In our flesh is a gnawing to gratify our every desire, even at the expense of others. What I believe is an asset to me, if without, becomes a loss or a handicap. And I don’t want to be handicapped, I don’t want loss, I don’t want to have less, be less, or be unfulfilled. If I am unfulfilled, then I am hungry. I am hungry to make full what is uncomfortably empty.
Herein lies the problem. We believe we are empty or know we are empty, and we believe our emptiness becomes full from this world’s offerings. The world offers you recognition because your emptiness makes you feel like a nobody, like you’re not even there, just an apparition. The world offers you pleasures because your emptiness longs to be dulled, to be forgotten for just a moment. It offers you security, or surety, to make you believe the recognition and pleasures will remain. The world offers to fill your hunger for your every desire that you be not empty.
I think much the reason we should practice fasting is wrapped up in these things. When Jesus fasted and was tempted for forty days in the wilderness, the devil offered Him, “All the kingdoms of the world,” and with it, “All this domain and its glory (Luke 4:5-6).” Note, not the glory which Jesus already had for all eternity being God, but specifically the glory from this world. The devil offered Him all the recognition and power in and for this crooked world. If that was not bad enough, Satan gave Jesus the prerequisite that He must worship him. Of course, Jesus knew better and reminded the devil of the word of God that says, “You shall worship the Lord your God and serve Him only (Lk. 4:8).” Jesus didn’t need the world’s recognition.
The devil tempted Jesus with security. “And he led Him to Jerusalem and had Him stand on the pinnacle of the temple, and said to Him, ‘If You are the Son of god, throw Yourself down from here; for it is written, He will command His angels concerning You to guard You, and, On their hands they will bear You up, so that You will not strike Your foot against a stone (vv.10-11).” But Jesus knew of His ever-present security, even that which is from the Father while Jesus was on earth. He could respond simply with, “You shall not put the Lord your God to the test (v.12).”
Though, before these two temptations it was, “If You are the Son of God, tell this stone to become bread (v.3).” Certainly, Jesus was hungry having fasted for forty days. Still, He responded with, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God (Matthew 4:4).” It is here that the other answers to the other temptations find their place. It is here that our answer to our craving to be fulfilled is found. And it is here that jealousy, specifically the jealousy for vain fulfillment, is forgotten.
Jealousy is concerned about what is gained in this world. It reveals selfishness on the surface but foundationally it is constructed with a great concern for this world and each our kingdom, rather than Jesus and the inheritance of His kingdom. Jealousy is built by the idea that what I find in this world and what I can gain in this world is the answer to my significance, my joy, and my security – my anxious grapple for these things. I become jealous when I see someone with something that causes me to recognize my void.
It is not only relating to the possession of a thing or object, but it is too the possession of skills, talents, accomplishments, relationships (or the peculiarities of), recognition, etc. It can be quite literally the possession of anything; whatever might describe the details of someone’s life. I notice someone with the quality to speak in such a way to capture the audience with adoration and so I become jealous because I can’t do that. And because I can’t do that I think, “If only I could do that, I could be adored, well-liked, and looked up to,” because I want to be recognized and this is my answer. This is my answer to fill what is dry, empty, and dying inside.
How about the realization that someone has done a good thing for a person I longed to help, the very thing I wanted to do. Now, I can’t be recognized as the helping hand that comes with the glory, praise, and adoration for being so kind, diligent, thoughtful, and skillful in my work. Never mind the person I longed to help is helped. What matters is the painful emptiness hurrying to be filled.
When we try to fill that emptiness with the world, rather than Christ, we will always be anxiously and in vain trying to fill ourselves. God described this of His own people in Jeremiah 2:13, where He says, “For My people have committed two evils: they have forsaken Me, the fountain of living waters, to hew for themselves cisterns, broken cisterns that can hold no water.” Like trying to fill a broken cistern with water, we too, attempt to fill our broken and sinful hearts with the pleasures of this world. Those pleasures vanish through the cracks and only satisfy, teasingly, as they scratch the surface on the way down.
It shouldn’t be a surprise this issue was present with the recipients of James’ letter in Scripture. I don’t think this issue escapes any of us. We see James address it with, “But if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your heart, do not be arrogant and so lie against the truth. This wisdom is not that which comes down from above, but is earthly, natural, demonic. For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there is disorder and every evil thing” (James 3:14-16). Note that bitter jealousy and selfish ambition are used together to describe this earthly sort of wisdom. That is because selfish ambition, as I have been saying, breathes the fire of bitter jealousy.
James makes this further evident with, “What is the source of quarrels and conflicts among you? Is not the source your pleasures that wage war in your members? You lust and do not have; so you commit murder. You are envious and cannot obtain; so you fight and quarrel. You do not have because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, so that you may spend it on your pleasures. You adulteresses, do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God” (James 4:1-4).
See that James makes clear what these Christians are displaying is a broken cistern. But if they call themselves Christians, they are no longer broken! And so as he said in verse fourteen, “Do not be arrogant and so lie against the truth.” But as it was, they bore the reality that jealousy, quarrels, conflicts, and disorder were the fruit of the selfishness and lust for the pleasures of this world. No one, not even their fellow brothers and sisters in Christ would keep them from filling that void.
How contrary to the fruit of the Spirit, of the Spirit of God, is this? It is the polar opposite. The polar opposite says, “And the seed whose fruit is righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace” (James 3:18). That is because the fruit of righteousness, the fruit born of Christ and His Spirit, tastes, looks, and smells of devotion to one another; not selfishness. It honors one another, loves one another, edifies, cares, serves, carries the burdens, submits, esteems, encourages, and prays for one another (Rom. 12:10; 2 John 5; Rom. 14:19; 1 Cor. 12:25; Gal. 5:13, 6:2; Eph. 4:32; 1 Pet. 5:5; James 5:16).
The fruit of the Spirit is not jealousy in anything towards one another. The fruit of the Spirit seeks and takes pleasure in the lifting up of one another because as the body of Jesus Christ, when each other is lifted up, He is lifted up. Do you love the exultation of Christ? Do you love when the One who created all things, who gives you all things, who loved you so much that He humbled Himself to die in your place, is raised and exulted to the highest place? That needs to be mine and your desire. The sin present with us has such a great desire of its own to say something, anything, is mine; my power, my talent, my work, my pleasure, my glory. And God nor anyone else is going to prevent me of mine.
Do you love the exultation of Christ?
Nor do we have to be jealous of those outside the church. Do you believe that Jesus Christ is everything for you? Or do you believe your worth, recognition, security, and satisfaction is being able to say, “Look what I have! This is mine and so heap your praise upon me!” Of course, for anything to belong to a sole person without the hand of God is impossible. Therefore, for anyone to claim such a thing is a lie and can only be a lie.
Jealousy looks at another and says they have what I want. Let me tell you what God tells you; no, they don’t. They too only have what God can give. Rather, rejoice with them because God is good and their gift points to that. In jealousy we forget or don’t know that all things are already ours in Christ. All things. That was Paul’s point to the Corinthians when he said, “So then let no one boast in men. For all things belong to you, whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or things present or things to come; all things belong to you, and you belong to Christ; and Christ belongs to God” (1 Cor. 3:21-23).
So, rejoice with one another. When you see someone, especially your brothers and sisters in Christ, possess something glorious and favorable, glorify God because of it. Be happy and joyful with and for them. And then be comforted and at peace, knowing you are no longer a broken cistern. The longing to be filled is what breeds jealousy, but you are restored and full of what God calls living water.
-Pastor Ben