Sermon Tone Analysis

Exodus 20:17

 

You shall not covet your neighbour’s house; you shall not covet your neighbour’s wife, or his male servant, or his female servant, or his ox, or his donkey, or anything that is your neighbour’s.[1]

Buddhists consider heaven to be the cessation of all desires.

For a Christian, such a state would not be heaven at all; it would only be the cemetery.

Some desires are necessary and admirable.

There are certain values which we have a perfect right to earnestly desire.

I note that there is within our discontent both the potential for blessing and the potential for cursing.

As Christians, we must be discerning to insure that our desires secure the blessing of God for us and that we not stumble into His curse.

It is, after all, discontent which impels us to endeavour to better ourselves through preparation and training or through seeking out a better job.

We want greater security, so we study and prepare ourselves to attain a better position.

We long to provide for our family, so we work hard to advance ourselves.

Our dissatisfaction with mediocrity drives us to excel.

Nor dare we ever imagine that we should ever be content with mediocrity or embrace the /status quo/ simply because it is familiar.

However, comparing ourselves to others, we see that they are in what we consider to be a better situation.

We think they have possessions which make their life easier than ours, or we consider they have opportunities we haven’t.

Thus, we grow discontent, not because we are endeavouring to provide for our family or secure our future, but because we are comparing ourselves to another.

At that point, we enter the realm of sin as we covet what another has.

Discontent, if it arises from covetousness, leads us into grave sin.

In the one situation, we are considering how we may better ourselves and that desire enjoys the blessing of God.

In the other situation, we are comparing ourselves with another and we are not wise when we do so.

It is the task of each believer to so balance life that discontent with those issues wherein we may glorify God are addressed in a positive fashion and those areas where we are simply expressing greed are mastered and banished so that they do not have dominion over us.

In this message, I propose to explore the Word of God to discover together how we may rule over our desires.

It was this rule for living which condemned the Apostle and made him keenly aware of his failure to live up to the standard set by God.

You will recall his sorrowful cry in *Romans 7:7-24*.

What then shall we say?

That the law is sin?

By no means!

Yet if it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin.

I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, “You shall not covet.”

But sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, produced in me all kinds of covetousness.

Apart from the law, sin lies dead.

I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin came alive and I died.

The very commandment that promised life proved to be death to me.

For sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me.

So the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good.

Did that which is good, then, bring death to me?

By no means!

It was sin, producing death in me through what is good, in order that sin might be shown to be sin, and through the commandment might become sinful beyond measure.

For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh, sold under sin.

I do not understand my own actions.

For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.

Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good.

So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me.

For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh.

For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out.

For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing.

Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me.

So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand.

For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members.

Wretched man that I am!  Who will deliver me from this body of death?

If the Apostle struggled with covetousness, should it be a surprise that we struggle with the same issue?

If the Apostle felt that this rule for living condemned him, it should not be a surprise that many of us find ourselves condemned when we permit ourselves to think about this Tenth Commandment.

Again, and for emphasis, I say that the concept that Christians are to extinguish all desire is utterly foreign to the Word of God, much less human experience.

Christians are not commanded to extinguish all desire!

Christians are called to distinguish between desires that they may embrace those desires which honour the Father and master those desires which destroy our relationship with Him.

In short, as a people of God we are responsible to be discerning, to discover what pleases God and what merely fuels our own desires, choosing that which honours God and eschewing that which is self-serving.

Perhaps it would be helpful for us to go to the beginning, to the foundation for this Tenth and last Commandment.

From there, we will be able to explore the blessings which must surely arise from keeping the commandment and the sorrows which will attend those who ignore it.

Join me in an exploration of the Word, then.

*The Basis for Contentment* — It is possible to become confused about what is permissible and what should not be tolerated among the saints of God.

Obviously, confusion abounds since there is a plethora of confused and confusing people writing “authoritative” books on the issue.

For instance, there persists a strain of contrived humility among professed people of God in which they endeavour to extinguish all desires.

Monasteries and abbeys abound throughout the world where men and women take vows of chastity and vows of poverty in their attempts to rid themselves of all desires and focus on God alone.

The continuing rash of charges of sexual predation and financial mismanagement throughout the past twenty years within monastic orders demonstrates the impossibility of slaying illicit desire through isolation and vows.

Some people consider that a life of prayer and meditation, enforced through retreat into desert areas where one may live as a true eremite will extinguish all desire.

Of course, nothing of the sort occurs.

Others flagellate their bodies, deny themselves comfort and impose the strictest forms of discipline in a vain attempt to forget their desires.

In fact, their efforts only insure that they focus on themselves through their exhausting efforts.

There are obviously desires which are recognised as illicit and unrighteous.

The text mentions several: /your neighbour’s house … your neighbour’s wife … his male servant or his female servant, or his ox, or his donkey, or anything that is your neighbour’s/.

In short, that which is personal property or that which is defined by personal relationship is not to be coveted.

We are not to be greedy to possess that which would dishonour God!

We are to avoid any hint of greed or longing for that which lies beyond the righteousness of God.

There are also legitimate desires which we are to embrace.

Writing the Corinthian Christians, the Apostle Paul instructed them in the matter of balancing desire and disappointment.

Let each person lead the life that the Lord has assigned to him, and to which God has called him.

This is my rule in all the churches.

Was anyone at the time of his call already circumcised?

Let him not seek to remove the marks of circumcision.

Was anyone at the time of his call uncircumcised?

Let him not seek circumcision.

For neither circumcision counts for anything nor uncircumcision, but keeping the commandments of God.

Each one should remain in the condition in which he was called.

Were you a slave when called?  Do not be concerned about it.

But if you can gain your freedom, avail yourself of the opportunity.

For he who was called in the Lord as a slave is a freedman of the Lord.

Likewise he who was free when called is a slave of Christ.

You were bought with a price; do not become slaves of men.

So, brothers, in whatever condition each was called, there let him remain with God [*1 Corinthians 7:17-24*].

What is the foundation for contentment?

What is the basis for a contented heart?

What would give us fulfilment?

Superficially, if desire is sated, contentment should result.

If I have eaten my fill and my stomach is full, I am not hungry except there should be some pathological malady afflicting me.

If I have good friends and true, and if my family is supportive, I should not feel compelled to seek out fawning sycophants to make me feel complete.

Should I possess all things so that nothing which could be given would suffice to either displace or enrich what I now possess, I should be content.

This is precisely the situation prevailing for believers!

Some of the most beautiful Psalms are those written by Asaph.

Among the Psalms of Asaph, the seventy-third is my favourite.

In that Psalm, the psalmist complains about the unfairness of life—how the wicked seem never to be called to account and how the righteous appear to be forgotten even by God.