The Ten Commandments: Covetousness

Text:

Exodus 20:17 (ESV) — 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 is your neighbor’s.”

Intro

Finishing up the 10 commandments

Challenge coin

What does it mean to covet?

covet /ˈkʌvɪt/ ■ verb yearn to possess (something belonging to someone else).

Covetousness comes from desires that have soured. Desires in themselves are just fine, but covetousness comes from desires that have soured into sinfulness, namely idolatry.

It is to want the wrong things (the garden fruit, Bathsheba, gold, etc.), or to want the right things wrongfully.

Scripture makes clear that idols are not merely shrines to other gods, they can be anything that position in God’s place. Anything that we crave to make us whole, happy, comfortable, fulfilled, safe. This is an aspect of faith. Sometimes we think faith is this mystical feeling, but we live by faith all of the time. Faith is the act of trusting or believing the promises that are made to you. We trust in possessions or experience or comforts to ease our burdens and heal our hurts. Covetousness is an idolatry of misplaced faith.

The 10th commandment is a bookend that reaffirms the 1st commandment - we shall have no other gods. The 1st commandment says no other gods, and the 10th begins to list the surprisingly normal and everyday items that we idolize to take the place of God - clothes, houses, relationships, etc.

Ephesians 5:5 “5 For you may be sure of this, that everyone who is sexually immoral or impure, or who is covetous (that is, an idolater), has no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God.”

Colossians 3:5 “5 Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry.”

The primary motive for this idolatry, this covetousness, is discontent.

Examples of Discontentment:

Why can’t I have a nice car, vacation, pretty spouse, children, a better job, a bigger yard, a husband, a husband who helps out around the house, nicer clothes, more friends? Why am I still single? Why can’t I be as athletic or smart as others? Why do I have to work such long hours and everyone else doesn’t? Why has their business or church been blessed?

How to fight covetousness and discontentment

Where does it come from?

Luke 12:15 “15 And he said to them, “Take care, and be on your guard against all covetousness, for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.””

“Covetousness comes from within the heart of man. “They” have not created this sinful desire within your heart.” (Douglas Wilson, The Seven Deadlies, Pg. 18)

Discontentment and covetousness are not rooted in an objects value or merit, they are a commentary on our hearts.

Matthew 6:21 (ESV) — 21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

Life is a treasure hunt. We are to train our desires to find their ends rightly.

When we find our pot of gold at the end of a covetous rainbow, the treasure is illusive. This isn’t the case with God, though. When we come to Him, we find that He is inexhaustible.

Repent of our disordered loved

Repent at the level of desire. Sermon on the Mount teaches us this.

We must repent for wanting to sin.

This means cultivating the right loves

Catechized to love sin: Speak about advertisers, laugh tracks, marketing, social catechisms, etc.

In our culture, we have a bucking bronco with no rider. Our emotions/desires are sovereign, ungoverned, and authoritative.

Contentment

Phil. 4:11-13 “...for I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. 12 I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. 13 I can do all things through him who strengthens me.”

Learning contentment

Paul needed poverty for a while in order to learn contentment. You need seasons where you don’t have what you want in order to be trained in the school of contentment.

This doesn’t mean that if you learn your lesson then you will be blessed with you idol. No, the training takes that idol and smashes it until it is no longer an idol. Then you may have it, you may not be given it, or you may not even desire it any longer.

1 tim. 6:6 “6 But godliness with contentment is great gain,”

You want gains? You want riches? You want more? Holiness and contentment is the quickest way there.

Romans 13:9

9 For the commandments, “You shall not commit adultery, You shall not murder, You shall not steal, You shall not covet,” and any other commandment, are summed up in this word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

The covetous man does not love his neighbor.

The covetous man does not worship God alone.

Closing Gospel

The Law could be seen as a great gate. It bars the way between the the righteous and the unrighteous, but no one is righteous, no, not one. Each person in history finds this gate is locked to them. Like all the men before King Arthur, each of us steps up to this gate like those men the sword in the stone and expects it to release for us, but we aren’t able and the gate remains locked.

And so John’s tears fall in Revelation 5 as he cries out, “Is there anyone worthy? Is anyone whole? Is anyone able to help us?” Gloriously, there is one who is qualified, one who was crucified, and risen to life after it all was justified before men.

The gates have been opened just wide enough to fit the shoulders of the Son of God, and all who enter in must enter those narrow gates must follow Him and take His form, His gift of grace and salvation, and His mission.

Repentance

1 Cor. 3:21–23 “21 So let no one boast in men. For all things are yours, 22 whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or the present or the future—all are yours, 23 and you are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s.”

We have Christ. All things are ours. What else do we need?

Reassurance

Psalm 23 “A Psalm of David. 1 The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. 2 He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters. 3 He restores my soul. He leads me in paths of righteousness for his name’s sake. 4 Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me. 5 You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; you anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows. 6 Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever.”

2 Corinthians 9:8–11 (ESV) — 8 And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work. 9 As it is written, “He has distributed freely, he has given to the poor; his righteousness endures forever.” 10 He who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will supply and multiply your seed for sowing and increase the harvest of your righteousness. 11 You will be enriched in every way to be generous in every way, which through us will produce thanksgiving to God.

Communion

Hab 2:5 “5 “Moreover, wine is a traitor, an arrogant man who is never at rest. His greed is as wide as Sheol; like death he has never enough. He gathers for himself all nations and collects as his own all peoples.””

Heb 13:5 “5 Keep your life free from love of money, and be content with what you have, for he has said, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.””

Ps 10:3 “3 For the wicked boasts of the desires of his soul, and the one greedy for gain curses and renounces the Lord.”

Lk. 12:15 “15 And he said to them, “Take care, and be on your guard against all covetousness, for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.””

Isa 5:8 “8 Woe to those who join house to house, who add field to field, until there is no more room, and you are made to dwell alone in the midst of the land.”