Wanting What’s Not Ours

I wonder how many of you this morning would admit to wanting something that’s not yours to have. What’s that called? Covetousness.

We covet when we burn with desire for those things that don’t belong to us.

Most of the time, when the 10 Commandments are presented, the 10th one is listed as “You shall not covet.”

But, as is nearly always true, if we go back to the actual text as it appears in Scripture, we find that our simplifications of God’s word actually get in the way of our understanding it.

Here’s the commandment in full:

Exodus 20:17 NASB95

17 “You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife or his male servant or his female servant or his ox or his donkey or anything that belongs to your neighbor.”

The problem here isn’t simply WANTING a house, or a wife, or any of those things. The problem is wanting what belongs to someone ELSE. The problem is obsessively desiring something that belongs to someone else.

I was thinking about this last night, after we’d spent much of the day getting to know some of our neighbors during the Family Fun Day.

I’d spent some time talking to one gentleman about his cars. He has a Mustang and an old GTO, so I know he likes fast cars. And many of you know I like fast cars, too.

Now, I don’t really covet his cars, because they’re not the kind of fast cars I’d want if I had one. I’m more of a Corvette guy.

So when my neighbor takes his 2022 Stingray out of the garage, sometimes I’ve had to pray for the Lord to keep me from coveting it.

It’s just gorgeous, and it just LOOKS fast, even sitting there in his driveway.

But as I was thinking about all this last night, I realized there’s another component to coveting that connects us right back to the passage we’re going to be studying this morning as we begin a new series of messages.

There’s a REASON God hasn’t allowed me to have a Corvette. And the reason is in the very nature of that car. It is, by its very nature, fast and powerful.

And while I might THINK I want those things in my life, God knows they’re dangerous for me. God knows they’d be destructive to me.

If I had a Corvette, I’d be likely to meet a lot more police officers on a professional level, whereas I prefer to meet them in friendly situations. And there’s a pretty good chance I’d get to know my insurance agent better than I’d like, too.

I might look at a Corvette and think it’s desirable. But the truth is that it would bring me nothing but trouble. So, I thank God that He’s never allowed me to win all the Corvette giveaways I’ve registered for through the years.

And I thank Him that He now helps me to see them with appreciation and simply move on.

Now, I’ve given you a hint about the topic of the series we’re about to start. It’s not about coveting, though we’ll talk a bit more about that today. It’s actually about everyone’s favorite thing. Anybody want to guess?

Sin! This series will be about sin.

But, Pastor Res, sin isn’t our favorite thing! I know that’s what you’re thinking. Jesus is our favorite topic!

And I appreciate that you’re all here to hear about Jesus — and that most of you love Him dearly.

But what I’d suggest is that, for most of us, our love for Jesus is always at odds with our love for sin. We DO love sin. We MUST love sin, or else why would we keep on SINNING?

In fact, I’d say we love sin so much that we’re experts at it. We’re like the car guy who spends his free time polishing up that Corvette, tinkering with engine timing, and studying spec sheets.

Maybe all that time loving his Corvette takes him away from time he should be spending loving his wife and family. Maybe it even drives a wedge between them.

Surely, that doesn’t happen with every car guy. But what I want you to see as we begin this series is that the fact that we keep sinning — that we keep going back into the garage to spend time with it — shows that we LOVE sin.

And frankly, it shows that sometimes we love sin more than we love Jesus.

We’re experts when it comes to sin. So were many of the people of the Bible. Which is why I’ve titled this series, “Sin, According to the Experts.”

And today, we’re going to go all the way back to the beginning, back to that first sin in the Garden of Eden.

We’ll see that Adam and Eve failed to love and trust God completely. We’ll see that God uses their sin to reveal His grace. And we’ll see how His grace comes to its fullness in Jesus.

But first, let’s define sin.

Charles Ryrie, in his book Basic Theology, did a survey of the words translated as “sin” in the Old and New Testaments.

He found eight Hebrew words and 12 Greek words that’ve been translated as “sin,” and then described the meaning of those words to help us understand what sin is.

Sin, according to Ryrie’s study, is missing the mark, badness, rebellion, iniquity, going astray, wickedness, wandering, ungodliness, crime, lawlessness, transgression, ignorance, or falling away. The first meaning — missing the mark — is the one most commonly used.

But Ryrie makes an important observation: Sin is about disobedience to God. But the biblical emphasis usually is on the positive commission of wrong, rather than, as he puts it, the negative omission of good.

So, Ryrie says, “Sin is not only missing the mark, but hitting the wrong mark.” [Ryrie, Charles. Basic Theology: A Popular Systematic Guide to Understanding Biblical Truth. United States: Moody Publishers, 1999.]

So, what’s the mark we’re supposed to hit?

Well, we find that way back in Genesis, chapter 1, in Moses’ account of the creation of the first man and woman, Adam and Eve.

Genesis 1:27 NASB95

27 God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.

Now, we know from elsewhere in Scripture that God is spirit. He only manifested Himself in the flesh in the incarnation of His unique and eternal Son, Jesus Christ.

So, being made in the image of God must mean something different than being made somehow to look like Him.

And you’ve heard me preach about this before. We were made to be LIKE God, to reflect His character. To be righteous, as He’s righteous. The be JUST, as He’s just. To be GOOD, as He’s good. To LOVE, as He loves.

And so, when we fail to reflect His character — His righteousness, His justice, His goodness, His love, and all those other attributes of God that He reveals to us in His Word — then we’ve sinned.

Adam and Eve — and every one of us — were made to be LIKE God, to reflect His character. And they were made — just as each one of us was made — to be in a relationship of dependent faith in Him.

We were all made to need God and to need fellowship with Him.

And for at least a brief period in the Garden of Eden, that seems to be how they existed.

God walked in the Garden with them. He provided everything they needed — physically, emotionally, and spiritually. They were His people, and He was their God.

But then something happened that destroyed this fellowship, something that unleashed the forces of evil, setting into motion all the pain and suffering and death and brokenness that we see all around us today.

You all know the story, but let’s take a look at the text in Genesis, chapter 3, to see what it tells us about sin. Let’s see what it tells us about God’s grace. And let’s see what it tells us about Jesus.

Let’s read the chapter together, and then I’ll come back and make some observations about a few of the verses within it.

Genesis 3:1–20 NASB95

1 Now the serpent was more crafty than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said to the woman, “Indeed, has God said, ‘You shall not eat from any tree of the garden’?” 2 The woman said to the serpent, “From the fruit of the trees of the garden we may eat; 3 but from the fruit of the tree which is in the middle of the garden, God has said, ‘You shall not eat from it or touch it, or you will die.’ ” 4 The serpent said to the woman, “You surely will not die! 5 “For God knows that in the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” 6 When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was desirable to make one wise, she took from its fruit and ate; and she gave also to her husband with her, and he ate. 7 Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loin coverings. 8 They heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. 9 Then the Lord God called to the man, and said to him, “Where are you?” 10 He said, “I heard the sound of You in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid myself.” 11 And He said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?” 12 The man said, “The woman whom You gave to be with me, she gave me from the tree, and I ate.” 13 Then the Lord God said to the woman, “What is this you have done?” And the woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.” 14 The Lord God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this, Cursed are you more than all cattle, And more than every beast of the field; On your belly you will go, And dust you will eat All the days of your life; 15 And I will put enmity Between you and the woman, And between your seed and her seed; He shall bruise you on the head, And you shall bruise him on the heel.” 16 To the woman He said, “I will greatly multiply Your pain in childbirth, In pain you will bring forth children; Yet your desire will be for your husband, And he will rule over you.” 17 Then to Adam He said, “Because you have listened to the voice of your wife, and have eaten from the tree about which I commanded you, saying, ‘You shall not eat from it’; Cursed is the ground because of you; In toil you will eat of it All the days of your life. 18 “Both thorns and thistles it shall grow for you; And you will eat the plants of the field; 19 By the sweat of your face You will eat bread, Till you return to the ground, Because from it you were taken; For you are dust, And to dust you shall return.” 20 Now the man called his wife’s name Eve, because she was the mother of all the living.

Now, the first thing to note is that the serpent, who’s identified in the New Testament as Satan, twists God’s Word in order to raise doubts in Eve’s mind.

In fact, back in chapter 2, God had said, “From ANY tree of the garden you may eat freely, but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die.”

God had given Adam and Eve an abundant variety of abundant resources for food. There was nothing they needed that they couldn’t find there.

There was only ONE tree whose fruit they were forbidden to eat. For them, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was the Corvette in the neighbor’s garage.

To her credit, in verses 2 and 3, Eve corrects the serpent by telling him God’s command, although she tweaks it with the additional restriction against touching the tree.

Maybe that addition was a boundary set by her and Adam to help them keep this one commandment from God.

Whatever the case, she’s doing OK, though we’d all have been better off now if she’d just turned and walked away when she encountered a talking serpent who was twisting the Word of God.

Anyway, the serpent then raises the ante in verses 4 and 5. He directly contradicts God. “You surely will not die!”

And then, having gotten Eve to take the bait, he sets the hook. “God knows that when you eat this fruit, you’ll be like Him. You’ll know good and evil.”

Now, the Hebrew word that’s translated as “know” here is yada, which is the same word used in the Old Testament to describe sexual relations. The idea is that they’d have an intimate, personal knowledge of good and evil.

Remember that they were already LIKE God in all the ways that mattered. They’d been made in His image — made to reflect His character.

But He’d not given mankind every one of His attributes. Some, He’d reserved for Himself. We’re not omnipotent, for instance. We’re not omniscient.

And one of the attributes He’d reserved for Himself was the right to declare things to be good or evil. That right is His and His alone by virtue of His perfect holiness, His perfect righteousness, His perfect knowledge.

And, as it turns out, that’s just what Adam and Eve wanted. The serpent was giving them a peak into the garage, and they were overcome by coveting for that right.

We see that in verse 6, the central verse of our study this morning.

Genesis 3:6 NASB95

6 When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was desirable to make one wise, she took from its fruit and ate; and she gave also to her husband with her, and he ate.

So, the tree looked like it had delicious fruit. But more to the point, it was a delight to the eyes and desirable to make them wise.

Now, it’s helpful to understand the Hebrew words translated as “delight” and “desirable” in this verse.

We think of the word “delight” or “delightful” with positive connotations. “Your children are a delight to be around.” Or, “What a delightful conversation I had with your Glenda I had the other day.”

But in Hebrew, the word can have negative connotations, too. In some contexts, it refers to lust.

So, Moses, writing under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit here, is telling us that this fruit was more than just pleasant to look at. Something stirred within Eve’s heart — and later, Adam’s — that caused them to want what wasn’t theirs.

They didn’t just admire the sleek lines of that Corvette; they were imagining themselves behind the wheel.

The word that’s translated as “desirable” can also mean to lust after something. And it can mean to covet, as well.

So, Adam and Eve were in a bad place. They were coveting what wasn’t theirs. They were coveting something of GOD’S that He’d placed off limits to them, for their own good. They wanted the right to declare what was good and what was evil.

And that’s just what WE do when WE sin. We decide for ourselves that what God has called evil should be called good.

We choose not to take Him at His word that the things He’s placed off-limits to us are harmful to us.

We look at them and think they’re pleasing to the eyes, ignoring His warnings against them. And then we imagine ourselves in the driver’s seat. We begin to obsess over the desire to have what’s not ours to have.

And all too often, we allow this obsession — which, itself, is a sin — to cause us to MANIFEST our sinful thoughts with sinful behavior.

Stealing the car. Committing adultery. Watching pornography. Cheating on taxes. And so many more.

All those outward acts of sin spring from the inward sin of covetousness. Obsessively wanting what’s not ours to have. Which is another way of saying, failing to be content with what God has given us.

Remember that Adam and Eve had everything they’d ever need in the Garden, and especially the presence of God Himself WITH them.

But they weren’t content. They wanted MORE. And only when they got it did they realize all that they’d given up to get it.

Things went wrong very quickly. In verse 7, they’ve lost their innocence. They were now ashamed of their nakedness. In verse 8, they’d lost fellowship with God. They hid themselves from His presence.

In verse 10, they fear of God replaced trust in Him.

In verse 12, we see they’d lost mutual love and respect for each other. Notice the finger-pointing that takes place there? Suddenly everybody’s blaming everybody else.

In verse 16, we see the first appearance of pain. In verse 17, we see the work they’d been given to do now becoming toil and hardship. In verse 19, we see God reminding them they’d brought death into the world through their sin.

In verse 20, Adam calls or NAMES his wife Eve. Naming is a function of sovereignty — remember that Adam had NAMED the animals, because he had dominion over them.

But Eve had been given to him as a helper, not a subordinate. His act of naming her is just one more evidence of what’s been lost through their covetousness.

Instead of mutual love and respect, what they’d experience in the fallen nature of their flesh would be a constant struggle for power.

As God said to Eve in verse 16, “Your desire” —from the context, we can understand this to refer to a desire to control — “Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.”

But there IS one thing Adam and Eve gained from this experience, and we see it in verse 15, where God pronounces a curse on the serpent.

Genesis 3:15 NASB95

15 And I will put enmity Between you and the woman, And between your seed and her seed; He shall bruise you on the head, And you shall bruise him on the heel.”

This verse is known by biblical scholars as the Protoevangelium. It’s the first seed of the gospel in the Bible.

God is telling the serpent, as well as Adam and Eve, that He won’t allow this destruction of the perfect shalom — the perfect peace, contentment, and fullness — He’d created to be permanent.

But who are the seeds, the descendants, God is talking about here?

Well, Jesus says in John, chapter 8, that the descendants of Satan, the serpent, are the Pharisees.

John 8:44 NASB95

44 “You are of your father the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him. Whenever he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies.

In the Bible — and in ancient times — people were expected to reflect the character of their fathers. And since the Pharisees didn’t love Jesus — He who IS Truth — they couldn’t be children of God.

Instead, they were children of the devil, later doing HIS bidding by sending Jesus, the Son of God to be killed unjustly on the cross.

And Jesus is the seed of the woman. He is the promised Messiah, the Savior of Israel and the nations.

HE is the one who’d conquer sin with His sacrificial death and the one who’d conquer death itself in His resurrection.

He who knew no sin of His own took upon Himself the sins of mankind — and their just punishment — so that all who turn to Him in faith that He is who He said He is and will do what He said He’ll do can be saved and have eternal life.

He is our peace, our shalom. He is our contentment. He is our fulfillment. He is the one who will raise His followers into glorified bodies and eternal fellowship with Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

He is the one who will make all things new. He is the one who will vanquish His enemies completely, casting unbelievers into the fires of Hell, along with Satan, and sin, and death itself.

In HIM is life and life abundantly.

But do you know Him? Have you followed Him in faith? Have you given Him your life as your Lord and Savior? You can do so this morning. Just come and talk to me as we close in a moment and let me talk to you about His promise.

And if you DO know Him, then let me ask you this: Do you love Him more than you love your sin?

Be careful how you answer that, because the answer we’d LIKE to give as believers isn’t necessarily the answer that’s TRUE.

Let me invite you this morning — if you’re a follower of Jesus, submitted to Him in faith — to join me down here on the steps to this platform.

Let’s make this an altar on which we sacrifice the sins we love so much to the Christ who loved US so much that He gave His life for us and in our place.

Let’s let our love for Jesus overcome our love for sin. Let’s be experts in loving Him, not experts in loving sin.