 Okay good morning everyone. Welcome to our online students as well. Thank you so much for joining. All right so this is day two of orientation week and we're going to look at the book laying the acts to the root. So yesterday Pastor Jakes took us through laying the acts to the root of self. Today we look at laying the acts to the root of jealousy. So the online students if you have the notes you can please open the notes and just follow along with me. Right even as we go through the class if you have any questions feel free to stop me. Right you can ask questions in between. Okay so laying the acts to the root of jealousy. Now another word for jealousy is envy. Right now when you look at jealousy, jealousy is not always something that is shown outwardly. Right so for example if we get angry on somebody it shows on our face. Right if you're upset it shows when we are happy or we're glad about something it shows on our face. But jealousy is something that is inside just like self and nobody can know other than you. It can be hidden inside our heart. And so jealousy and envy both of them are very dangerous if they're not treated or if it is not cut off from our life. It's like cancer because when cancer is in the body if it's not treated what happens it begins to spread. And jealousy is like that. Right many of us you know we look at jealousy and we say hey this is not so serious. Only if I you know if I have any bad habits then it's a serious sin. Drinking, smoking, pornography these are all bad things. But jealousy is okay nobody knows. But as believers we tend to suppress that. We tend to think okay jealousy is nothing. But the word of God teaches us that jealousy leads us to death. And we look at a few examples later on. What jealousy can do in our lives if it is not treated. If we don't lay the axe to the root okay. The word of God also teaches us to understand how jealousy must be treated. Now we're not saying that none of us will feel jealous. They're human beings right. We will feel jealous. But as believers how can we overcome that thought of jealousy? How can we lay the axe to the root? And that's what we're going to learn in this chapter. Let's read a couple of portions of scripture. Galatians chapter 5 was 19 through 21. Now before I go in there I just want to give you a little bit of background of Galatia. Right now the apostle Paul has gone to Galatia. He started the churches. There are two kinds of people in the church. One are the Jews and the other are the Gentiles. The Jews believe in circumcision. The Gentiles don't want to be circumcised. So two kinds of people. And the Jews are telling the Gentiles you have to be circumcised. So Paul is angry. He writes in the Galatians he says you are foolish Galatians because you're going back to the circumcision. You're going back to the law. Right. And he's sternly rebuking them. Why? Because the Jews were feeling jealous that the Gentiles are in God's kingdom. Right. So after the cross what happened? There is no Jews. There is no Gentiles. There is no rich. There is no poor. All of us are equal in God's eyes. So now the Jews are feeling how can these fellows, these Gentiles come and worship you know God, our God. How can they do them? There's some kind of a jealousy inside. So now Paul is writing Galatians 5 19 through 21. Now the works of the flesh are evident which are adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, idolatry, saucery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, envy, murders, drunkenness, revelries and the like of which I tell you beforehand just as I also told you in the time past that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. Now look at this verse. It is so powerful yet it is so serious. It's saying all of this idolatry is also the hatred, contention, jealousy, wrath. People who have this will not inherit the kingdom of God. So you see how serious Paul is. So what is something that we must learn from this? Jealousy, if we continue to have it, it is going to cause us to come short of getting into the kingdom of God. You and I as believers, when we feel jealous, when there are thoughts of jealousy, we can always go back to the cross. Go back to Jesus and say, Lord, this is my problem. This is how I'm feeling. Cleanse me. Make me holy. There can be jealousy between different people. There can be jealousy between friends, among family members. There can be jealousy between peers, meaning those who work together. There can be jealousy between husband and wife. It sounds, you know, how can it be? But there is and this jealousy can cause big damage in our life if it is not dealt with. Next point, jealousy has to be dealt with. We cannot say, you know, this is something in my life and it's like taking the dust bin or you're taking the dust and putting it under the carpet. We cannot do that. Jealousy has to be dealt with. First Corinthians, chapter 3 and verse 3, for you are still carnal for where there are envy, strife and divisions among you. You are, are you not carnal and behaving like near men? This is a very interesting passage. Now, if you look at the church in Corinthians, the church in Corinth, it is a church where they are speaking in tongues. There is prophecy. There is word of knowledge. There is gift of healing. There is working of miracles. There's all the gifts are flowing in this church. But Paul is telling them, you are still carnal because you are jealous and you envy each other. What does it teach us? Just because I can sing a song, just because I can play the guitar, just because I'm preaching and teaching, just because I'm in ministry or I have the gifts of the spirit doesn't mean that we are not, we are not carnal. Doesn't mean that everything's okay in our life. Right? Are you understanding what I'm saying? Right? So just because I can flow in the gifts of the spirit, the prophetic word of knowledge doesn't mean everything's all right. Paul is talking to the believers here. He's saying, you have all the gifts, but you're still carnal. You're still worldly. And so he says, people who are ruled by the flesh will walk in envy and jealousy. And he goes on in that chapter. He says, but you and I as believers, we are not ruled by the flesh, but we are ruled by the Holy Spirit. We are governed by the Holy Spirit. Right? Philippians chapter one was 15 and 17 was 15. Some indeed preach Christ even from envy and strife and some also from goodwill. But the latter are of love knowing that I am appointed for the defense of the gospel. Again, Paul is saying, some people preach the gospel because of envy and jealousy. It happened in Paul's ministry. So as Paul is becoming famous, his ministry is growing, people are saying, hey, how come this guy is doing all of this? How come he's able to raise the debt? How come he's able to bring healing on people? So what happened was during that time, people came up, new people said, okay, I want to do and I want to become better than him. I want to become better than apostle Paul. You see that in the book of Acts, I think it's Acts 17, when the sons of Scewa, they said, okay, I command these demons that the apostle Paul is preaching. I command in the name of Jesus come out. Why did they do all of that? Because they were jealous, they were envying what apostle Paul was doing. Was there fruit in that? No fruit. Right? So jealousy has to be dealt with. Now, let's look at a few examples in the Bible. Now, on page 25, on what happens, what are the outcomes of jealousy? If it is not dealt with in the initial stages, everyone knows the story of Cain and Abel. The first murder in the Bible happened because of jealousy. Can you believe that? The first murder happened because of jealousy. Genesis chapter four, one through nine talks about the whole thing. Cain and Abel, two brothers, these two brothers were ready to give their sacrifice to God. Cain said, okay, I'll give whatever I have. It wasn't his best, but what did Abel do? He gave his best. God honored the offering of Abel. God accepted the offering of Abel. What happened? The first thing that came to Abel's mind was jealousy. How come God accepted his offering and not my offering? Now, the question to be asked is, whose fault is it? Cain could have given the best from his livestock, but he chose not to give. Abel chose to give what is best from his work and God accepted his offering. There was nothing to be jealous, but jealousy came in. Now, what could have Abel done? I'm sorry, Cain, what could he have done? He said, okay, next time God, I'll give you the best end of story. What happened? Jealousy. God accepted Abel's, not mine. I have to be better than him. I am elder to him. I should be better than him. Jealousy came in. It just came in as a seed into the heart. What happened? He kept thinking about it. He kept watering that seed. It began to grow and it came to a point that I have to get rid of this guy. He forgot the whole aspect that he's his own blood brother. I have to get rid of him. I have to kill him. And we see that consequently Cain kills Abel only because of jealousy. There's nothing to do with, you know, with inheritance. There's nothing to do with anything, just jealousy. Second example is Joseph and his brothers. Jacob had 12 sons, but he loved Joseph the most. We all know the story, right? Genesis 37 talks about it. 12 sons, but he loved Joseph the most. And I'm sure Jacob would have, you know, given special attention to Joseph many times because the elder brothers were more of, you know, go do the hard work, get the things done and come. Joseph was a young boy. So Jacob loved him even more. Now it says here, read the whole story. There was a point when that already the brothers were jealous. They maybe never expressed it. But when his father gave him the quote of many colors, right? To honor Joseph. Joseph went and told his brothers, see what my father has given me? What happened? The jealousy just grew even more. Again, to the point that they wanted to kill Joseph. Again, jealousy. You know, it went to a point of letting go, let willing to kill your own brother. And that's what happened. They were very jealous. They wanted to kill him, but God through his divine wisdom, somehow he was sold as a slave to Egypt and his life was spent. Saul and David, again, wonderful example of jealousy. Saul was the first king of Israel, right? He's a king. Everyone is scared of this huge man named Goliath, Philistine. Everyone is scared of him. You know, if you look at history, history says that there were giants that were living, right? And I'm just giving you know, what we've read over, you know, through internet and through books. History says that these giants would have been at least nine and a half, 10 or above 10 feet tall, well built, huge. Can you picture this? Picture it in your mind. You've got the entire army. Saul has defeated the Moabites. Israel have defeated the Canaanites. They've defeated many armies. Now they've come to Philistine. And this one man is stopping the entire army of Israel. Here comes this small boy, David, and he says, Hey, aren't you all supposed to be fighting and just winning this battle? I said, No, there's a big man, Goliath. We have to fight him. Nobody's willing to go. He says, What do you mean? Nobody's willing to go. I will go. We know the story, right? And he goes there with the two stones. He, with his pebbles, he just defeats Goliath. But here's the interesting part. Israel goes and defeats Philistines. And when they were coming back in their victory march, they started singing, Saul killed thousands. David killed that moment. Jealousy came in. Probably Saul was in his room looking out the window thinking, Oh man, I have defeated the Philistines. And suddenly he's listening to the song. Hey, they're singing, Saul killed thousands. David killed tens of thousands. Jealousy right then and there. The Bible, that moment, that moment Saul was after David to get rid of him, to kill him, that moment. It was not over. Okay, next day, next day, no, from that moment, the moment he heard the song, jealousy came in from that moment, he wanted David out of the way. Now, what could David have done? Sorry, Saul, what could King Saul have done better? What could he have done? Here's something that he could have done. He could have said, Okay, God, anyway, I'm going to die. There will come a time I have to get down from this throne. Now you have chosen David. David has killed Goliath. So what I'll do is I'll bring David. I will train him. I will teach him. Okay, this is the palace. These are the things you should do. And regarding the army, these are the things regarding administration. These are the things you should do. Train him so that when he's young, when he becomes a king, he'll be ready. He could have done it that way, but he didn't. I want to get rid of this fellow. And many places, if we read first Samuel, second Samuel, many places, David, sorry, Saul was after David's life, willing to kill him because of jealousy. It is a simple thing. All he had to do was say, Okay, God, anyway, he's the next leader. Let's train him, get him ready. Eventually, I will die. But if you look at Saul's death, he killed himself. Jealousy leads to death, not just a physical death, but a spiritual death. Imagine this, you're jealous. If we are jealous about somebody else, and we're praying in the Holy Spirit, we're prophesying this word of knowledge, all of those wonderful gifts, but you're jealous about somebody else. What will God say? What will minister? He's gracious. He loves us. But God will pinpoint things in our life. He'll say, this, get it out, remove it from your life. Holy Spirit, he comes to convict us of righteousness. You'll say, get it out. See, God loves us, so he will correct us. Yes, those who are married and who have children, if you love your children, that's why you correct them. If you don't love them, you let them become whatever they are. They'll become monkeys, and you don't want that to happen. You need to correct them. So dealing with jealousy is very important. Saul, the brothers of Joseph and Cain, many other examples in the Bible, they did not deal with the jealousy. But you and I, we have the Holy Spirit, and we can deal with jealousy. It's like dealing with the enemy, saying, devil, you're bringing these thoughts, I rebuke it in Jesus' name. Bringing jealousy, you're bringing anger, you're bringing, I rebuke it in Jesus' name. So the Holy Spirit is there to help us. So how do we deal with jealousy? Most of the time, we try to conceal jealousy. We keep it inside. There's a small box where we keep all those things inside and right in our hearts. It could be pride, it could be self, it could be jealousy, anger, right? You can keep it in our heart. Nobody knows about it. Everyone who meets you will say, praise the Lord, brother. Jaymasikhi. You'll also say Jaymasikhi. But deep in the heart, there is something that box nobody knows. Only you know that box. When you pray, God will remind you of the box. You'll say, Lord, it's okay. Leave that box. See everything else other than the box. When God is saying, no, I don't want to see everything else. I want to see the box. That's why David, why does God say, David is a man after my own heart? Because King David, he made many mistakes, worst mistakes in the Bible he has made. Why does God say he's a man after my own heart? Because his prayer was, God, search my heart and see if there's any inequities. Search my heart. Imagine praying to God today, this morning, saying, Lord Jesus, you search my heart. Other than this aspect, you search everywhere else. We've got to deal with it. There will be corrections. There will be times God will rebuke us. God will bring corrections. He will make us do things we are not comfortable with. We've got to do it. If we don't, it's going to cause death. Manifestations of jealousy, page 27, just a few manifestations of jealousy. The word manifestation means when we are jealous, how is it shown outside? It may not be shown always immediately, but it will eventually be shown. First one, murder. Cain murder, Abel because of jealousy. Let's read Matthew chapter 5 verse 21 and 22. Maybe one of us can read it, if there's a mic here. Matthew 5, 21 and 22. You have here that it was said to those of old, you shall not murder, and whoever murders will be in danger of the judgment. But I say to you that whoever is angry, you shall not murder, and whoever murders will be in danger of the judgment. But I say to you that whoever is angry with his brother, without it cause shall be in danger of the judgment. And whoever says to his brother, Raka shall be in danger of the counsel. But whoever says you fool shall be in danger of hell fire. Now we know the Old Testament had a lot of laws and rules and regulations. But when the Lord Jesus came, He made it even greater. He took it one step higher. In the Old Testament, do not commit sexual immorality. In the New Testament, if you look at a woman with lust, you have committed sexual immorality. In the Old Testament, do not murder. Jesus is saying here, even if you hate your brother or your sister, you're in danger of hell fire, meaning you are a murderer. See what happens here? The Lord Jesus has made it even greater. He's saying here, John 1, John 3, 15, whoever hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him. So we are not called to live a life of jealousy. We're not called to live a life of hatred among each other. Now there are times we may not agree with each other. That's a different story. Of course, we don't agree with other faiths that are there. We don't agree with certain things that are happening around us. Right? But we don't hate them. We cannot hate them. Because what did Jesus do? He says, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. When He didn't hate us, how can we hate people who are around us, our brothers and sisters? They may be from different faiths. It doesn't matter. We cannot hate because the moment we hate somebody, we are a murderer. It's not like we need a knife or a gun only when we kill them. No. So think about this. When we hate our brother and sister, why do you think Jesus said love your neighbor? Is it easy to love your neighbor? If it's easy, come and meet me after class. It's not easy, right? It's not easy at all. But here, the Lord Jesus has raised the bar up. He's saying, even if you hate, you are a murderer. Right? Look at the next one. Outbursts of Anger, Proverbs 6 verse 34. For jealousy is a husband's fury. Therefore, he will not spare in the day of vengeance. Now, jealousy is what provoked people. For example, if you look at a husband and wife, why are most of the times husband and wives or brothers and sisters or family members, why are they fighting with each other? Strange because it's jealousy. I personally know of many, many, many, well-meaning believers who are brothers. They loved each other so much, but now they haven't been talking to each other for 10, 12 years. They come and say, sir, I'm not able, I've not spoken to my brother for 10 years. Why family dispute? What is it? No, my father gave him everything, very little for me. No, it's a genuine thing. There's genuine hurt. But for 10 years, they haven't spoken to each other. Anger, same family born and brought up in the same family, same blood, hatred, anger has caused us. There are times, you know, people have come up to us and said, I wish I didn't say this to my parents. I wish I had dealt with this situation in a better way. In my anger, I have said this to my parents and I'm very hurt. In my anger, I've said this to my brother or my sister and I'm feeling very bad. And those consequences have lasting impressions in our life. We may worship God intensely when we we may worship God intensely when we gather in public. But how do we behave in private? That's what is more important. God is not impressed when we are worshiping God and, you know, it's good to worship God. He's not impressed in the way we worship God. If we don't worship also, he's worthy of worship. It's for our good that we're worshiping God. He's not impressed. What he is impressed is when you close the door when nobody is around who you are. That is what he looks at. How is your personal life? The Lord doesn't look at outward appearance and it's good because God looks at the heart. If God looked at outward appearance, David would have never become a king and he would have chosen one of those other brothers. So outbursts of anger, how do you treat people, your friends, your brothers, your sisters, your family? How do you treat them? How do we talk to them? How do we, you know, honor them in whatever they are doing shows our private life. Another manifestation of jealousy is seeking revenge. Romans chapter 12 verse 19 to 21. Beloved, do not avenge yourself but rather give place to wrath for it is written, vengeance is mine, I will repay says the Lord. Therefore, if your enemy is hungry, feed him. If he is thirsty, give him a drink for in so doing you will heap coals of fire on his head. Do not be overcome by evil but be overcome but overcome evil with good. Our actions sometimes may want to be revengeful. Many years ago, I think I was in, I don't know, I think Mumbai or somewhere in North India and I was speaking to this pastor, elderly pastor who's telling me that he had raised up a young man and as a leader in the church, so this young man was doing everything in the church. He was a worship leader, doing the sound and setup, doing everything in the church. Like he was the main person after the pastor, he's the next main person. So even when the pastor is traveling, he would preach the word, so he would handle everything in the church. Now, what happened was some of them started going to him for prayer and the pastor got upset. Why are you going to him for prayer? I'm the pastor of this church. He felt, started feeling what? What did he start feeling inside? Jealous. He's standing there after church, so he's telling me this. Standing there in church, people are going to him for prayer. They start feeling jealous. Hey, I'm the pastor, they're going to him. So what happened? He didn't give him any opportunities. He didn't give him the worship. He changed, gave somebody else the sound and setup, made him to just do the smaller works. Now this boy said, hey, I faithfully served for six, seven years. I cannot do this. I need to serve, so I will go and start my own church. So he went to another place. He started his own church. He very lovingly, he told the pastor, he said, see, this is what I want to do. I want to go. God is calling me to start my own ministry. I will go. So he went, he started the church. When they got to know that he started the church, all the people from this church went there. Now this pastor is telling me, there were 70 people, now there are 15 people in the church. What should I do? What should I do? So he thought, I'll say, you do this. I said, you first go and pray. First go back to God, what mistake you have done. Confess your sins. It is all of this, the reason is not God, the reason is you. So what if they go to him and pray? So what? Nothing wrong. So what if you are the pastor? You can go to him and pray. Every believer is a minister. So I told this pastor, very lovingly, I said, see, what you did that time, maybe you felt bad, maybe it was, or these are the things that you have felt in your heart. Go back, ask God for forgiveness. God will build your church. Those people who are gone, you forget about it. Let God do what he has to do. Rather than that, you pray for him, bless him, bless his ministry, call him, reconcile with him, tell him I'm there to support you for anything and support him in his ministry, God will bless you. But sometimes we want to seek revenge. You know what he said? No. What I'll do is I will make sure that this church will grow faster than that church. He's telling me. And I said, I can't help you. Now these are people who are leaders for 15 years, 20 years leading a church. You see what jealousy can do? It can blind our eyes. We can forget who we are serving. We can forget what ministry is about because of jealousy. Right? So never seek revenge. Whether it's a fellow minister, whether it is your friends, your family, never seek revenge. God, the Bible says what we read in Romans, he says, vengeance is mine. I will repay. Just leave it up to God. God, I'm putting it in your hands. Right? Fourth one, unkindness, ill-feeling and resentment, right? A feeling of anger and being cruel to people. Resentment, division. Again, jealousy can cause divisions within groups of communities, right? So for example, if somebody is jealous with another person, they can form one team. And then what happens is iron sharpens iron. What happens? One person is jealous. He'll make all the five people jealous of that one fellow. Now those other people won't know why they're jealous, but they're jealous. Why? Because one person is jealous. He'll make one team. All five people are jealous with this group. No reason. They can go and ask, hey, why am I jealous with them? You be jealous. That's it. That's how it works, right? Unkind divisions. It is not from God. Extreme competitiveness. Now I want to share this. Healthy competition is good. It's good to have a healthy competition. It's good to desire to be the best that God wants us to be, right? I always say it when I was studying in Bible college, I always wanted to be the best in my class. So I would strive, work really hard, study everything, make sure I get full marks, and be very attentive and try to ask as many, I loved it. I loved being competitive. And you look at even worship and learning instruments. I always wanted to do well in that. That's how I watch people. I say, wow, they're doing so well. I hope one day I'm able to lead worship like this or I'm able to preach like this. So it helped me to get better, prepare, learn and get better. But then there is unhealthy competition. Unhealthy competition is, it's not motivated by a competitive spirit. It is motivated by jealousy. Unhealthy. This fellow is doing this. So I will make sure I do something better than him and I will show him that I am better. Strive for contentions, isolation, independence and insecurity. Jealousy creates insecurity. What is insecurity? So for example, who's the class captain? There will be a class captain soon. Okay. After some time, the teachers will come and say, okay, you're no more the class captain. We'll choose somebody else. Why? What did I do? You start becoming jealous. The new class captain is appointed for no reason. You're jealous of me. Why? That's actually my place. Isolation, insecurity. If this person is better, what if he does better than me? What if he gets a better role? What if he does a better job? All the what ifs can really destroy our life. For the first years, I'll be teaching identity in Christ. What is our identity? Are we pastor, apostle, prophet? Or are we a child of God? A child of God? So identity, when we are secure in our identity, insecurity will not be there. But when we are jealous, there's insecurity. How come he's better than me? Isolation. I don't want to learn from them. I will do it myself. I'll do it my way. And all these lead to are rooted out of jealousy, overprotection. To be overprotected about people, pettiness. And when the small thing happens, you blow it out of proportion. All these things are rooted out of jealousy. And as believers, we must not walk in jealousy. You must never walk in jealousy. Let's look at some of the consequences of jealousy. Jealousy, page 31. Allowing jealousy to reside in our hearts will cause consequences. Nothing in the Bible, the Lord our God does not work arbitrarily, meaning he does not do things randomly. Everything has consequences. From the beginning, from Genesis chapter two, God told Adam, don't eat of the fruit. They did it. There was consequences. Sin and death came into this world. Two, God told Abraham, I'm going to give you a son, but he didn't listen. He went with Hagar. God told Moses and the people of Israel, I'll bring you out of Egypt into the promised land. He brought them out, but what did they do? They disobeyed. So what were they doing? Rounding, 40 years in circles. That's all they were doing. Consequences. Many generations, that same generation, probably they thought, oh, I'm going to the promised land. They never saw it. The Bible says in Joshua, only a new generation went into the promised land. Everything has consequences. Everything. When we have jealousy in our heart, there is consequences that will happen. One, jealousy is destructive. We cannot live long with jealousy because it will hurt us. It will destroy us. We can keep it for some time. We can pray. We can worship, do all that. But if it's still there, we are not going to be fruitful. We will not be fruitful. Right? Two, jealousy affects our health. Proverbs 14, 30. A sound heart is life to the body, but envy is a rottenness to the bones. Jealousy can affect our physical body and our emotional self as well. Emotion is our soul, our mind, our will, our emotions. When we are jealous, why do you think King Saul was, physically he was probably very strong. He's a king. He was, he was in the army. He knows, but emotionally, the spirits attacking him. And so David had to play the harp or the lyre, the instruments, and then the spirit will leave him. What is that? Because of jealousy. Jealousy can cause physical and emotional damage. Three, jealousy blurs our vision and causes us to lose focus. When, probably, let's look at this example. If we are in the workplace, we're working in a company, right? God has said to you, one day I will make you the manager. He's given you a vision. He's spoken to you. I'm going to make you a manager. Now, one year is over, you're not a manager. But another fellow has become a manager. Jealousy. What will happen? It'll blur the vision. Suddenly, we're looking at this fellow. Hey, I am better than this guy. How come he's become the manager and I'm still here? Now, all of a sudden, the vision of becoming a manager focus is gone to this person. The vision has become blur, right? That's what jealousy does. When we're jealous of other people, when we're jealous of other people's belongings or the things that they have, it blurs our vision, right? I think the second years and third years will know this. I had a vision. One day, I will do the declaration and preach in church. One day. I was over 21 years old. I said, okay, one day. So, I would take that declaration. I would preach one full sermon in front of the mirror. Nothing is happening. Nothing is happening. I'm still in the same place cleaning the chairs. Oh God, everyone are getting opportunity. I'm not getting any opportunity. Not even in worship, not even in preaching. Nothing. No door is opening also. God, what is this? But I thank God that the Lord spoke to me and said, you look at me. Don't look at others. You look at me. I will open the door for you. You look at me. I'm at the right time. I said, okay, God, let them do what they want. I will look at you. I look at you and clean the chairs, but I know one day you'll give me. But it's very hard. It's not easy. It was very hard for me. Every Sunday, very hard. Say, God, how come they have it? I don't have it. I left the corporate job and I've come. I'm not wasting my time. I'm not a pastor son to come and sit. I have a corporate job. I left everything and I've come. Usually, I'm not putting down pastors' children, but usually pastors' children, they send their children to go and study. That's not the case here. Do something. But at the right time, God opened the door. When you look at the surrounding, the vision is blurred. But you keep looking at God. You said, one day, one day, one year over, five years over, 10 years over, one day, it will happen. Just be faithful. Jealousy blinds and prevents us from seeing the light. Now, picture this in Jesus' earthly ministry. Jesus' earthly ministry. He's doing all these wonderful miracles. Thousands of people are following Jesus. The Pharisees and the Sadducees are getting jealous now. Who's this fellow? He's a carpenter's son. But he's got a lot of wisdom. But now, he's claiming he's a Messiah. Let's kill him. Let's get rid of him. Jealousy can stop us from seeing the light. Can stop us from receiving revelations of God. They have the Messiah right in front of him, in front of them. Other sort, fishermen, tax collectors, everyone's sort. But the Pharisees and Sadducees could not see it. Why? They were jealous of Jesus. Why should 5,000 people go and sit in the mountain to listen to him preach? Why should he heal the people? Because they he can't do. So why you want to do? Jealousy. Jealousy causes trouble. Envy and strife open doors to confusion and demonic work. When we are jealous of the envy people, it opens the door for the enemy to come in and sit. God is working one side. Devil also is working the other side. What will happen? Revelations chapter 2. You are lukewarm. Yes or no? God is working. But here there's also the devil. There are loving things of the enemy. So we must close every door that we have opened to the devil. Get rid of jealousy. How do we get rid of jealousy? Very simple. Walk in love. 1 Corinthians 13 says walk in love and you will not gratify the sins of this world. Rejoice in others blessings. If your friend gets a new laptop, don't look at him. Don't look at him and say, I'll get a better one. Don't worry. Rejoice in his blessings. If your brother does well, your sister does well. Rejoice in his blessing. God thank you. God bless you. Don't say God bless you just for the sake of it. Mean it. Okay, God, I know one day my blessings will come and the right time you'll bless me. It's okay. So you'll be happy for them. Now don't take out a calculator and say, oh, this is okay. So don't do all of that. Start calculating. Just leave it. That's God. Do the calculation. Right? Rejoice in others blessings. Three, understand that each one of us is different. God works in each one of us differently. Now we say this. God used, God trained Moses in the, my second and third year students should know this by now. I hope you'll know it. God trained Moses in the palace to use him in the desert. And God trained Joseph in the desert to use him in the, all of us are different. All of us, if you look at your hands, all of us are different. So God will deal with each one of us in different ways. Let him deal the way he wants to. Seeing things in God's perspective is very important. God, I don't want to see things the way I, in the natural way. I want to see it in your way. When Joseph was in the prison, it was very easy for him to say, God, you've forgotten me. But he kept saying, no, I will honor the Lord. I know God is with me. The Bible says that while he was in prison, he was still prosperous. He was prosperous in the prison. Joseph, what about Daniel? He was in Babylon. Right? Under another kingdom's rule, but he was made the head. So we look at things from God's perspective and say, God, I know you're working out something. You're working at your way. Help me to be obedient. Help me to do what you want me to do. Remove jealousy out of my heart. Remove strife. Remove envy. Help me to walk with a clean heart. So it's very important that we allow the Holy Spirit. We must first guard our hearts. We can pray. It's a simple prayer. Guard my heart that I may not be jealous or envy people around me. I must not be jealous about people's gifts, people's anointing, people's wealth. You know, sometimes jealousy can also be about looks. I want to look like this person. I'm jealous because he looks good or I'm jealous because she looks good. It can be that way, right? Even the small things can cause jealousy. So we can guard our heart. Pray and ask the Holy Spirit. Holy Spirit, help me. Lay the axe to the root of jealousy and God will help us to walk in freedom. Amen. Shall we just pray before we close? Father, we want to thank you for the session, Lord. And I pray, God, that Holy Spirit, you will empower each one of us, Lord, to guard our hearts. Lord, Lord, help us to walk in freedom. Remove every form of jealousy of God. We thank you that your Holy Spirit is in us. And even as we walk in love, even as we learn to love one another, care for one another, rejoice in others' blessings of God, I pray, Holy Spirit, that you will empower us to be your children of God, to be salt and light of God. Thank you. Thank you, Lord, that you this morning are laying the axe to the root of jealousy. No matter what we may be feeling, wherever there's some kind of a jealousy in our heart, Lord, this morning I ask God that you will uproot it from our life for God. Thank you. Thank you, Lord. We don't have to live in this, but Lord, we can surrender to you and your Holy Spirit will teach us, empower us, Lord, to live this life. Thank you, God. I pray a blessing over each of every student of God, even as we continue to learn together and grow in your word, minister to us, Lord, empower us and use us for your glory of God. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Amen. Thank you so much, online students. Have a great day ahead. God bless.