ANGER + ENVY = MURDER | PASTOR ADAM FRENCH

You know, there's a topic that I've never heard preached on. I've actually never heard a sermon in 42 years of my life on this specific topic. The interesting thing is it starts one generation after Adam and Eve, the first people created by God. And it starts with a person named Cain in his brother Abel. Now think about this. One generation removed from the people that God created and we have the first person born of a woman is Cain and Abel, the first people and Cain becomes a murderer. Now interesting thing there is a lot of people don't talk about what's underneath that. Now here's the thing, anger is a secondary emotion. So here's what happens, Cain and Abel, they go out, they work and they present their work. They present their energy, their efforts, which we all can relate to. They present that to God, but it says that God shows favor, right? He accepted them both, he didn't discredit Abel, but he showed favor to Cain. And that one word is what brought on a murder. Now here's what I want you to see is that if you think about the largest, one of the largest mountains that it's been known, I don't have any on the top of my head, but the largest mountains on planet earth are actually in the ocean. And most of them just have a few thousand feet poking out of the surface above the water. The rest of it is beneath the surface. Now that's what happens when we talk about this word, anger. Anger is a secondary emotion. It's our response to something coming in or inside of us that's burning. Now here's what the Bible says. The Bible says when God accepted, right? When he showed favor to Abel and not Cain, it says the Bible says that Cain was furious. Now that's a Hebrew idiom, right? And that word means to burn up. It's like if I said, man, it says cold as ice outside. It's not because you could take actually ice and check the temperature of ice and check

it outside. It's a phrase to describe something, right? The Hebrew idiom there for furious, it literally means to burn up. It says Cain was on fire. He had this, now there's a thing about fire, when it's explosive like that, you can't control it. Big fires out West, right? And everybody's trying to control it, but when a fire gets out of control, you cannot control it. Have you ever tried to go up to a wave and say, and try to stop it? You can't. They keep coming and coming and coming, right? So he had this uncontrollable anger, right? That turned to murder. Now here's what's beneath it and it comes from that word favorite. What's beneath it is envy. So let me show you something here real quick. So pride, pride wants to take somebody and you want to place yourself above them and you want to look down on them and say, oh, I'm better than them. I'm proud of who I am. I'm smart of them. I'm stronger than them. I have this or they just, you know, they have this or whatever. Like you're constantly putting yourself above, right? Well, envy is beneath and looks up and wants to tear someone down, right? And here's what happened. You have pride, you have envy, and then you have resentment. You believe there's been some sort of injustice to get you, right? Can't, can't is saying, listen, I, I should have got the same, I should have got the same favor from God.

I should have got the same thing that he got. Why didn't God do the same thing with what my work, with what he got? Maybe you're sitting here watching right now and you're going, wait a second. How come somebody did the same crime, but they got, they got an easier sentence? How come somebody had the same time, but they got out quicker? How somebody had grew up in the same neighborhood, but they had different family members. You see what I'm saying? Like we always want to, we want to compare. We want to feel like we should all get equal, but that's not what we see in Scripture. In Scripture, we don't see equality as far as like economic equality or when it comes to positional equality, right? We have rich. We have poor. We have kings. We have servants. Sometimes, the Lord, like as Job said, the Lord giveth and the Lord take it the way. Blessed be the name of the Lord. So K, God actually says, he says, he says, K, listen, why, why are you, why are you angry? He says, listen, you need to be careful because sin is crouching at your door. You can read this in Genesis chapter 4. I won't read it now for the sake of time, but he says sin is crouching at your door. The word picture there is like a lion that creeps up and he's waiting to pounce. And that's why we have to be very careful with anger. Anger is one of those interesting sins because I don't know of another sin or another type of thing like this or emotion even that can be sinful, but can also be righteous. Scripture says in Mark chapter 5 that Jesus was angry, right? But he didn't sin. He had righteous anger, but you could have an anger and I just believe this, man. Some of us are not afforded the opportunity. how to deal with anger.

So we have to put tools in place to make sure that we work those emotions and those frustrations out so that we don't act out of anger because most times when we act, it's sinful because here's like I said, pride, envy. And then you have this resentment that turns to bitterness and then the final action is malice where we act on that hatred inside. And we like to talk about this as Christians. We definitely like to talk about this as men that were envious of someone, but those emotions comes, those thoughts comes. And immediately when you have that feeling, when you see somebody that's doing really well and your first thought is jealousy or you feel that jealousy and it's just a sinful nature, you can pray that away. You can say, listen, right now instead of being jealous of what I pray that you would help me to celebrate them and start praying for that person, that's a really good sign. If you feel some type of ukiness or some type of ugh, when someone gets something or receives something or wins a game or gets something that you really would like to have and you feel that envy coming on immediately begin to pray. Start praying that away, but also start praying for blessings for them and asking the Lord to transform your heart to love them. There's a great book called Killjoys that talks about anger, talks about pride,

talks about envy, I love the book and I got a lot of material on envy from this. So if you're listening right now and you may say, no, I'm not, I'm not envious of someone. I'm just, I'm just upset at what they got. I would encourage you to take some time. One thing I love about the steps of recovery, whether it be AA, NA, or Celebrate Recovery, is step four and five teaches us, right? Step four teaches you to write out, here's what happened. Here's the exact situation, so-and-so got this and I wish I would have got that, right? And then you explain exactly how that made you feel. And then how that affect your just security, how that affect your daily life. And then what is your part in that? So here's what happens when you do that. One, a couple of things happens. One, you either have to accept that that's just the way it is, accept it for what it is and let go of it, or you need to forgive, or you need to start praying for them so that you can forgive, or you need to look at your part and see where you need to offer forgiveness. That's why I love the fourth and fifth step, 'cause it really helps us take a look and inventory our hearts of these situations. 'Cause if I tell you what, if Cain would have started praying for Abel, if he would have went to his mother and father,

if he would have taken some time and processed all that happened and learned some wisdom from those who maybe had a little bit more information about how life works, we would not have seen the first generation removed from Adam and Eve becoming a murderer. So right now I don't know what's eating your lunch, I don't know what's got you except, I don't know what's got you messed up or excited, but whatever you need to accept, take the time now to start praying for that person, take the time now to write it out and get that in the out of you, 'cause God is calling us to celebrate, encourage each other, we're in a brotherhood, we're a part of a body. I don't complain that my ear can only hear, right? I don't complain that my mouth can only talk, or that my fingers can't see. I'm grateful that my fingers can grab. I'm grateful that my ears can hear, you see what I'm saying? We're a part of the body of Christ. We have kingdom work to take care of. These are fiery darts and distractions for the Lord, for the enemy to try to feel your heart, that's where you gotta guard your heart. They didn't mean it was to feel your heart with things and tear you away from the purpose and plan that God has for you.

So maybe it's bitterness, maybe it's envy, maybe it's already gotten, maybe you're just sitting in anger and frustration and rage, take that, work that back and find out what is the root of that and root that out and give it to God. Thank you again for joining me with a word from the Lord.