TEN 10: The Tenth Commandment
TEN: A Look at God's Unwavering Commands • Sermon • Submitted
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B: Exodus 20:17
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Opening
Opening
Good morning, and welcome to Family Worship here at Eastern Hills. If you’re here in the room, it’s good to be here with you. If you’re joining us online today, I’m thankful that we can connect in this way.
I’m going to very quickly address the mask mandate for a moment. I want to be clear that there is no path here that is perfect for everyone. So the path we have decided on through prayer and reflection on the Scriptures is the one that we cannot find a solid biblical reason to reject: that during the time of the mask mandate, we will comply with the Health Order with the purpose of submitting to our governing authorities for conscience’s sake in order to most promote the fellowship and unity of the body of Christ here at Eastern Hills, as well as to not hinder the coming in of those who have never trusted in Christ, that their hearing of the truth would not be hindered. I know that many of us, myself included, are not happy with the mask mandate. But my challenge to all of us is to seek to honor our brothers and sisters in this room above ourselves, and to continue to pray for your church staff and deacons as we strive to lead well during this time.
Lord’s Supper next week. We will do the Lord’s Supper in the more traditional manner, with the deacons passing it out. We will have individual elements if you would like to use those instead next Sunday, or if you’re staying home, please let us know that you’d like them. You can come pick them up, or if you’re in town, we can deliver them to you so that you can participate in this family time.
I’ve said that this would be our final week in our series on the Ten Commandments, which we are calling “TEN: A look at God’s unwavering commands,” but I believe I was mistaken. Lord willing, next Sunday before we take the Lord’s Supper together, we will have a short time of review of the Ten Words, as well as consider their importance in the life of the Israelites and what that means for us. I hope you’ll plan to be here, either in person or online. But for this morning, we dive into the last of the Ten Commandments, the Tenth. Let’s stand in honor of God’s Word as we read our focal verse this morning:
17 Do not covet your neighbor’s house. Do not covet your neighbor’s wife, his male or female servant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.
PRAYER, including for those in Afghanistan and Haiti, the police officers who were shot this week and their families.
True story: I started my study for this sermon on Monday afternoon. I read through the Tenth Word several times, prayed and confessed my own failures regarding it, and then gave some consideration to how this command might be taken in a positive way. I wrote down a single word in my notes for applying this command positively. I’ll tell you the word in a moment.
When the governor came on Facebook on Tuesday afternoon, I was in the middle of doing some additional study for this message. And to be honest, when I had seen the news flash about an hour earlier saying that she was going to be reinstituting the mask mandate, my gut reaction to that was, “no… we’re not going back.” And my flesh really wanted to cling to that response. “I don’t like it.” “I don’t want to.” “It’s not fair.” And I wanted to grumble and complain about it, dig my heels in, and not even consider complying. But then I read that word that I had written down during my initial study on Monday, and I had to step back from myself for a moment and seek what the Lord would have us do for the good of the church family and for our testimony, not what I wanted to do personally. This word caused me to reevaluate what my heart was telling me in the moment, and to reflect on God’s goodness regardless of the situation we’ve been presented with. Want to know what that word was?
I’ll tell you in a moment.
Obviously, this commandment is about a particular sin: coveting. It says it right on the face there:
17 Do not covet your neighbor’s house. Do not covet your neighbor’s wife, his male or female servant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.
But here’s the thing. I think that we kind of approach the Tenth Word as the “write off” command with how we relate to our fellow image-bearers, just as we tend to write off the Fourth Word as far as how we relate to God. The command to not covet seems like way less of a big deal than the other ways we relate to each other, right? I mean, no one gets hurt if I covet. I don’t dishonor my parents or kill someone or cheat on my wife or steal something or tell a lie if I covet, do I?
And therein lies the problem of coveting.
1) The Problem of Coveting
1) The Problem of Coveting
I suppose that in order to make sure that we’re all on the same page, we need to have a good working definition of coveting. We tend to think of coveting as “wanting something that someone else has.” Well, that’s sort of right, but too simple. It’s not wrong to simply “want” something, as long as that something isn’t sinful. It’s also not wrong to want the same non-sinful something that someone else has. Think of it this way: young people, would you like to be married someday? For nearly all of you, the answer is yes. You desire to be married someday. Is that a wrong desire? Certainly not! But wait… there’s a bunch of other people in this room right now who ARE married. Since you are wanting the same thing that other people have, does that make wanting to be married someday coveting? Of course not. You just want the same type of thing.
Now, if we looked around the room and thought, “I wish I was married to that man or that woman...” NOW we’re coveting. Again: it’s not wrong to want something. It’s not wrong to want something of the same type that someone else has. It’s wrong to want their specific “something” for yourself, meaning that they can no longer have it. And when we covet, deep in our hearts, we a little bit (or a lot a bit) resent the fact that they have their something, and we don’t.
Coveting’s power lies in the fact that all of our actions are driven by our desires. God has desires, and so us having desires is a part of our bearing the image of God. But because of the Fall, our desires are broken. They are no longer trustworthy, because they flow from our hearts, and our hearts will absolutely lie to us:
9 The heart is more deceitful than anything else, and incurable—who can understand it?
Saint Augustine said that the flawed human heart is “incurvatus in se”, which translates from Latin to “curved in on itself.” And as a result, our hearts will try to tell us that what we want is always right and always good, or will at least try to come up with a justification for why it SHOULD be right and good to do or to have what we want. In short, our hearts are prone to coveting.
So you could broadly define coveting as Philip Ryken did:
Wanting the wrong thing, in the wrong way, at the wrong time, or for the wrong reasons.
I like this more broad definition because it allows us to see that there are several ways that we fall into coveting: not just wanting our neighbor’s stuff. James clearly spoke about the brokenness of our desires in his epistle to the church. He showed the progression from desire to action better than any place in Scripture:
14 But each person is tempted when he is drawn away and enticed by his own evil desire. 15 Then after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin, and when sin is fully grown, it gives birth to death.
Temptation brings desire for sin, so then unbridled desire brings sin… coveting. When our sin of coveting is fully grown, it brings out the actions that lead to our death: it spiritually kills… or maybe even physically kills:
Think for a moment about all of the times in the Bible that coveting went REALLY wrong:
Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. They desired to be like God. It led to sin. Which led to death and broke the universe.
Esau in Genesis chapter 25. He gave up his rights as the first born because he wanted some stew, and it passed instead to Jacob.
Achan in Joshua 7. He coveted some clothes, silver, and gold that had been dedicated to God, and he took them. Because of this, Israel lost their first battle at Ai, and he and his family and all that he had were put to death.
Samson in the book of Judges. He coveted the Philistine woman Delilah, which eventually led to his capture and death.
David in 2 Samuel 11. He looked down from his roof and saw Bathsheba, coveted her, committed adultery with her, and ended up murdering her husband, Uriah.
King Ahab in 1 Kings 21. He wanted Naboth’s vineyard for a garden because it was close to his palace, so he allowed his wife Jezebel to murder Naboth. The dogs licked up his blood at his death, as had been promised through Elijah because of this sin.
I could keep going. The Bible isn’t afraid to show people for what they are: even the “heroes” of the faith. Coveting is certainly powerful. But its power is not its biggest problem.
The problem with coveting is that it’s completely and totally internal. I mean, what if there were thought bubbles that floated out of your head when you coveted—thought bubbles that everyone could see and read? Do you think you might try to figure out how to have a better grip on your thought life?
But that’s why coveting is such a problem: No one can tell if we’re coveting. It’s just happening in our heads, and in our hearts, and “no one knows,” we say to ourselves. We can keep that sin hidden until we decide to act on it. In this way, it can gain a foothold. It can build a foundation. It can prepare us for the next step of action. Look at how James talked about it in chapter 4 of his letter:
1 What is the source of wars and fights among you? Don’t they come from your passions that wage war within you? 2 You desire and do not have. You murder and covet and cannot obtain. You fight and wage war. You do not have because you do not ask. 3 You ask and don’t receive because you ask with wrong motives, so that you may spend it on your pleasures.
So why do we have conflict with each other in the body of Christ? Because of our passions, our desires, that wage war within us, those internal things. And sometimes those desires stay internal, and sometimes they break forth in action: We “murder and covet” and can’t get the thing that we want: the wrong thing, in the wrong way, at the wrong time, for the wrong reason. In the body of Christ especially, we need to come to terms with the fact our desire-ers are broken, not what they were meant to be in the beginning, and that as a result, our desires are always suspect. Which takes us to our second point:
2) The Revelation of Coveting
2) The Revelation of Coveting
If coveting is a sin that all of us struggle with, then we’re all in the same boat here. We’re either all coveters or temporarily recovering coveters. However, there are two things that the sin of coveting actually reveals about us if we will just stop and consider our desires for a moment:
First, coveting reveals that we place our hope in the wrong things.
First, coveting reveals that we place our hope in the wrong things.
We don’t always want the right thing, in the right way, at the right time, with the right motives. We think that something other than God’s provision, God’s plan, and God’s priorities are going to provide hope and meaning and purpose for our lives. We think that other things will deliver us from our struggles. That something other than God will provide us with power or prestige. “I would be happier if I had more money. My life would have more meaning if I had that guy’s job.” But these other things can’t deliver. The promises they make are empty, and we cannot allow ourselves to be tempted to define our lives by them.
15 He then told them, “Watch out and be on guard against all greed, because one’s life is not in the abundance of his possessions.”
See, Jesus said that we can’t allow ourselves to be taken in by the false promise of greed, because while money might have us believe that it can give us hope and life, it can’t.
Consider the rich young ruler’s encounter with Jesus in Luke 18.
18 A ruler asked him, “Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” 19 “Why do you call me good?” Jesus asked him. “No one is good except God alone. 20 You know the commandments: Do not commit adultery; do not murder; do not steal; do not bear false witness; honor your father and mother.” 21 “I have kept all these from my youth,” he said. 22 When Jesus heard this, he told him, “You still lack one thing: Sell all you have and distribute it to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.” 23 After he heard this, he became extremely sad, because he was very rich.
This guy claimed to have successfully kept commandments 5 through 9… impressive! But Jesus said one thing was missing: the Tenth Word. He had great wealth, and though he came and found Jesus and asked him the right question, the thing that stood in the way wasn’t his external sin, but that he was more committed to his wealth than he was to following Jesus, which showed where his true loyalties lay.
Former Vice President Nelson Rockefeller, who was worth hundreds of millions of dollars, was asked by a reporter how much money it takes to be happy. His answer echoes the rich young ruler’s heart: “Just a little bit more.” Coveting knows no tax bracket.
But to broaden this application just a little further, anything that we desire in order to have hope or meaning or purpose falls in the same category as wealth. If we think that anything other than Jesus will ultimately satisfy, then we covet that something. It might even be something good: like a ministry position or a child. If might be something really big: like a promotion or a political victory. It could even be a recollection and desire to return to the past, as if somehow that was better. Remember how the Israelites wanted to go back to Egypt when they were in the wilderness? Their current difficulties made them think that the past was better than it really was, and they coveted a return to it to their detriment. To put it succinctly: If anything other than Jesus is the cornerstone of our hope, we are coveting, because only He can deliver.
Second, coveting reveals that we need a Savior.
Second, coveting reveals that we need a Savior.
How long do you think you could go without murdering someone? (I know that when I preached on the Sixth Commandment, we saw it is much wider than that, but humor me here.) Probably basically forever. How long do you think you could go without committing adultery? Stealing? Taking God’s name in vain? We could probably manage these pretty well on their face, a fact which we acknowledged in looking at each of them.
But how long do you think you could go without a covetous thought? An hour? A day? A week? Remember that the problem with coveting is that it’s all on the inside, so we can’t use the defense of our outward adherence to the strictest form of the command. God knows our every thought, and so He knows when we covet, even if only for a moment. Therefore, the Tenth Word makes explicit what the other commandments imply: That God cares as much about our thoughts and desires as He does our outward obedience. Without this Commandment, we might fool ourselves into thinking that only the outside matters. And without this Commandment, we might think that we can save ourselves.
“Martin Luther said, “This last commandment, then, is addressed not to those whom the world considers wicked rogues, but precisely to the most upright—to people who wish to be commended as honest and virtuous because they have not offended against the preceding commandments.” As Luther recognized, this commandment—more than any other—convinces us we are sinners. It does this for the gracious purpose of showing us that we need a Savior.” Philip Ryken, Exodus—Saved for God’s Glory
The Tenth Commandment reveals to us that we are sinners, even when we get everything right on the outside, and that we still need a Savior. When Paul wrote his example of the inability of the Law to save him in Romans 7, which commandment did he choose to point to? The Tenth:
7 What should we say then? Is the law sin? Absolutely not! But, I would not have known sin if it were not for the law. For example, I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, Do not covet. 8 And sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, produced in me coveting of every kind. For apart from the law sin is dead. 9 Once I was alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin sprang to life again 10 and I died. The commandment that was meant for life resulted in death for me.
He understands that because of his flesh, once he learned what it was to covet, he discovered that he coveted all the time. And as a result, he was dead. He ends this section with a question and an answer:
24 What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? 25 Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, with my mind I myself am serving the law of God, but with my flesh, the law of sin.
The Tenth Word shows us that we need a Savior, because all of us covet, and all of us hide it. And we might think that we get away with it, but God sees and God knows. In this way, the Tenth Commandment brings us full circle to the First. Jen Wilkin wrote:
The God who sees bears witness to every sinful desire. The tenth word reminds us at the conclusion of what we understood at the outset: there are no gods before God. It is God who bears witness to our compliance to the tenth word. (Ten Words to Live By, p. 140)
So we can keep all the rest of the commandments, and fail at this one, and we are still lost. This is why we need Jesus. On my own, I’m never going to get it completely right. I’m never going to live up to God’s holy standard for my life. So I’m hopeless. But rather than leaving me in my hopeless state, God sent His Son, Jesus Christ, to the world to live a perfect life in my place. He never sinned. And then, Jesus died to take the punishment that my sins deserve, so I never have to pay for them. And then He rose from the dead, defeating death in my place, so that I can have eternal life. All I can bring to that transaction is my surrender, giving up myself to my Lord Jesus Christ, and He gives me eternal life, eternal hope, and eternal purpose that nothing on the earth can. Only Jesus gives us true hope.
So rather than a constraint, the Tenth Word is a grace! Realize that you need a savior, and believe that that savior is Jesus. Surrender your life, your hope, and your future into His loving arms this morning. You need a Savior… maybe you just didn’t know it until now.
So we’ve addressed the problem of coveting and the revelation of coveting. So what’s the solution? What was the word that I saw in my notes on Tuesday?
3) The Solution to Coveting
3) The Solution to Coveting
OK, I’ve kept you on the hook long enough. The word that I wrote down in my notes, before I studied any further than just the Scripture, was: Contentment.
J. John quoted an old adage in his book “TEN”
“People live in one of two tents: CONtent and DISCONtent.”
Back in 1989, Dear Abby published a poem written by then 14 year old Jason Lehman called Present Tense:
It was spring, but it was summer I wanted,
The warm days and the great outdoors.
It was summer, but it was fall I wanted,
The colorful leaves, and the cool, dry air.
It was fall, but it was winter I wanted,
The beautiful snow and the joy of the holiday season.
It was winter, but it was spring I wanted,
The warmth, and the blossoming of nature.
I was a child, but it was adulthood I wanted,
The freedom and the respect.
I was 20, but it was 30 I wanted,
To be mature and sophisticated.
I was middle-aged, but it was 20 I wanted,
The youth and the free spirit.
I was retired, but it was middle age I wanted,
The presence of mind, without limitations.
My life was over.
But I never got what I wanted.
The Chicago Tribune, 2/14/1989, found at https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1989-02-14-8903050524-story.html on August 20, 2021
The character in the poem never got what he wanted because he always wanted what he didn’t have. He was never content.
If discontent were a disease, I think we would call it “having a case of the if only’s”. “If only I had a better life…If only I had a kinder husband… If only I had a nicer wife… If only I had a different job… If only I had a fancier car… If only, if only, if only if only.” Once we start into the “if only’s” of discontent, we’re only going to start into the comparisons, and only fall further and further into coveting. This is why advertising is such a lucrative industry: their whole job is to get you to want something that you don’t already have, with the promise that it will provide peace or hope or happiness or security… They try to entice us to covet by targeting our discontent.
You’ve heard the old saying, “the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence.” This basically reflects on the fact that we often view something that we don’t have in really romanticized terms: that since we don’t have it, it must be better. We see this on social media all the time. We look at all of the carefully curated pictures and cautiously crafted words on our friends’ posts, and we think: “Man, their life is so great. If only MY life was that great.” Unfortunately, what we forget is that we are comparing their BEST to what we know is our WORST. The grass isn’t actually any greener over there. It’s just that the green is all we can see from our side of the fence! Instead of always looking at the other side of the fence, we need to figure out how to be content with our side of the fence.
So contentment is the solution to coveting. Stated positively, “Do not covet,” is “Be content.”
Basically every commentary I read after that initial study agreed with this initial direction. Contentment is the solution to coveting. The reason the word “contentment” so arrested me was the fact that it shouldn’t matter what situation I find myself in: I can be content because God is still God, Christ is still on His throne, and He is neither afraid nor out of control. And I am still His child, no matter what is happening in the world. It’s not a question if not having desire for something different than my current situation, it's a matter of my desire being first and foremost for Christ’s will to be done in my life.
Again quoting Philip Ryken:
God calls us to glorify Him to the fullest right now, whatever situation we are in… Contentment means wanting what God wants for us rather than what we want for us. The secret to enjoying this kind of contentment is to be so satisfied with God that we are able to accept whatever He has or has not provided.
If we are willing to focus on what God is doing instead of what we are doing, willing to pursue God’s kingdom instead of our own kingdom, willing to adopt God’s priorities instead of the priorities of our flesh or of the world, I believe that we will find that we have all that we need to be content. Consider what Paul wrote to his protege Timothy in 1 Timothy chapter 6:
6 But godliness with contentment is great gain. 7 For we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out. 8 If we have food and clothing, we will be content with these. 9 But those who want to be rich fall into temptation, a trap, and many foolish and harmful desires, which plunge people into ruin and destruction. 10 For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, and by craving it, some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs.
Godliness with contentment is great gain. One interesting aspect of this connection is that if we have one, we probably have the other, and thus have great gain. If we do not have one, we likely don’t have the other. We covet, breaking the Tenth Word because we are discontent, and that makes for a terrible cycle, because then as we covet, we deepen our discontent because we discover even more things that we don’t have that other people have. And we fall away from the godliness that should characterize our lives.
So what are we to do? Well, Paul would say to the Philippians that he had learned how to be content:
10 I rejoiced in the Lord greatly because once again you renewed your care for me. You were, in fact, concerned about me but lacked the opportunity to show it. 11 I don’t say this out of need, for I have learned to be content in whatever circumstances I find myself. 12 I know how to make do with little, and I know how to make do with a lot. In any and all circumstances I have learned the secret of being content—whether well fed or hungry, whether in abundance or in need. 13 I am able to do all things through him who strengthens me.
Did you catch that? Contentment can be learned. You can apply yourself to gaining the knowledge of how to be content.
And what was his secret to learning this contentment? It was that he discovered that he was able to do all things through Christ who gives him strength. All that Paul needed, God had given to Him in the person of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who died in Paul’s place and my place and your place on the cross. Through Him we have forgiveness of our sins. Through Him we have a living hope of eternal life. Through Him we have been adopted as God’s children. Through Him we have been given the Holy Spirit to walk with us day by day. Through Him we have been set free from the power of sin, and transferred to a new and different kingdom. Through Him, we have been made new.
This is how we learn to be content: we have a right perspective on our lives, and a right perspective on the value and worth of the Lord Jesus Christ, such that we understand that He is the treasure in the field worth everything we own, the pearl of great price that we would gladly give up everything to have. It’s when we are completely satisfied in Christ that we no longer need to covet anything else, because we have that which is most important for eternity.
Closing
Closing
I want to leave us with another look at that new song that we learned this morning: “Yet Not I But Through Christ In Me.”
Look at the lyrics of the first verse:
What gift of grace is Jesus my redeemer.
There is no more for heaven now to give.
He is my joy, my righteousness, and freedom,
My steadfast love, my deep and boundless peace.
To this I hold, my hope is only Jesus.
For my life is wholly bound to His.
Oh how strange and divine, I can sing, “All is mine.”
Yet not I, but through Christ in me.
That second line: “There is no more for heaven now to give,” is a declaration that Jesus is completely sufficient for our greatest need: the need for a Savior. Because of our sin, we need a savior if we are ever going to be right with God. And Jesus is that Savior. This morning, would you call out to Him in surrender? Give up your determination to go your own way, and find satisfaction in Jesus. You can do that where you are, whether you are here in the room or online. If you’re online, we want to help you as you start this journey of faith. Reach out to me by email at bill@ehbc.org and let me know you’ve surrendered your life to Christ today. If you’re in the room, while the band plays, come and tell me or Joe or Kerry that you’ve surrendered to Christ, so we can set a time to walk with you as you take these first steps of faith.
Christian, is Jesus sufficient for you? Do you find your hope, your purpose, your meaning in life from Him? If not, has some coveting crept into your heart that is turning you away from Him? Repent this morning and return to Christ, and renew your commitment to follow Him in faith, confessing that He is sufficient for you. You can come and pray at the steps, or right there in the pew in front of you, or there at home wherever you are. Listen and respond to God’s work in your heart this morning.
If you believe that Eastern Hills is a church family that you can be a part of where you can connect with other believers and be a part of God’s work of connecting people to Jesus, and this morning you would like to formalize that by joining this church family in membership, please come and let us know that as well. We’ll set a time to sit down and answer any questions you might have, and to get to know on another better. If you’re online but in the Albuquerque area and would like to discuss church membership, please reach out to my by email.
You can also use this time of invitation to give online as the Lord leads you. If you’re in the room and would rather give in person, you can use the plates by the doors as we leave in few minutes.
PRAYER
Closing Remarks
Closing Remarks
Dennis Groves in the hospital following a heart attack this week.
Bible reading: Isaiah 11 today.
Instructions: Including visitors come and meet me down front.
Benediction:
33 But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be provided for you.