence (in sports, say), the final score is a measure of excellence, and what enables you to win or lose with grace and dignity is that it is excellence that you are aiming for.
4. Outdo one another in showing honor. This doesn’t mean that you fight over who gets to hold the door for someone else. It means that you learn that there is a kind of honor in holding the door and a kind of honor in allowing the door to be held. There is a kind of honor in bowing and deferring to another, and there is a kind of honor in receiving the bow and the deference. Cultivate a heart that pursues both expressions of humility. Lewis said that those who cannot nobly accept obedience from another, or who cannot conceive of kneeling or bowing to another, are prosaic barbarians.
5. Embrace the inequalities as God gives and relativize them. I mean that you shouldn’t try to lie or pretend that the inequalities aren’t there. Lewis talks about the demonic trap of convincing us that humility means “pretty women trying to believe they are ugly and clever men trying to believe they are fools.” This, Lewis says, is “manifest nonsense,” and just keeps us spinning our wheels trying to believe falsehoods. Instead, we should recognize the differences, the inequalities, the superiorities, and then relativize them. This means that we don’t ask foolish questions:

If I set the sun beside the moon,

And if I set the land beside the sea,

And if I set the town beside the country,

And if I set the man beside the woman,

I suppose some fool would talk about one being better.

—G.K. Chesterton

Chesterton isn’t saying that the moon is just as good as the sun at being the sun. The sun is a better sun than the moon, and land is better at being land-like than the sea, and a man is more manly than a woman. But these differences at the particular level aren’t absolute statements of superiority. All of us are necessary parts of Christ’s body. All of us are necessary as reflections and image-bearers of God. So just as we want to put to death the envious cry of “I’m as good as you,” we also want to put to death the arrogant “I’m better than you.”

6. Let me say a few words to those who have been successful and found themselves the object of someone else’s envy. It’s not an easy position to be in because it’s almost impossible to go to someone and say, “I think you’re envying me.” So what should you do if you find yourself successful and envied?
7. Don’t be arrogant, but be humble. Be like David who, despite his success, still considered himself a man of no reputation, unworthy to be the king’s son-in-law. Have a healthy self-forgetfulness, and don’t think of yourself more highly than you ought. Lewis again:

God wants to bring us to a state of mind in which we could design the best cathedral in the world, and know it to be the best, and rejoice in the fact, without being any more (or less) or otherwise glad at having done it than we would be if it had been done by another. God wants us, in the end, to be so free from any bias in our own favour that we can rejoice in our own talents as frankly and gratefully as in our neighbour’s talents—or in a sunrise, an elephant, or a waterfall. He wants each of us, in the long run, to be able to recognize all creatures (even himself) as glorious and excellent things.

1. Don’t feel guilty, but be grateful. The envious love to manipulate the successful, and Christians are very susceptible to this sort of thing because we’re soft-hearted (as we should be). But the fact that God has given you a wonderful gift is not something to be sorry for. You haven’t done something wrong because God has used you or blessed you or prospered you in some endeavor. Instead, resist the guilt-trips and manipulation because you cannot appease envy. “Envy is insatiable. The more you concede to it, the more it will demand” (“Democratic Education”). Instead, reject the manipulation by being effusively thankful and cheerfully awe-struck at God’s grace.
2. Use your gifts to bless others. You have been blessed to be a blessing. You have been elevated in order that you might elevate others. Don’t tighten your fist on your gifts or hoard your success but use it as a way to extend the grace you’ve been given. Jesus did not grasp equality with God and was therefore elevated to the highest place and given a name that is above every other name. His first act after receiving this glorious name is to offer it to us free of charge. He is enthroned at the right hand of God Almighty and then invites us up to sit in his chair with him. Go and do likewise.
3. Recognize that if you’re successful in cultivating humility and gratitude and contentment and generosity in your success, it will likely enrage the envious even more. Apart from their repentance, that’s all it can do. So don’t be surprised if your humility and gratitude amidst success causes the envious to rage against you, to slander you, to gossip behind your back, to dismiss your successes, to poison others against you. When they do, rejoice, for so they did to Jesus as well. Matthew 27:18 tells us that the Jewish leaders delivered Jesus over to be crucified out of envy.
4. Cultivate a community that is on the lookout for envy. Have your antennae up for friends who are envying other friends. When you see the carping, the griping, or the grumbling, have the courage to bring it up, especially if it’s not about you.

Let me close with the title of my sermon—Learning to Love the Dance of Grace—by reflecting on a short passage from John the Baptist. The disciples of John the Baptist come to him with words that seem tailor-made to provoke envy and resentment. “Rabbi, he who was with you across the Jordan, to whom you bore witness—look, he is baptizing, and all are going to him” (John 3:26). This is John’s Saul moment: “John has baptized thousands, and Jesus his ten thousands.” John’s response is worth its weight in envy-fighting gold.

First, he remembers where all blessing, success, and opportunity comes from. “A person cannot receive even one thing unless it is given him from heaven” (3:27). I still remember, as a college student, hearing J.R. Vassar preach from this passage and say, “Don’t seek an achieved ministry. Seek a received ministry.” Don’t seek an achieved family. Seek a received family. We kill envy when we remember that whether we succeed or whether someone else does is ultimately given from the God who reigns from heaven. We kill envy when we know in our bones that we have nothing that we have not received (1 Cor 4:7). 

Second, John remembers his role. He is the friend of the Bridegroom, the groomsman, not the Bridegroom himself. And the groomsmen rejoice greatly when they hear the voice of the Groom. Now most of us aren’t jockeying to replace the Bridegroom. But we sometimes act like we’re in a competition to be the best man (or the maid of honor). Which is why it’s so important to labor to rejoice greatly when we hear the Bridegroom’s voice in the voices of our fellow groomsmen or see the Bridegroom’s presence in the blessings of others. What are we saying about our joy in Christ if our reaction to his presence and hand on a fellow brother or sister is to grumble, complain, or dismiss him? We need less Miraz (who couldn’t imagine two kings ruling at one time) and more Narnian moles, who gladly embrace their role in Aslan’s plan and don’t envy those who have been given a different position.

Finally, John’s joy is complete when the Bridegroom arrives and surpasses him. Where Christ increases, John is content to decrease. But are we? Are we content to decrease, when Christ increases through the ministry of another? Parents, are you eager for your children to surpass you? Fathers, are you eager for your sons to become wiser than you because you have established the gospel in their lives at an earlier age and therefore they are growing by leaps and bounds? Are you threatened by the success of your children?

This is the call for us, to enter this dance of grace. God is the initiator in this dance. He is the Lead Partner. He gives wisely, purposefully, lavishly, and unequally, and then we are called to enter the dance, receive gladly whatever we’ve been given, and trust that there will be more to come in the future.

The most important thing you can do to fight envy is to cultivate a heart of gratitude and faith. Gratitude is the posture of the soul that is receptive to all that God is supplying in the past and in the present. Faith is believing all of the promises of God four our future. Gratitude for past and present grace in our lives and in the lives of others, and faith in the future grace that God is bringing to us and to others, knowing that eye has not seen, ear has not hear what God has prepared for those who love him.