Channelview, Texas is a neat middleclass suburb of Houston. It is a typical bedroom community of nice homes, nice cars, and nice families. Competition is fierce in all sports, but recently the competition got more than a little intense—not in football or in basketball, but in cheerleading.
Amber Heath and Shanna Holloway lived right around the corner from each other. They had been friends for years. Amber was president of the Student Council and Shanna was Vice President. Their mothers were also wonderful friends. The girls both went to the same private Christian school, and the moms would even take turns driving those kids to school. Everything was fine between the two families until the sixth grade. That's when Amber beat out Shanna for cheerleader.
The two girls had always competed against each other, but Amber had been competing in beauty contests since she was four, and she always seemed to get the edge over Shanna. Shanna's mom, who attended a local evangelical church several times a week, and, in fact, was the church organist, began to resent the pattern of her daughter consistently losing out to Amber.
She even tried unsuccessfully to get Amber disqualified from the cheerleading competition by invoking a technicality in the rules. One year she showed up at school the day students were voting for cheerleader candidates, and handed out rulers and pencils bearing the slogan, "Shanna Holloway—cheerleader." But as a result of her mother's actions, Shanna was disqualified.
Finally, Shanna's mother could take it no longer. She allegedly tried to hire a hit man to kill both Amber and her mother. Trying to find someone to do it, she mentioned it to her former brother-in-law, who notified the police, who wired an officer who posed as the hit man. According to the tape recording the hit man told her that he would kill the mother for $5000 and the daughter for $2500.
Mrs. Holloway couldn't come up with that much money in cash, so she gave the "hit man" a pair of diamond earrings as a down-payment for killing just the mother. She was arrested for solicitation of capital murder and sentenced to 15 years in jail, though she later got off after only six months on a technicality.1
As shocking a story as it is, it was what has been called "the green-eyed monster"—jealousy—that made a monster out of this mother.
Proverbs 27:4 says, "Wrath is cruel and anger a torrent, but who is able to stand before jealousy?" One of the most destructive emotions of all is jealousy. Shakespeare called it "the green-eyed monster." John Dryden called jealousy "the jaundice of the soul."
Did you know that jealousy crucified Jesus? Mt. 27:18 says that Pilate had Jesus delivered over to be crucified "for he knew they had handed Him over because of envy." The first murder in recorded human history was when Cain killed his brother Abel, and it was all because of jealousy.
Jealousy does kill. It kills marriages, it kills friendships, and it kills families. One of Satan's biggest weapons to turn blessing into bitterness is the curse of jealousy. There is an ancient fable that Satan's emissaries were trying to tempt a holy man who lived in the Libyan Desert to sin. But try as they might, they could not get him to do it. Nothing would take away the joy in his heart.
Angered by their failure, Satan stepped forward and said, "Let me show you how to do it." He whispered in the holy man's ear: "Your brother has just been made bishop of Alexandria." Instantly, a malignant scowl clouded the holy man's face and his joy was gone. Satan said, "Jealousy is our final weapon for those who seek holiness."
Jealousy is indeed a powerful terrible monster, but you can slay it if you will use the right strategy.
I. Confront the Problem of Jealousy
Listen again to Proverbs 27:4 in Eugene Petersen's The Message: "We're blasted by anger, and swamped by rage, but who can survive jealousy?" Jealousy is a real problem that everyone must face and everyone must fight at some time or another. Jealously and envy are very close and almost synonymous, but there's a slight difference. Jealousy is when you have all that you ought to have, but you still want what someone else has. Envy is when you want something someone else has that you don't have. They may not be twin brothers, but they are definitely kissing cousins.
It's so easy to be jealous in an instant. Just think about how following situations can make a person jealous:
Your classmate makes the football team, but you don't.
Your colleague gets the promotion at work, but you don't.
Your neighbor buys a bigger home, but you can't.
Your friend drives a nice car that you can't afford.
You meet a more beautiful thinner woman, or a more handsome charming man.
It can even happen to a pastor who hears a better preacher, or visits a bigger church.
In fact, I want to be honest. One of the greatest problems we pastors face is the problem of jealousy. We are so enamored with size we think that a person who has a bigger church must have a better church, though it's really not true—bigger is not necessarily better, and the grass is not always greener.
I heard about a pastor who was visiting the mental institution and there was a man who was banging his head up against the wall. He said, "What is wrong with that guy?" He said, "Oh, he's the Baptist preacher who wanted to go to the First Baptist Church, but another man got it."
He then went to the next door and there was a man in a straight jacket beating his head against the wall. He said, "Who is that?" He said, "That was the pastor that was called to the First Baptist Church."
But jealousy is not only a problem in the pulpit, it is also a problem in the pew. There is even jealousy between churches of one church toward another. There is even denominational jealousy, where entire denominations may be jealous of another denomination because the other denomination is growing but theirs is not. It can happen. There was a member of a Baptist family who died while the pastor was out of town, and the family asked the local Methodist minister if he would conduct the funeral. He said he would have to check with his bishop. So he wired the bishop and said, "Is it all right for me to bury a Baptist?" The bishop wired back and said, "Sure, bury all the Baptists you can!"
Jealousy happens so often we begin to compare ourselves with others. We compare our house to their house, our car to their car, our paycheck to their paycheck, and when that happens you get in trouble. You then begin to think of yourself as less than what you really are.
Two cows were grazing in a pasture when they saw a milk truck pass by. On the side of that truck were the words: "Pasteurized, Homogenized, Standardized, Vitamin A Milk." With jealousy, one cow looked at the other one and said, "It makes you feel sort of inadequate doesn't it?" Well, that's exactly what jealousy does.
II. Consider the Poison of Jealousy
Shakespeare also spoke of jealousy as "a poison more deadly than a mad dog's tooth." That is interesting because Prov. 14:30 says, "A sound heart is life to the body; but envy is rottenness to the bones." Now think about what he said. He says, jealousy is "rottenness to the bones." Bones are on the inside of you. Jealousy is a corrosive that will rot you from the inside out and destroy you.
I read the story about two shopkeepers who were bitter rivals. Their stores were directly across the street from each other, and they would spend every day keeping track of each other's business. If one got a customer the other would smile real big and wave at his rival across the street.
One night an angel appeared to one of the shopkeeper's in a dream and said, "I'll give you anything you ask, but whatever you receive your competitor will receive twice as much. Do you want to be rich? You can be rich, but he'll be twice as wealthy. Do you want to live a long and healthy life? You can, but his life will be twice as long and twice as healthy. So what is your desire?"
The man frowned, thought for a moment, and said, "Here is my request: Strike me blind in one eye!" Well, as we have already seen with Mrs. Holloway, jealousy will cause you to burn down your house to kill a rat.
Incidentally, many many times criticism is the outward symptom of an inward problem of jealousy. I read this past week something interesting. Studies have repeatedly found that we tend to attribute our own successes to positive internal traits such as ability and effort; and our failures to external factors outside of our control.
But on the other hand, we tend to attribute the successes of others to "luck," and their failures to inability, lack of perseverance, or some other personal shortcoming. In other words, we blame our own failings on the situation, while taking credit for our successes, but we blame others failings on their personal attributes while discrediting their successes.2 Why do we have that tendency? It is all because of jealousy.
I tell you again, jealousy is a poison that will absolutely destroy your life. The upas tree grows in Indonesia. It secretes poison and grows so full and so thick that it kills all the vegetation that grows up underneath it. In other words, it does give shelter and it does give shade, but it winds up destroying.
Jealousy is the upas tree of life. It may give you comfort to put other people down because of your jealousy. It may give you shelter in shade from the fact that you have not been able to accomplish perhaps what others have been able to accomplish, or accumulate what they have been able to accumulate. But in the end it will poison you through and through.
The real problem with jealousy is it will rob you of the peace that you ought to have in your heart with the blessings of God in your own life. Instead of being happy for the other person whom God has blessed, you become suspicious or resentful or even angry.
I want to share with you a story you'll never forget. There were once two men both seriously ill in the same small room of a great hospital. It was a very small room, just large enough for the pair of them; two beds, two bedside lockers, a door opening on the hall, and one window looking out on the world. One of the men, as part of his treatment, was allowed to sit up in bed for an hour in the afternoon, and his bed was next to the window.
One of the disadvantages of their condition was that they weren't allowed much to do; no reading, no radio, no television; they just had to keep quiet and still in order to be cured. They used to talk for hours and hours—about their wives, their children, their homes, their hobbies, etc. Every afternoon when the man in the bed next to the window was propped up for his hour, he would pass the time by describing what he could see outside. Well, the other man began to live for those hours.
The window apparently overlooked a park with a lake where there were ducks and swans; children throwing them bread and sailing model boats, flying kites; young lovers walking hand-in-hand beneath the trees. There were flowers, green grass, games of softball and volleyball; people lying out in the sunshine picnicking and reading. All behind it was a fine view of the skyline of the city.
Well, the man on his back would listen to all of this and enjoying every minute, and just loved being told about the beautiful outdoors and all that was going on outside. In fact, it got to the place that in his mind's eye he could almost see what was happening out there.
Then one afternoon there was a parade outside and as this man was describing the parade the thought struck him: "Why should the man next to the window have all the pleasure of seeing what was going on? Why shouldn't he get the chance?" At first he felt ashamed, but the more he thought about it, the more angry he became, and the more he wanted to change the situation.
In a few days he had turned totally sour; he ought to be by the window. He brooded and couldn't sleep and grew even more seriously ill, which none of the doctors could understand.
One night as he stared at the ceiling the other man (the one next to the window) suddenly woke up coughing and choking; the fluid congesting in his lungs; his hands groping for the button that would bring the night nurse running, but he couldn't find it. The other man could have helped him, but he didn't make a move, he just watched. The coughing racked the darkness—on and on—choked the man off and then stopped. The man quit breathing and died while the other man just continued to stare at the ceiling.
The next morning the day nurse came in with water for their baths and found the other man dead. They took away his body and as soon as they came back, the man asked if he could be moved to the bed next to the window? They moved him, tucked him in, made him quite comfortable and left him alone to be quiet and still.
Excitedly, the minute they had gone he propped himself up on one elbow to look out the window only to find that it faced a blank wall.
Jealousy is a poison that will rob you of the blessings that God has given to you.
III. Conquer the Power of Jealousy
I believe the key to overcoming this green-eyed monster is Phil. 4:11, "Not that I speak in regard to need, for I have learned in whatever state I am, to be content." If you believe you are where God wants you to be; if you believe you are who God wants you to be; if you believe you have what God wants you to have, then you have no reason to ever be jealous of what someone else has; of who someone else is; or where somewhere else is.
Do you know what jealousy really is? It is rebellion against God's providential leading in your life. If you're jealous, what you are saying is, God has no right to bless someone else more than He has blessed you.
I wish we could all be like Moses. Moses was a man of God, and God had multiplied his ministry in the lives of seventy elders who were given the gift of prophecy. Two of those elders, Eldad and Medad, were particularly gifted and began to prophesy in the camp. A young man came running to Moses and told him the news. Joshua said to Moses, "Moses, my lord, forbid them!" Listen to what Moses said, "Are you jealous for my sake? Oh, that all the Lord's people were prophets and that the Lord would put His Spirit upon them!" (Numbers 11:26-29) Moses knew how to rejoice in the success of other people.
You know we all need to ask God to give us the ability to say "amen!" in another man's revival. Someone has well written:
It is a good test to the rise and fall of egotism to notice how you listen to the praises of other men of your own standing. Until you can listen to the praises of someone else without any desire to indulge in detraction, or any attempt to belittle his work, you may be sure there is an un-mortified prairie of egotistic impulse in your nature yet to be brought under the grace of God.3
I am convinced that the antidote to jealousy is contentment; to be satisfied with what you have, who you are, and where you are. There is a story of a rich industrialist who would drive by a fisherman everyday who was sitting lazily beside his boat. He would wave to the fisherman, but the fisherman would barely acknowledge him.
Finally, one day he pulled over to the side of the road and got out and walked over to the man and said, "You barely speak to me—I bet it's because you're jealous of me." The man said, "Oh no, I'm not jealous. The only reason I barely speak to you is because I just have my mind on other things." He said, "Well, why aren't you out there fishing?" He said, "Because I've caught enough fish for today."
The man said, "Well, why don't you catch more fish than you need?" The fisherman said, "What would I do with them?" He said, "Well, you could earn more money, buy a better boat, go deeper and catch more fish. You could purchase nylon nets and catch even more fish, make more money, and soon you would have a whole fleet of boats like I do, and you would be rich like me and never even have to worry about being jealous."
The fisherman said, "But I don't ever have a problem with being jealous." He said, "Besides that, if I did everything you said and wound up as rich as you are, then what would I do?" The rich man said, "Well, then you could sit down and enjoy life." The fisherman looked at him and said, "What do you think I do every day?"
There is nothing that will slay the green-eyed monster like being satisfied with who you are, where you are, what you have, and thankful to God He has blessed you more than you deserve.
1. www.sweetiedarling.com/pages/deathcheer.html
2. Cited by Dennis McCallum, The Death of Truth, p. 158.
3. Charles R. Swindoll, Living on the Ragged Edge, p. 214.
