Envy: Why Comparison Is Killing You (EP 203)

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Side effects may include allergic reactions, neck and injection site pain, fatigue, and headache. Allergic reactions can include rash, welts, asthma symptoms, and dizziness. Don't receive Botox if there's a skin infection. Tell your doctor your medical history. Muscle or nerve conditions, including ALS Lou Gehrig's disease, myasthenia gravis or Lambert-Eaton syndrome, and medications, including botulinum toxins, as these may increase the risk of serious side effects. Why wait? Ask your doctor, visit BotoxChronicMigraine.com or call 1-800-44-BOTOX to learn more. What's going on, guys? Welcome back to another episode of the Bryce Crawford Podcast. I'm Bryce, and today we are talking about the most miserable, the most destructive sin that oftentimes gets confused with another. We are talking about envy today. If you have your Bibles, we're going to be all over the place. We're going to be talking about envy. Now, a lot of the times, people put envy and jealousy kind of together because they're kind of similar a little bit, but we're going to define envy, what that looks like, and how to avoid it. Envy at the core is the sadness at the blessings of another. So if you are envious, you are sad at the blessings of another person. For example, to be envious would be sad because you are happy, or vice versa would be I'm happy because you're sad. Thomas Aquinas wants to find envy as sorrow for another's good. And you see, the reason why this is the most destructive and the most miserable sin is because you can't see it. It's just like pride. It's actually kind of coincident. Isn't it kind of crazy how the seven deadly sins, according to Proverbs 6, you got lust, pride, greed, envy, all of these things oftentimes tend to be sins that you don't see upon yourself, but it's easy to spot in other people. And I believe that's why one of the reasons why this one is the most miserable, but another reason why envy is so miserable is because it actually hurts and harms you. What does Proverbs 14.30 say about envy? Proverbs 14.30 says that envy rots the bones. Envy affects your soul. It affects your heart. It affects your friendships. It affects the people around you and ultimately affects you mentally and physically and emotionally. Envy has none of your best interests at heart, although it may seem so because you're like sad because someone has something that you don't. Oh, I'm sad because this person is blessed in this area. Now there's a difference between like admiration and envy, right? You can admire someone. You know, that's one of the reasons why we pray for things, right? Because there are things that we necessarily want. So is all ambition bad? Not necessarily. But what envy is saying is saying, I am sad because God has blessed you or I'm happy because you're sad and you're affected and harmful. So what does this look like? Well, we know that envy rots the bones. It brings decay. It brings destruction. It brings disorder. It brings harm. It brings all of these different things. But when you read Matthew chapter star, chapter seven, what does Jesus say about envy? Amongst other things, he talks about envy. He talks about a lot of other different things. And Mark chapter seven, this is what Jesus says in Mark chapter seven, um, verses 21 through 23 for from within out of the heart of man comes evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, covening, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness, all these evil things come from within and they defile a person. Envy is a heart issue. You know what envy reveals about you? It reveals that you're not content with God. So you're trying to find contentment in other things. And let me tell you something. Isn't that exactly what sin is? Sin is trying to find contentment in other things than in Jesus. And what, where, where are you left off when you've tried to find satisfaction, significance, and security everywhere else, but in Jesus, you're left hopeless, despair, and rotting just like Proverbs 14 says envy does. So envy is a heart issue. There's not a logical mathematical formula you can conjure up. That's going to conquer envy in your life. When's the last time that you thought to yourself, man, am I being envious right now? Am I happy at someone else's demise? Am I sad at someone else's exaltation? What does the Bible say about honor? First, you must be humbled. Then you will be exalted. Yet we want the exaltation, the honor, the respect, and the love of God. We want to be exalted. We want to be in the blessings without being crushed. We want things that other people have. You know what? Instead of being envious of other people, the number one way, the number one way you can fight envy is gratitude. First Corinthians 13 defines love as being patient, kind, and love does not envy or boast. So if you want to fight envy, be grateful the blessings that you have. Be grateful that God trusts you with certain things and trusts other people with other things, because you might be envious for the very thing that we have. So if you want to fight envy, be grateful for the things that we have. If you want to fight envy, be grateful for the things that we have. crush you if God allowed that thing in your life. And you're envious of another person's blessings thinking that that thing is what's best for your life. And what envy just did is it just revealed a trust issue in your heart and a contentment issue in your heart because you're lacking trust in God and lacking contentment in God thinking you know what's best for your life. And so envy is a heart issue. The core of envy is a heart. And we're seeing that contentment in Jesus, contentment where God has you, contentment with what God has trusted you with. If you're battling that, you might be struggling with envy. And to be honest, the only way to move forward from anything, envy, pride, lust, anything is getting honest with yourself. We have to get honest with ourselves because envy is birthed in a restless heart. And you will always be unsettled chasing envy when envy is fueling the thing that you think is going to happen to you. And so envy is a heart. And if I have this thing, then I'm going to feel better. Envy is going to lead you to your demise because it creates a restless heart. Envy is creating a restless heart that does not find God satisfying. So if you're sad at someone else's blessings, the blessings of another, or if you're happy because of someone else's demise, you might not be content with God. You might be trying to find contentment in a whole lot of other places than Jesus. Hey, real quick, before we keep going, I want to tell you something. I want to tell you something. I want to tell you I have an announcement I've been really excited to make. I'm officially announcing our ministry's biggest live event ever, Open Heaven. It's happening Sunday, November 8th, 2026 at 7.30pm at the Pavilion at Toyota Music Factory in Irving, Texas. This is going to be a night centered around worship, faith, and genuine community. All of us together in one room encountering God in person. There's going to be live worship and really special moments throughout the night. Tickets are on sale right now. Head to BryceCrawford.org slash tour or click the link in the description below to grab your ticket. I'll see you in the next one. Bye. and please only buy through my official site or that link. Do not buy from random resellers online. A lot of them are scams. I genuinely believe this is going to be a night people carry with them for a long time. I would love to see you there. All right, back to the episode. Look at what happened to King Saul. King David, he defeats Goliath, is anointed king, and he goes into the street. And what do the women say about King Saul? They're like, King Saul slayed the armies in the thousands, but King David in the ten thousands. What has taken Saul decades? The Lord put his hand on David, and David did in a moment. And it said from that moment, Saul had envy in his heart. He was sad at the blessings of David. And what did that lead to? That led to trying to kill David. That led to a lot of struggle. That led to a lot of strife. That led to a lot of hatred. All because he was envious of where God wanted to put his hand. You know, one of the hardest things to do is to put his hand on David. And that's what we're about ministry that I've seen. Ever since I became a believer at 17, I kind of started being a part of ministry when I was 17, was there were a lot of older leaders that were afraid of Gen Z coming alongside and being risen up by God and God using Gen Z. They were afraid of it. So instead of passing the baton, they would hold on to the baton and die with the baton. And it was like they didn't want to see the next generation run harder. You see, what gratitude will do and contentment with the Lord will do will make all your hardships and all your revelations be the foundations of the next generation coming up so that the people after you don't have to make the same mistakes and take just as long or longer that it took you to accomplish certain things because you're content with God and God's will and God's plan and what God wants to do in the world and through people's lives rather than what you want to do. Envy is about building your kingdom. Contentment of God is about building his. Where are you at? And we see that with Moses. Moses is getting ready to die. Did he make a mistake? Yeah, he got frustrated God and hit a rock and God was like, all right, you're not entering the promised land. But Moses looked at Joshua and passed. He passes the baton to Joshua and says, Joshua, you're going to lead them into the promised land, and he does. And so we need to be willing not to grow an envious heart, but to pass the baton to people next to us, to friends, to loved ones, to generations that are coming after us, to say, no, I'm believing in what God has trusted you with. I'm believing in what God has put in your heart. I'm trusting in that. Envy created the first sin. You know what happened? You can be in paradise and still have envy. I love what Gavin Ortland says about envy. He says that envy can turn heaven into a worse hell. And what I mean by that, Adam and Eve are in paradise, and yet Satan's like, yeah, but you still aren't God. Isn't that crazy how that envious seed of doubt created the fall of mankind? That has led to our fall. Fallen human natures today. Oh, you thought that was the only part of envy at the beginning of the Bible? Okay, let's go one chapter later. Envy created, envy encouraged the first murder ever recorded in human history. Cain killed Abel because he was envious that God was pleased with Abel's offering and not his. So envy birthed the fall of mankind? Well, yeah, you're in paradise when you're in the garden. You're walking in communion with God, but you're not God. One chapter later, envy encouraged the first murder in the garden. So what does this look like to battle envy? Gratitude, like we said earlier. Thanksgiving isn't just a holiday. It is a weapon against sin and envy. Because when you count your small blessings and count your big blessings, you are grateful that God has placed certain things, in other people's lives, and God has placed certain things in your life, whether it's for a season or for a lifetime or for a moment, whatever it may be. You are grateful that the body of Christ is a body and not one person, and that we all work together and not fight against each other. Because envy breeds deceit, restlessness, and rots the bones, like Proverbs 30 says. And we must flee from it and stay away from envy. And so I want to pray, and what you should be praying daily, is God, help me find contentment in you. The questions we should be asking ourselves is, where's my satisfaction? Where's my significance? Where do I find security? And if it's in anything else but Jesus, then we need to ask God to create contentment in your heart. Lord Jesus, we thank you for today, God. We thank you that what you've done on the cross is enough. You are enough. You are the prize. We don't want heaven. Because we want a mansion, or because we want things. We want heaven because of you. We want you. We want to be with you. In fact, we get you the moment we put faith and trust in you, Lord. You are so good. God, we love you so desperately. We appreciate you. We glorify you. We magnify you. God, would you root any envy out of our hearts currently? God, would you guard our hearts against envy? May we celebrate and honor people for what you have trusted them with and what you are doing in their lives, rather than us growing weary and envious and it rotting our hearts. May we be filled with your love and your love for us.