WISH LIST

INTRO and DEFINITION: We are wrapping up our series on the 10 commandments this week, with do not covet. Covet is not a word that we use as frequently today as we did in the past so here is a basic dictionary definition with a biblical emphasis for us to work with today. Covet – A deep desire to possess that which belongs to another; an inordinate desire or discontent for what one does not have. Coveting is generally caused by greed and self-centeredness, without regard for the Law of God.

This week i went with the title wish list. As a child I can remember flipping through catalogs to write out all the things that I wanted to see on Christmas. I was pretty intentional. I made sure I was aware of my parents and grandparents spending budget for me so I could strategically not allow them to be distracted towards lesser desired things by only including the things that I wanted that fit within the budget.

Today is a little different. If you aren’t aware there is something called an amazon wish list. Here at my fingertips i have access to everything that Amazon sells, and with the quick click of a button I can add it to my wishlist. If I don’t know what I want i can access something called the most wished for list where i can see what other people are wishing for. This is great isn’t it? So if I don’t even really want something I can at least make sure I’m putting things on my list that other people want. Kind of a second hand coveting right? And lastly I can make my wish list public so that people that want to buy me gifts have quick access to my covet… I mean my wish list. Which by the way if you happen to every look for mine on amazon it’s about 90% books on how I can be a better preacher and leader for you all...

SCRIPTURE: And here is the commandment as it reads from Exodus 20:17 ““You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his male slave, or his female slave, or his ox, or his donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.”

PRAYER

.3 MAJOR MOVEMENTS IN THE SERMON TODAY. THE ROOT, THE RESULT, and THE REMEDY… REPEAT

The Root

Let’s start with the root of coveting… We will have 3 points here for you to think about. #1 is temptation. It is indeed a root or beginning place for so many sins is it not? 1 Timothy 6:9 says this…

Temptation - I Timothy 6:9 - But those who want to get rich fall into temptation and a snare and many foolish and harmful desires which plunge men into ruin and destruction. This is exactly why we pray, LEAD US NOT INTO TEMPTATION. DELIVER US FROM EVIL. The love of money is the root of all evil, temptation will breed itself in places where we allow ourselves to become overly concerned with material possession. Therefore, we must avoid and resist the temptation to seek to build up our own perceived kingdoms here on earth.

Root #2 this morning is Ungratefulness – (Slavery in Egypt 430 years, Red Sea, Lack of water, lack of food, manna, quail, then God’s response to their ingratitude Numbers 14:11-12 11 The Lord said to Moses, “How long will this people spurn Me? And how long will they not believe in Me, despite all the signs which I have performed in their midst? 12 I will smite them with [e]pestilence and dispossess them, and I will make you into a nation greater and mightier than they.”

My house isn’t big enough, my car isn’t new enough, my spouse isn’t good enough. Ungratefulness causes you to want what you don’t have, but of course not give up anything we already do have. We’ve all heard the expression we want our cake and eat it to, but in America today we also want it to be calorie free. Discontent is a disease. In fact the words are interchangeable, dis-content --- dis-ease. Discontent is a disease that keeps a person from ever being happy for more than a moment at a time and eventually yields a monster than cannot be satisfied. Ecclesiastes 4:4 - 4 Solomon said I have seen that every labor and every skill which is done is the result of rivalry between a man and his neighbor. This too is vanity and vexation of the spirit.

Root #3 is Selfishness – As we went through the pandemic a few years ago some of you that didn’t think you might not have been selfish may have truly been measured by how much toilet paper you stocked up on… You know who you are, right? We have Biblical principles addressing prepping, hoarding, sharing Luke 12 gives us insight to one of them Luke 12:15-21 15 Then He said to them, “Beware, and be on your guard against every form of greed; for not even when one has an abundance does his life consist of his possessions.” 16 And He told them a parable, saying, “The land of a rich man was very productive. 17 And he began reasoning to himself, saying, ‘What shall I do, since I have no place to store my crops?’ 18 Then he said, ‘This is what I will do: I will tear down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. 19 And I will say to my soul, “Soul, you have many goods laid up for many years to come; take your ease, eat, drink and be merry.”’ 20 But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your soul is required of you; and now who will own what you have prepared?’ 21 So is the man who stores up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God.”

Selfishness causes a person to continually invest in themselves not knowing that an increase in possessions can often be associated directly with an increase of sorrow. Being selfish causes us to be a less attractive person to be around. I wonder who would love to testify about how enjoyable it is to be around selfish people? All getting separates us, and all giving brings us closer together (Quickly explain). In the first century church, this is exactly why they were selling their possessions to be equally distributed among themselves. It was so the concern for material things would not be a distraction as each one acted towards the greater good of the community. Selfishness will very quickly lead to exactly what one should expect when they invest in themselves, and that is a whole lot of time by themselves. So just recapping our first point this morning. Coveting can be rooted in TEMPTATION, UNGRATEFULNESS, AND SELFISHNESS.

What then is the result of coveting? That’s our second thought this morning. THE RESULT, and RESULT #1 is that we become slaves to our sensuality.

The Result

Slaves to our sensuality - Proverbs 22:7 – The borrower is slave to the lender. Too often we preach or read this as money only. I used the word sensual today to be all inclusive of the enjoyment, expression, or pursuit of the physical that one might pursue in sin. Spending money on credit brings slavery to the bank. Committing adultery brings slavery to the relationship you destroy, possibly children, and other ideas as well. Position and Power causes us to be enslaved to the ones who bring the empowerment, and drugs and alcohol to the very substance itself. And once you are in bondage under the power of those masters, nothing short of God himself can break you free.

RESULT #2 we…

Spread the Disease – Cold and flu season is in full swing, and depending on what media source you tune into you might be more or less aware of how different strands of covid are mutating. I wonder what safeguards we put up in our life to protect against ideas that do not kill the body, but kill the soul? What do we distance ourselves from? What efforts do we take to remain spiritually clean? A spirit of covetousness is not only contagious but promotes envy. In turn, Envy steals peace while destroying gratitude and relationships, but a simple life is one that can be well imitated in a peaceful and balanced fashion.

Result #3 and #4 are quick ones but important. #3 we…

Lose our Religion - I Timothy 6:10 - For the love of money is a root of all sorts of evil, and some by longing for it have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs.

When I read the way the apostle Paul articulated this statement I’m drawn to the phrase “wandered away”. When I think about someone wandering off, I envision someone who ends up lost accidentally. I’m not sure too many of us get lost on purpose, but wandering paints the picture that very frequently someone doesn’t realize they have been wandering until they don’t even know how to find their way back.

Result #4 is…

Disappointment – Matthew 6:19 says -“Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. I’m sure all of us recognize the reality of how quickly “that which we have stored up” could be taken away very suddenly and without warning.

4 results to coveting then are becoming slaves to sensuality, spreading the disease of covet and envy, losing our religion, and disappointment.

Point #3 is where we find the good news, there is a remedy.

Remedy #1… Invest Wisely (Generosity)– Matthew 6:20-21 says to store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves do not break in or steal; 21 for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

Helen Walton, wife of Sam Walton, founder of Wal-Mart said this,

“It’s not what you gather but what you scatter that tells you what kind of life you have lived.”

I can remember more than a handful of times hearing my dad say from the pulpit say I’ve got my stuff. He was rich… Elise visited his house… He assures you that he isn’t talking about material possessions, but his health, his church, the fact that all of his children are working for the Lord, his grandchildren. My dad has never been slave to fashion, hobbies, or possessions, and that’s exactly why all of his children and all of his grandchildren are in church today, I’m sure of it.

Remedy #2 is Gratitude –

This weekend me and Ben my 8 year old have had the house to ourselves. The older boys are at fall retreat with the youth group and Allison is away on her annual girls trip with her family. So far the last week we have been hyping up that it was our weekend. Every once in a while I do my best to say yes to my kids as much as I possibly can for a day or two, and Ben is the easiest one to do this with. Well yesterday we were in Hillard and Ben wanted to go to a particular video game store because we checked online for a game that he wanted and they had it in stock. So we pulled in and it was closed. It was supposed to be open at 10am and at noon still no sign of life. On our drive back to Grove City Ben was pretty distraught. I knew we were headed to a video game store that might haven’t but didn’t want to say anything to him yet. After about 10 minutes of discouragement, he sad dad I’m sorry. He said you know how in that movie inside out… if you haven’t seen the movie, it’s a movie where the separate emotions of human beings are characterized separately and take over the individual throughout the movie, I’m sure that’s a poor summary, but Ben said hey dad you know that movie inside out, I said yeah buddy, he said my sadness took control of me for a little bit. I said I understand buddy but we don’t have to let our sadness take control, if we start to be thankful we can take control again. He didn’t say anything for a few seconds, so I just thought well nice try dad, but then Ben said hey dad, thanks for buying me a toy last night, and thanks for taking me to a movie, and thanks for getting doughnuts for breakfast this morning, and thanks for getting doughnut for breakfast for tomorrow morning… don’t judge me… And just as he was perking up we were pulling into the other video game store, we walked into, they had the game and it was $5 cheaper. And from there on the way to get a happy meal, we got to talk a little bit more about how God loves to bless people that say thank you in even better ways than we expected.

Psalm 106:1 - Praise the Lord! Oh give thanks to the Lord, for he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever!

Psalm 107:1 - Oh give thanks to the Lord, for he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever!

James 1:17 - Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.

Psalm 100 says that it is He who has made us and not we ourselves. The acknowledgment of God as the provider of all that we have, keeps us from believing that it is somehow something we have done that causes us to be blessed to the extent that we are.

We invest wisely through generosity, show great gratitude to the Lord. The 3rd remedy is to trust in God.

Trust in God - Hebrews 13:5 - Make sure that your character is free from the love of money, being content with what you have; for He Himself has said, "I WILL NEVER DESERT YOU, NOR WILL I EVER FORSAKE YOU,"

How odd that we put the phrase “In God we trust” only the very item that would cause us to turn our trust away from Him?

HE will never leave you or forsake you. Your money is going to be worth nothing in about 20 years if it takes that long. You better hold on to the one that’s holding you, because as the days get darker, Jesus is the only one that is going to be there for you.

And last but certainly not least in the remedy department… SEEK THE SPIRIT OF GOD

Seek the Spirit of God – Colossians 3:5 - Therefore consider the members of your earthly body as dead to immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed, which amounts to idolatry. Verse 5 in this chapter is describing the characteristics of those who have been raised with Christ. Those then who say that they have been raised up with Christ must be made dead to their flesh and raised anew in filled with the Holy Spirit of God.

INVITE TEAM

Wrapping things up today, Ephesians 5:5 says this: For this you know with certainty, that no immoral or impure person or covetous man, who is an idolater, has an inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God. Too many times we elevate sins like immorality over WANTING… plain and simple that is all it waters down to sometimes, is it not? I want, I want, I want, maybe even I deserve. But Ephesians 5 tells us that excessive or continual wanting will keep us from Heaven.

The commandment not to covet is a command to clean up the “desires of our heart” so that our desires conform to God’s word.

James 4:3 says that the very reason that You ask and do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, so that you may spend it on your pleasures.

We need to pray today that God will create a clean heart in us today. In Psalm 51 we say David praying this exact thing to God after the covetous spirit within him got the best of him. In order to have something that did not belong to him he called for Uriah’s wife. After he got her pregnant and had Uriah killed. King David, a man after God’s own heart surely never set out to be an adulterer and a murder, what makes us think that we might fare any better if not for the grace of God. In Psalm 51 we see a broken and repentant David pray, “Create in me a clean heart O Lord, and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from your presence, but restore unto me the joy of your salvation.

Last night I woke up out of a dead sleep, you know that slobbering on your pillow kind of sleep, the kind that just come around every once in a while, I tried to fight of how alert I felt and go back to sleep with little Ben laying there in the bed beside me, but God said I want you to spend the night with me. Anybody ever have God ask you to spend the night with Him. I went downstairs and laid on the couch and just talked to God. I told Him I longed to be closer to Him than I am right now, that I wanted Him to clean my heart, to sweep through it to re-condition my heart and renew my desire for Him.

The challenge today is for you to consider the condition of your heart. Has envy, covetousness, or a desire for the things of the flesh overcome your desire for God? Come spend some time with Him this morning, fall in love with Him again and again.

POST PRAYER

We’ve all probably heard it before, Happiness is not having what you want, but wanting what you have. It’s hardly any coincidence that they market our fleshly desires most intensely during the holiday season where we are supposed to be expressing gratitude. Black Friday deals at wal-mart this last wednesday november 8th. Covetousness is constantly being bred into us...Black Friday deals at wal-mart this last wednesday november 8th. Covetousness is constantly being bred into us...As we near Thanksgiving, be sure to be reminded of His goodness, be sure to express gratitude, and perhaps consider generosity before grabbing at the deals of the day.

Thanks for sticking with us this series, it’s some work to teach it, and I know it’s work to receive it. Leave today thankful that he gave us His law not as a stumbling block but instead as instruction for freedom and peace of mind. We will see you next week.