The last Commandment (Covet)

Introduction

Well it has been a long time since I have seen a lot of you. It feels like a really long time but it has only been a few months, which does seem long. Thankfully I am back on a semi regular schedule now and will be able to be here more often. I hope everyone had a good Christmas and got to spend some good time with their family. We were quarantining which actually turned out to be a huge blessing for my family. I was supposed to work on Christmas and New year but because I had close contact with Cody my work made me quarantine, which meant i got to spend Christmas with the family instead of working and go back to a regular sleep schedule instead of staying up all night and sleeping during the day. Unfortunately for Cody though he got hit with the virus and got to spend the holiday sick, which is a real bummer. But i am glad to hear that he is doing better and I am hoping that he can be back with us next week.

So we have been going over the ten commandments the last few weeks that we have been meeting and today we are on the last one. And you know what they say, they always save the best for last. So if you haven’t been with us the last few weeks or this is your first time I’ll run through a little of the background on the 10 commandments.

Background

We find the 10 commandments in the book of Exodus. The Israelites have just escaped from Egypt and are walking through the desert. Three months after wandering they come to Mount Sinai where God gives the Israelites a taste of his power by making these huge storm clouds and it says in chapter 19 that there was a huge trumpet blast and then that God descended down onto the top of the mountain and called Moses to meet with him up there. This is where Moses and God talk and God gives Moses the law. Now the law is so much more than just the 10 commandments, but think of the 10 commandments like the foundation for the law. Really if you followed the 10 commandments there is no way that you could break any aspect of the law. So we have the law that God gives to Moses and then he gives them to the people. Moses is acting as the medium between God and the Israelites and this law that God is giving his people is the foundation for their entire society. It is the corner stone of their culture. Now the first four of the 10 commandments are in regards to God himself, we seem them listed here in Exodus 20 starting at verse 3.

The New International Version Chapter 20

2 “I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.

3 “You shall have no other gods before me.

4 “You shall not make for yourself an image in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. 5 You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, 6 but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments.

7 “You shall not misuse the name of the LORD your God, for the LORD will not hold anyone guiltless who misuses his name.

8 “Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy

So these first four have something directly to do with God himself, but the next six have to do with social components. These are the commandments that dictate how we are supposed to interact with those around us and how to live harmoniously in a society together. We see the next six outlined in verses 12-17

The New International Version Chapter 20

12 “Honor your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land the LORD your God is giving you.

13 “You shall not murder.

14 “You shall not commit adultery.

15 “You shall not steal.

16 “You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor.

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

You can see there that all of those have to do with personal interaction between people. Now the last few weeks you guys have talked about these but this week we get to focus on the last and probably the most important one. I don’t know if any of you caught this, i never realized it myself until i started digging into it this week, but all of the other commandments have to do with physical acts. Not stealing, not murdering, not giving false testimony, these are all laws governing that you not do the physical act . But the last commandment, you shall not covet, that is the only commandment out of the 10 that prohibits you from thinking or feeling a certain way. So the first question we need to ask is what does it mean to covet. There is a lot of discussion to be had about this but at it’s simplest definition, Coveting, in this sense, is the desire to have something that isn’t yours. I would say it is a little bit more than just being jealous, it is a true desire to have something that you could never have, or i guess i could say should have. Think about it like this, Cody and Paul are neighbors right, they can see each others house from their backyards. Now there is a difference between Paul appreciating Cody’s house and wanting to have a house like that, and Paul plotting for a way for cody to go bankrupt so that he would be forced to sell his house and Paul could buy it. That is what we are talking about here, not just a desire to have something like that, but a desire to have that exact thing. And you see, this bleeds into the previous four commandments. Coveting leads to stealing, it leads to giving false testimony, it leads to committing adultery, it leads to murder. Coveting is the root of almost all of our sin. We have this desire to have something that we can’t and it and it eats at us. Again, there is nothing wrong with appreciating something about someone. I am totally within my moral rights to look at someone or something they have and think to myself, “i want to be like that” and that could be a great thing becuase it could inspire us to work harder or to grow personally to achieve that goal. There is a major difference between appreciation and coveting. Coveting is taking it that next step farther and saying, no i don’t just appreciate that, I want that exact thing and if I can’t have it I am going to find a way to get it whether it is through lying, or stealing, or some other means.

So we are going to explore three ways that coveting can be destructive to ourselves. The first and perhaps most impotant point is that coveting can lead to other sins.

I think the best example of this is the story of David and Bathsheba which we find in 2 Samuel 11. If you have your Bibles please feel free to open to that now.

The New International Version Chapter 11

In the spring, at the time when kings go off to war, David sent Joab out with the king’s men and the whole Israelite army. They destroyed the Ammonites and besieged Rabbah. But David remained in Jerusalem.

2 One evening David got up from his bed and walked around on the roof of the palace. From the roof he saw a woman bathing. The woman was very beautiful, 3 and David sent someone to find out about her. The man said, “She is Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam and the wife of Uriah the Hittite.” 4 Then David sent messengers to get her. She came to him, and he slept with her. (Now she was purifying herself from her monthly uncleanness.) Then she went back home. 5 The woman conceived and sent word to David, saying, “I am pregnant.”

So here we have King David, perhaps one of the most powerful men in his time and definately the most powerful man in his region. He is the top dog in this area. He goes up on his roof and he see’s this beautiful woman bathing on her roof. Now if this woman had been single, perhaps this story would have gone different, but the problem was that Bathsheba was married to this guy Uriah. So here we have the perfect situation for coveting to happen. Had she been avalivble to marry and to court it wouldn’t really be coveting would it? It you just be David pursuing a relationship, but since this woman was already married she was supposed to be off limits. Even to David who was the King. But instead David begins to desire that which he can’t have and ends up sleeping her and getting her pregnant. This isn’t turning out to be good for David. You see David had a reputation to uphold, he was supposed to be the King who was after God’s own heart, he was anointed by God and his chosen king. How would it look if God’s chosen king who was supposed to be this holy figure broke one of the basic laws, don’t commit adultery. So David goes into panic mode and he devises this plan that he thinks will cover this whole scandal up. Lets keep reading in Verse 6.

The New International Version Chapter 11

6 So David sent this word to Joab: “Send me Uriah the Hittite.” And Joab sent him to David. 7 When Uriah came to him, David asked him how Joab was, how the soldiers were and how the war was going. 8 Then David said to Uriah, “Go down to your house and wash your feet.” So Uriah left the palace, and a gift from the king was sent after him. 9 But Uriah slept at the entrance to the palace with all his master’s servants and did not go down to his house.

So David brings Uriah back from the front lines and tries to be polite and ask him how is commander is doing and how the war is going. Uriah must be feeling pretty honored that the King himself is asking him about the war. Uriah gives his report and David tells him to take the night off and go back to his house and clean up. Now we can imgaine what David is hoping will happen. Uriah will go home, clean up, and spend some time with his wife, that way when she starts showing it Uriah will think the child is his. But there is a problem here that David doesn’t foresee. And that problem is Uriah isn’t your typical guy, he is a man of honor and integrity. You see Uriah doesn’t go home that night, instead he sleeps at the entrance of the palace with all the kings servants. Let’s read starting in verse 10.

The New International Version Chapter 11

10 David was told, “Uriah did not go home.” So he asked Uriah, “Haven’t you just come from a military campaign? Why didn’t you go home?”

11 Uriah said to David, “The ark and Israel and Judah are staying in tents, and my commander Joab and my lord’s men are camped in the open country. How could I go to my house to eat and drink and make love to my wife? As surely as you live, I will not do such a thing!”

12 Then David said to him, “Stay here one more day, and tomorrow I will send you back.” So Uriah remained in Jerusalem that day and the next. 13 At David’s invitation, he ate and drank with him, and David made him drunk. But in the evening Uriah went out to sleep on his mat among his master’s servants; he did not go home.

So Uriah has too much respect for his brothers in arms to partake in pleasures while they are out their fighting for their lives. So David tries again, but this time he gets Uriah drunk thinking that will help nudge him in the right direction. But instead Uriah sticks to his word and he again sleeps on a mat with the other servants. First of all, all of us men should aspire to have the discipline that Uriah has. We can learn huge lessons about manhood from this secondary character in this story, but that isn’t the focus today, today we are focusing on David’s short comings. So David’s plan to get him drunk didn’t quite workout the way he wanted. David is running out of options here. He didn’t realize how good of a person Uriah was going to be. So then he goes into the next steps of his plan. Let’s keep reading in verse 14.

The New International Version Chapter 11

14 In the morning David wrote a letter to Joab and sent it with Uriah. 15 In it he wrote, “Put Uriah out in front where the fighting is fiercest. Then withdraw from him so he will be struck down and die.”

16 So while Joab had the city under siege, he put Uriah at a place where he knew the strongest defenders were. 17 When the men of the city came out and fought against Joab, some of the men in David’s army fell; moreover, Uriah the Hittite died.

So here David goes to the extreme. He has the audacity to have Uriah, this man who up to this point in the story has been the ideal man and solider, carry his own death sentence in a letter to his own commander. And the unfortunate end to this story is that Uriah ends up dying and David gets what he wants and ends up marrying Bathsheba. This is probably one of the greastest examples in Bible of how coveting can lead to more sin. First we have David who desired to have Bathsheba, and it isn’t like David was hurting for women, he was the king, he ended up with at least 8 wives that are talked about in the bible and probably more. David didn’t have a lack of women in his life but he wanted that which he couldn’t have, which was Bathsheba. So he desired her and from that desire came stealing and adultery, and ultimately murder. While David wasn’t the one that struck Uriah down he definitely played a part in Uriah’s death. His blood was on David’s hands.

So this is ultimately what coveting can lead too. It causes us to do crazy things in order to get something that we can’t have. This is why it is the final commandment and perhaps the most important of the social commandments because it plays into the four leading up to it. God knows what jealously and envy can do to the human heart. I mean come on, the original sin in the Bible started with Eve desiring to have something she couldn’t the ability to be like God. That is what she was told she could have if she ate the apple, she was told that she could be like God and she desired that despite the fact that she could never be like God.

This is what coveting does. It leads to other sin. That is one of the most dangerous things about it, it can lead us down a path where bad things happen. There are so many examples in the bible that we can look at where egregious crimes were committed and they all began with coveting.

The second thing about coveting is that it’s corrosive. It is corrosive to our relationship with others and to ourselves. When we desire what others have and we can’t get it it plants a seed of envy in our hearts and that is like a poison that will slowly eat away at a relationship or just make it a toxic one. We see this in early church as well. In Jerusalem people were fighting and quarreling with eachother becuase they were jealous of what others had, and not just physical possessions but things like spiritual gifts, social status, and other things like that. We see James address the church in James 4.

The New International Version Chapter 4

What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you? 2 You desire but do not have, so you kill. You covet but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight. You do not have because you do not ask God. 3 When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.

When we desire that which we don’t have and we covet our friends or our families it can slowly destroy our relationships. Maybe this is something that you struggle with. Maybe you have a friend or a family member that you are jealous of and you desire to be like them or to have the things they want and you let that desire turn into anger towards that person and that relationship slowly deteroates into a spiteful one. Or you let something equally as bad happen, you begin to tell yourself that you aren’t good enough, and you start to beat yourself up because you feel inadequate and not only is this mindset destructive to yourself, but it can be hurtful to your relationship with others and to God. You see, God’s desire is for us to be completely and wholly dependent on him. Whenever we look at other people and are jealous of what they have that we don’t and we compare ourselves to them or we desire to have whatever it is that they have we essentially telling God that he isn’t enough for us.

And this brings us to our final point. Coveting hurts our relationship with God. God wants us to rely on him and trust that he will give us what we need to survive and to be happy. This doesn’t mean that God is going to give us everything that we want, because everything that we want might not be beneficial for us. But God know what we need for us to be happy. And God does desire for us to be happy and to enjoy life. Jesus tell us in Matthew 7: 9-12

The New International Version Chapter 7

9 “Which of you, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone? 10 Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? 11 If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him! 12 So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.

Like a parent, God wants to give us good gifts and he wants us to have what we desire but only if that is going to be beneficial to us. Taylor wants to eat candy all the time, in her four year old mind that will make her happy, but do I let her do it? of course not, and it isn’t because I don’t love her, but it is because I understand that it isn’t good for her. Sure it might make her happy in the short term but in the long term it will be very bad for her to eat candy all the time. God is like that, he wants us to be happy but knows that not everything we ask for is good for us.

So we know that coveting can lead us to further sin, it is destructive to our relationship with others, and it is destructive to our relationship with God, but how do we stop from doing it. Understanding what it can do to us is easy, we can all acknowledge that coveting is bad and it can lead to worse things, but that doesn't make it any easier not to do.

It all starts with realizing how blessed we truly are. Even just to live in America we are truly blessed compared to others in this world who live in far, far worse conditions than us. I find for me whenever i start to feel jealous of some one or something that they have a good practical step for me to do is to remember the ways that I am blessed. I have a roof over my head, I am never truly hungry, I have a beautiful wife and children. I might not be the richest person in the world or have the coolest stuff or the land that I want, but I should be happy with what I do have. So for me, whenever i start to feel those feelings of covetousness spring up the first thing i do is count my blessings. The second thing that I do is that I thank God for what I do have and thank him for the fact that he has always provided for me and I ask him to help take those feelings away. And the last thing we can do is continue to pray to God and ask that his will is done in my life, whether that means me getting what i want or not. But i find that even if i dont have everything that i want in life that doesn’t mean I am not happy. I can be perfectly happy with what God has provided for me if I just take a second to look around and see truly how blessed I am compared to other people in the world.

I know that 2020 was a hard year for us. For some of us it was hard finically, others it was hard from a social standpoint, others an emotional one. We had alot of things happen this year and it is easy for us in these hard times for us to look at people around us, or people on TV or on social media and be unhappy with what we have and covet what others have, but I just want to encourage you all to remember that even though we have had a rough year, we are all still here, we are alive, and we have eachother. Instead of using this New year to make new goals for ourselves of things we want, lets resolve to be thankful for what we have and to thank God for everything that he has given us.