The unfortunate truth is, we live in an age of discontent. Our
American economy depends on us being discontent. It is very hard not
to take a peek at those ads in the Sunday paper and to dream about
the new house you might acquire some day. We covet cars and schools,
homes, property, prestige. New little gadgets and new big toys
capture our imagination, and we are a miserable people for it.
I remember the cluster of young men around a window in Harare,
Zimbabwe, who had spent their last few dollars to get to the city for
a job that did not exist. They spent their days salivating at the
windows of department stores, wishing for what they could not have.
Theft was a big problem in Harare. The disparity between the
"haves" and the "have-nots" was so marked that
one's goods were never safe if one wanted to keep them. Though that
was a particular problem in a particular city, it certainly revealed
to me the weakness of the human heart. We, in fact, desire
things way past what is good for us.
Here's what coveting is. Coveting is a desire that takes root into
evil motivation. Coveting surpasses that first desire, passes that
first step, to a way of thinking that leads us to go crazy. It is to
be obsessed by what we want and to be taken over by it. It is
"desire run amuck." It is an invisible sin. It is a sin of
the mind.
Here is how coveting goes. First step: "I think it would be nice
to have or to achieve _____" (fill in the blank). Now that is
okay. Wouldn't it be nice to win this week's lottery? [I do hope that
one of our members wins the lottery - and tithes on the winnings!]
That thought is not yet sin. But if I were to steal the winning
lottery ticket, or if I were not to take that desire to the Lord,
that crosses the line into sin. A godly screen to control my impulses
says, "Lord, here is my desire. If it is your desire for me,
make it so."
But desire run amuck goes like this. "Not only do I think it
would be nice to have, I think I have to have this, and I don't care
what God thinks. I don't care what you think, either. It looks like
it's got my name on it; I want it; I have to have it."
The next step: "I will do anything to get it." I am willing
to break a law - God's law, the civic law, my own personal set of
principles - to get what I want. The principles that guide us include
God's Word and our own standards of behavior that would give honor
and glory to Jesus Christ. If I put those aside for the sake of a
desire, covetousness takes root. As I make plans to get it, then it
is confirmed.
The tenth commandment is fascinating, because it is the only one that
does not address specific action. It is the only commandment
that forbids a state of mind. Isn't it interesting that
something that happens in the heart where only God can see is listed
as one of those infractions of God's will.
It is in this commandment, which Jesus elaborated on greatly in the
Sermon on the Mount, that we become aware that wrong ideas precede
wrong action. What we do comes out of what we think. This is why
theologians say that one does one's theology. You may say you believe
one thing, but if you do another, you are living out what you really
believe, and what you have invested your life in. So a wrong idea
precedes a wrong action. No matter how elegantly religious a person
might appear to be on the outside, it is still possible for that
person to seethe with hate or greed invisibly.
It is this commandment that makes known to us there is no such thing
as a right to privacy with God. You've heard it said it's nobody's
business what I do privately. It is nobody's business what I think.
It is nobody's business what I do in my own bedroom. I have heard
this in debates in Presbytery ad nauseam. But the tenth commandment
says it is indeed God's business what you think, and he knows. And
knowing what we're thinking, God can inflame our conscience and bring
us alive spiritually to resist the temptation at work in our minds.
There is a difference, however, between righteous desires of one's
heart and coveting. We are not stoics here. We are not Buddhists who
would say you must eliminate all desire from your life. No, we desire
good things. We desire to take care of our families; we desire to
offer hospitality. We desire education in order to do something that
will provide for our family and equip us to be productive citizens.
Psalm 37:4 says, "Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give
you the desires of your heart." Legitimate desires are fulfilled
by God, and that is the difference: when we desire something, we
submit that desire to the Lord for his provision, if it is his will.
Jesus, on the night he was betrayed, desired not to die, and he told
the Lord, "Father, if you want to let this cup pass from me,
please make that happen; nevertheless, not my will be done, but
yours." So Jesus had a desire that was not God's will at that point.
Covetousness happens when we 1) write God out of the script, 2) let
those desire take wing, and 3) make our decisions to acquire them
outside of the will of God. Our first biblical example, of course, is
in the Garden of Eden. Genesis 3: 4- 6. "When the woman was
tempted by the serpent to take and eat of the fruit of the tree of
knowledge of good and evil" (which had been directly prohibited
by God, the woman committed covetousness here), "When the woman
saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the
eye and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it.
She also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate it
also."
Covetousness preceded rebellion. Eve wanted something, and she really
didn't care what God said about it. She determined to take what she
wanted. Covetousness is serious business, because it places a
substitute for God in our hearts, bringing our action into the realm
of idolatry. It is self-serving and self-loving.
I can think of no better illustration than the story of David and
Bathsheba, found in 2 Samuel 11 and 12.When you hear David and
Bathsheba, which of the commandments do you immediately think of?
Adultery, right? Well, look with me to Nathan the prophet who rebuked
David after that sordid affair.
"The Lord sent Nathan to David. When he came to him, he said,
'Let me tell you a story. There were two men in a certain town, one
rich and the other poor. The rich man had a very large number of
sheep and cattle, but the poor man had nothing except one little ewe
lamb he had bought. He raised it, and it grew up with him and his
children. It shared his food, drank from his cup, and even slept in
his arms. It was like a daughter to him. (This is no ordinary lamb.)
Now a traveler came to the rich man, but the rich man refrained from
taking one of his own sheep or cattle to prepare a meal for the
traveler who had come to him. Instead, he took the ewe lamb that
belonged to the poor man and prepared it for the one who had come to
him.' David burned with anger against the man and said to Nathan, 'As
surely as the Lord lives,' (David gives an oath right there) 'the man
who did this deserves to die. He must pay that man four times over'
(Remember that was the cost for restitution, for stealing) because he
did such a thing and had no pity. Then Nathan said to David, 'You are
the man. This is what the Lord God of Israel says. I anointed you
king over Israel, and I delivered you from the hand of Saul. I gave
your master's house to you and your master's wives into your arms. I
gave you the house of Israel and Judah, for heaven's sakes, and if
this has been too little, I would have given you even more. Why did
you despise the word of the Lord by doing what is evil in his
eyes?'"
The sin was covetousness. David wanted more than the abundance
God had given him and he plotted to get it. When you read Chapters 11
and 12, count how many of the other commandments were broken with
covetousness the basic motivation.
Coveting does under-gird most sins, I think, as the apostle James so
directly puts it in his letter to the early church. Now James 4 is
going to be hard to hear: "What causes fights and quarrels
among you? Don't they come from your desires that battle within you?
You want something, but you don't get it; you kill and covet, but you
cannot have what you want. You quarrel and fight. You don't have
because you do not ask God " See, James is pointing us to that
check-point. We take our requests to the Lord and see if he will
provide them. "When you ask, though, you do not receive because
you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your
pleasures."
So that summarizes the prohibition of the commandment. What is the
positive command? The positive side of this commandment is that we
cultivate contentment. It is about satisfaction. It is about
resisting the temptation to be unhappy with what we have. It is an
encouragement to close our eyes and to plug our ears against the
voices that would say, "Oh surely, you deserve more than
this." It is the voice of God speaking to those who have ears to
hear, "I have given you everything you need for life and
godliness. Enjoy it. Be grateful for it. Celebrate it. Share it.
Share the abundance I have given you."
This commandment requires us to submit all of our desires to the will
of God, even our needs. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said, when
he detected that his disciples were worried about what they would
eat, what they would drink, what they would put on, the shelter over
their heads, he said, "Look. Seek first the kingdom of God and
his righteousness. I put before you the desire to do what God wants,
and all that other stuff will take care of itself." Our focus is
on keeping Jesus in the center of our lives, and letting our lives
and our desires revolve around him as Lord.
When Jesus talked about the Law, he did not throw out the Old
Testament law. He said, "I come to fulfill it, not to abolish
it." He showed that the motive of the heart was as important as
the actions of the hand and body. The heart of a person informs and
drives the actions of a person. If the heart is bad, the behavior
will be bad. You know a person's heart by the fruit of his labor.
Jesus said, "What comes out of a person is what makes a person
unclean." That is to say, the thoughts and the desire of the
heart expressed in illegal and immoral action are what make a person
unclean.
But if the heart is clean, then actions emitting from it are pleasing
to God. Since covetousness is a sin of the inner life, it makes sense
to me that it is the inner life, the heart, that must be transformed
in order for us to obey this commandment.
So how does one's heart get changed? Thank you for asking. You know
my husband is an engineer who is working on artificial heart
technology. While a person is waiting for a heart transplant, they
get on one of these machines that actually does the work of your left
ventricle to pump blood through your system. But people need a heart
transplant. Spiritually speaking, the Lord just doesn't clean our
heart, he gives us a new one. We get a trade. We give him our heart
of stone and rebellion, and he gives us a heart of flesh that beats
to the rhythm of God's will (Ezekiel 11:19). In order for that to
happen, we must give up our own and let him replace it. That
surrender to the Lordship of Jesus Christ is a very simple act of faith.
We tell the Lord, "I no longer want to be a slave to my desires.
I want to be your slave. I want a new master." Jesus said,
"You can't serve two masters. You can't serve God mammon (stuff)
and serve God at the same time. You've got to make a choice."
We make that choice when we surrender our desires to the will of God.
That spiritual transaction is the essential transaction of repentance
and hope and faith in Jesus Christ that we call "becoming a Christian."
It is after we come to know God, after we know that we belong
to God, that we want to show it by living this obedience to his
commandments. Our obedience to the Ten Commandments does not earn us
a place in heaven. We are not racking up brownie points by which God
would love us more. We are not paying out more dollars for new
lottery tickets to increase our chances of winning. Our obedience to
the commandments is a response to the grace and forgiveness of Jesus
Christ.
But by doing so we are declaring that Jesus is Lord of our lives and
not we ourselves. By doing so we are proclaiming that Jesus is the
one whose will we want to adapt to. The Lordship of Jesus Christ as
the only Savior for the world is one of those things we preach and
one of those things we believe is central and essential to our being
Christians.
When we obey the Ten Commandments, we also recognize them as the
basis of civic and moral law. We noted that the tenth commandment
addresses the heart. Our civic laws are based primarily on
commandments four through nine. But the tenth commandment (as well as
the first three) demonstrates to us that they form the basis of what
is moral, even that which cannot be measured or enforced in the civic
political arena. Because you wouldn't get arrested, I hope, for
thinking a certain way. But as soon as you do something that
violates an American law, you are liable for arrest. It's based on
action, that which can be enforced.
But God is saying his law, and the law that Jesus Christ fulfilled,
is far broader and deeper, touching your mind and your heart. God
says, "I have authority. My authority is based on who I am,
Yahweh God, the God of the universe. I have revealed myself in this
written Word, the Holy Scriptures, which the church has proclaimed
for thousands of years as the authoritative, infallible Word of
God." So we as a church respect and obey God's Law. We don't
define what sin is. God has defined what sin is, and God has defined
what is obedience. We are called then, as the people of God who
belong to Jesus Christ and reside under the authority of Jesus
Christ, Savior and Lord for the world, to respect and honor and
submit ourselves to the authority of this Word.
These laws were fulfilled perfectly in Jesus Christ. We have no
record that Jesus sinned, right? And the eyewitnesses, recording
their impressions and their reflections upon the life of Jesus
Christ, said "he was tempted in all ways as we are, yet without
sin" (Hebrews 4:15). Jesus never sinned and thus fulfilled the
Law.
When he comes into our heart by faith (or put another way, when we
ask for that heart transplant), he makes our heart of flesh beat to
the rhythm of God's will. Jesus residing in us by faith enables us
and empowers us to obey the commandments, to live a holy life. We are
not on our own. Jesus Christ has made it possible, and his Holy
Spirit fills us and enables and empowers us to obey.
The call is to a holy life. God said, "Be holy as I am holy"
(Leviticus 11:45). Now that is holy. How can we possibly meet God's
standard, unless Jesus Christ, by the power of his Spirit, makes that
possible? There is hope for you and me, because Jesus Christ has power.
We're not satisfied with the unholiness in our lives. We don't want
to live it, and we're not going to say that a sin isn't a sin. We're
in a much better position before the throne of grace by acknowledging
our sin and repenting of it, and letting God do his transforming
thing in our lives. That is the gospel we preach, and I pray it is
the gospel you believe - because it is in believing that we have
eternal life in Jesus Christ, the only Savior and Lord for the world.
Amen.
Return