New Heights Church

How do I react to the success of others?

There are things that people can do that I do not envy.

“I envied Scott Ridout”

1. It’s the sin no one will confess
2. It’s a sin with no redeeming qualities
3. It’s a sin that makes us believe the worst about others

“Envy is unhappiness at the success of others and pleasure at the suffering of others. When we envy, we’re sad when others are glad and glad when they are sad.”

- We secretly regret that our friends have succeeded where we have not.
- We use excuses to explain why someone else did better than us.
- We temper our compliments with the word “but.”
- We secretly get excited when someone else fails because “they had it coming to them.”
- When we can’t sincerely rejoice with others on their personal successes.
- We can’t bear to hear our friends complimented in our presence.
- We say “I really like so and so but I want to make sure you have all the facts.”
- We’re better at criticism than we are at praise.

“Lord, if You cannot make me thin, at least make my friends look fat.”

How do I react to the success of others?

1. Identify the real problem
2. Admit it
3. Confess it
4. Pray for the success of those we envy

“If you want to really experience the flow of love as never before, the next time you are in a competitive situation (around work or relationship or whose kids are the highest achieving or looks or whatever), pray that the others around you will be more outstanding, more praised, and more used of God than yourself. Really pull for them and rejoice in their success. If Christians were universally to do this for each other, the earth would soon be filled with the knowledge of the glory of God.”
-Dallas Willard

1. Identify the real problem
2. Admit it
3. Confess it
4. Pray for the success of those we envy
5. Get into real Community…the antidote to social media – specifically Instagram and Facebook

“When I look at everyone else’s lives on social media I just feel like I’m missing out.”

“My life looks better on the Internet than it does in real life. Everyone’s life looks better on the internet than it does in real life. The Internet is partial truths—we get to decide what people see and what they don’t. That’s why it’s safer short term. And that’s why it’s much, much more dangerous long term.
Because community—the rich kind, the transforming kind, the valuable and difficult kind—doesn’t happen in partial truths and well-edited photo collections on Instagram. Community happens when we hear each other’s actual voices, when we enter one another’s actual homes, with actual messes, around actual tables telling stories that ramble on beyond 140 pithy characters.
Let’s choose community. Let’s stop comparing. Let’s start connecting.”
- Shauna Nyquist

1. Identify the real problem
2. Admit it
3. Confess it
4. Pray for the success of those we envy
5. Get into real Community…the antidote to social media – specifically Instagram and Facebook
6. Be like Jonathan

“…by the grace of God I am what I am”. - 1 Corinthians 15:10

1. Anointed- Chosen and especially empowered by God