Deuteronomy 5:20, The Tenth Commandment

Just one verse Deuteronomy chapter 5 verse 21 hear the word of the Lord and You shall not covet your neighbor's wife and you shall not desire your neighbor's house his field or his male servant or his female

Servant his ox or his donkey or anything? That is your neighbors May the

Lord has blessings to the reading of his Holy Word What do you want?

You know, what do you want? Do you want to get a brief maybe emotionally touching little speech?

sprinkling of humor something that's sentimental and almost makes you cry and then laugh again and leaves you inspired and happy about yourself with a little poem and a couple of easy -to -remember catchphrases that rhyme or alliterate all while we are

Very friendly and professionally entertaining your kids and you want all that by noon

Is that what you want out of me right now? Now if I were a more market oriented person, that would be the

Dominant question the question that would haunt me day and night What do these people want after all that's what every successful business is able to do

It's able to give people what they want better and cheaper than the competitors So next time they'll come back to your shop or call for your services.

I'll come to your church Every time we turn on the radio or the TV or open the newspapers

We're bombarded with people claiming they have what we want that they'll make us happy by catering to our needs

Have it your way Many Christians today complain about all this about a society that's being overwhelmed by a debased materialism or consumerism if they prefer to call it that a few

Christians stop and think what's really wrong with Materialism consumerism do you have the time between making money and shopping?

What I believe they mean is better called Covetousness covetousness tells us that what we need is what

Nelson Rockefeller defined as enough money Just a little bit more

Covetousness tells us that if only we get one more thing Just a little bit more money. Just a little bit more pleasure one more gadget

One more house one more vacation Then we'll be happy When we covet we want a universe that revolves around us where every person in the opposite sex exists for your pleasure

Where every scent of wealth and every symbol of success belongs to you where every songs sang in church

It's for you. Every service every sermon is designed to make us happy to satisfy us

So we'll come back for more in a time when even God himself is being hawked like fast food

That he will let us have it our way Well, the Tenth Commandment should come as quite a shock someone has said the difference between authoritarianism in totalitarianism is that in authoritarianism you have to do what you're told in Totalitarianism you have to do what you're told and like it

With this commandment the capstone on the Ten Commandments, we see that God is definitely

Totalitarian up until now you could read all these commands and think you've done You've done pretty well.

You merely have to do what you're told then at the end He bears down on the point first with the word covet

We are to take pleasure in and then with desire. Oh, we don't take pleasure in don't desire anything else and with that he says

See these commands You have to like it. You have to like his commands

You have to love him in an age where every desire is supposed to be legitimate

Any lifestyle is supposed to be acceptable. Every opinion is supposed to be appreciated The Lord still speaks to us and tells us that he insists that he will rule even over our desires over what we want even over our thoughts and feelings

Anything else any? Wanting that is not centered on God Desires that are outside of his control that that do not look to God for satisfaction

That don't not think that he is enough Any of that? It's covetous.

It's sinful. It's wrong The Hebrew were there for covet,

I mean simply to to desire or to take pleasure in But we have to be careful that we don't fall into the error of one major world religion

Buddhism Buddhism says, you know, basically you need to get to the point where you don't desire anything But we don't believe that Desiring simply wanting taking pleasure in something is wrong.

The commandment notice is not a simple do not covet Right some of the previous commandments are very simple two words.

He could have made this two words He could have said no coveting, but he didn't do that Whether it says do not covet things that are not yours to have our problem is not simply desiring

Our problem is not that we want things It's what it's that we want the wrong things

Our problem is not that we are full of desire that we're hungry for fulfillment Our problem is that we are hungry for what is unfulfilling

Like a man on a life raft we keep drinking the seawater and wonder why our thirst is never quenched

Our problem is not that we thirst our problem is what we are drinking We cannot obey this commandment without wanting the right thing

Augustine prayed to God You have made us for yourself. Oh Lord, and our heart is restless

Until it rests in you But instead of resting in God we covet and so we show our

Dissatisfaction in God and in this provision for us and our hearts we cry, you know, God You've been unfair to me.

I deserve them Well, I deserve whatever whatever does I feel I want to have more understanding husband a better paying job a nicer house more respect

People should be listening to me. You've shortchanged me God And so we look around and we compare we see something nicer something that someone else has a

Better car a closer family a bigger inheritance an easier job a sweeter marriage and we want what they have

We crave it and it goals us that we can't have it that others are happy with what they have

Thus we show a lack of faith in God's love Dissatisfaction is the engine of covetousness

We want wealth Servants oxen donkeys maybe in our day a Maid to clean up the newest appliances the best

RVs the nicest Cadillac the newest gadgets, you know, whatever Apple is putting out next We want it.

We've got to have it So we oppress others in the past that meant slavery one person would force another to work for him treat another human being as property

We don't care about them. We care what they can do for us Today it could mean destroying a life simply because keeping it would mean another mouth -to -feed

Too much inconvenience too much drain on the finances too much of a crimp on our comfortable lifestyle

We take advantage of the poor using the desperation of a needy person to charge higher interest for a loan

They need the money So we charge them using the vulnerability of an illegal alien to get away with paying him less than minimum wage

We feel we want to feel ourselves to be the the masters of our domain So we scoff at authorities

We resent the respect others get even the worship that God gives so we try to sabotage it through our sarcasm our cynicism or our boredom

We want to hold on tight to everything we have so we robbed God we robbed God in our giving because we're so busy chasing the objects we yearn for We covet

We've seen that each of these commandments is deeper into our hearts and lives that we might at first think but this commandment

This one is direct. This goes right to the heart. This is the one that doesn't let us deceive ourselves It doesn't let us think that we can get by with God by just obeying some outward rules

We've never physically prostrated before an image. So we think we're not an idolater We never uttered the Lord's name in connection with a curse word.

So we we think we've never taken it lightly We've come to church. So we think we're worshipers. We send flowers to our mothers

Mother's Day, so we think we're fine in that department. We've never left a corpse behind as Evidence so we think we're not murderers.

We've never had an inappropriate. We've never had inappropriate intercourse So we're imagine we're not adulterers everything we have we can prove we we've come into legally

So we we believe we're not thieves We've never slandered anyone. So we at least not you can prove so we love the truth.

We've kept all the rules So we think we're righteous And then the 10th commandment comes in like a wrecking ball to our self -righteousness

Smashing it to pieces. It tells us you might have acted righteously But you didn't like it

It shows us that our heart is full of all the things we scrupulously tried not to do Our only hope then is not to go back and try harder

Try harder No Our only hope is to let these laws show us that we we need to be saved

That our hearts must be made new that in our very hearts we are There now he has made us so we are no longer

Idolaters our murderers or adulterers or thieves or liars? We need a change of heart so radical so near the root of us that only

God can do it. So that finally We like God's commands and We love him the opposite of covening the one thing that you can have

That will keep you from coveting is an overwhelming satisfaction in God a contentment

That he is enough Not be all else to me Save that thou art

To love the Lord with all your heart and mind and strength You can stay in bounds

Keep all the previous commandments But if you aren't satisfied in God if in your heart you're burning for something else something more then

Then you'll covet James tells us in James chapter 4 verses 1 to 2 that it is our covetousness that destroys our

Christian community Why so many churches dissolve into the splits and fights its covetousness.

We can keep all the rules We can stay in bounds But if in our hearts we are a flame with covetousness

We set the church on fire with it and we destroy it He says there James in James chapter 4 what causes quarrels and fights among you

Is it not this that your passions are at war within you you desire and do not have

So you murder you covet and cannot obtain so you fight and quarrel

Covetousness as the commandment and the Apostle James describes it is inherently Hostile it hurts others.

Oh The covetous may not think they're hurting others But they think that simply because they're not thinking of others at all.

They're only thinking of themselves They're too full of their own desires to consider anyone else The covetous may not see the impact of that they're grasping has on others

They see someone with a house or a car or a job or a marriage or respect This seems better than what they have and they don't care who they have to step on to get it

They may they're not thinking to hurt the other person intention. Maybe not. Maybe they are maybe they're not but they just gotta have it

And they don't care what they have to do to get it The debt -ridden covetous man doesn't want to learn how to stop spending beyond his means

Practice self -control deny himself the pleasures of expensive meals out or the next, you know,

I whatever He wants the I whatever Whatever the cost

It is not necessarily covetous now to be motivated by others to improve your lot

That's not necessarily covetousness to give your children a better material future that can be responsible But the covetous are so consumed with their their desires

Maybe for the neighbor's house the car the job the marriage the

I Whatever's the programs the services On and on so consumed with that for themselves.

He doesn't care if his grasping if it's gotta have that That means the day neighbor doesn't have them

But the impact that has on others around him the covetous person does it doesn't care if his neighbor

Has his Lincoln repossessed or his house foreclosed on his marriage into divorce? the church suffer the respect or the esteem

That some hat used to have now stripped away and they're humiliated whatever it takes for me

The covetous the covetous get what they want That's what I want. I don't care.

It's okay, whatever it takes if others suffer along the way if the impact of my grasping is others doing without If the church is hurt by my choices, they no more feel

Sorry, they no more consider that than they would consider whether you know Whether your old favorite restaurant is being hurt by you having a new favorite restaurant

You just don't think of that do you this is all about you consuming. It's all about your desires They crave to be that one everyone listens to not not that other guy not him me not him as James says the covetous desires and so murders

Perhaps just in the heart But as far as God is concerned That's enough

So when covetousness is not rooted out of the church it destroys it instead of rejoicing with those who rejoice

We we envy their success. Why can't I have that? We resent that they have such nice things or they are respected when we want to be listened to why don't listen to me?

So we foment gossip against them. We assume the worst Because we want the worst to be true

Even if they're generous to us, we hate their charity Instead of weeping with those who weep we secretly wonder like Job's friends.

What did they do to deserve that? I'm glad I didn't do it our hearts aren't

Knit together in love like Paul says they should be Because we think we deserve what others give us so we're not grateful for them a couple of weeks ago

I was sitting in my living room listening to solar panel salesman give his spiel

After a while as I usually do often do I kind of zoned out I figure out the memory was there

So I let her listen to the details picture when comes to money and numbers and I'm you know, whatever I don't hear that.

I started to stare. I don't used to sit in my own living room. I stared at this embroidery

Show up on our wall. There we go. You can see it by there and I'm staring at I remember where it came from a

Member of this church gave it to us and her mother made it for us

And I remembered how we came to know her When she was in a crisis in need literally alone on the streets

Another now member of this church picked her up off the streets the next day Mary spent the whole day with her

We both went out to lunch with her and finally the member the other member got her back to her home and she was grateful

She was not covetous she was not thinking that she deserved the kindness has done to her and She's been with us ever since now doing kindness is back to us.

I stared at that embroidery Yeah, and and thought This is a trophy

Not just of the love of members of this church. It is that but it's a trophy of the character of the one who was loved

That she had this done back to us And so she has this done for us and we then feel like doing more favors for her and and on it goes

It's like a cycle of love. That's how hearts get knit together in love

We desire the welfare of each other We want each other to do better to have the futures the families the houses the business

Have every health that that's best for them. We we want the good of each other the covetous though only desire of their own welfare

They are wanters and everything they want They must have and they deserve they think so They're not grateful for it and then they'll give back when others happen to give it to them

They're like like Satan tempting Jesus in the desert, you know, you're hungry You need bread

Put your hunger put yourself first That's the voice of the passions that are war in our midst is the fire of covetousness burning down the church

Instead we should say like Jesus. I Need the Word of God. What do you want out of church?

You want to be trained for godliness if you want to love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul and strength

If you want to be a disciple Then you have to douse the flames of covetousness

When your love be grateful so love back Love the preaching and teaching of God's Word.

That's enough for you Like Jesus after a 40 -day fast you still desire the

Word of God more than bread Have your attitude toward the church be like Jesus's who wasn't covetous who didn't try to grasp to hold on to Equality with God, but he emptied himself gave himself up on the cross for the church seek the welfare of others

Of the church in particular Not just your own Work to build a church that's so committed to the

Word of God that not even Bill Gates could buy influence there So you do not in your suspicion think that others are doing that your envious suspicions cannot protect the church only overflowing

Satisfaction in God can do that. You have to be so content in the Lord that your contentment quenches the flames of Resentful covetousness when others try to set the church on fire with it.

So what do you want? I'm with the kids to be quieter. They're all right. Don't worry about them Yeah, what do you want?

Hey today, we're told all the time If we can only get what we want, there's that thing out there.

Whatever it is once we get it then we'll be happy The problem is that so often we don't know what we want

You know one way to drive someone crazy is to ask them the pressing question. What is it that you really want?

Money we scream because with it we think we can buy whatever else it is that we want But often it turns out that we don't know what we want other than That we want it and we want it now

We are born wanters born coveters So, what do you want

You know a child with a birthday or Christmas wish list Shows how naturally covetous we are they naturally feel that they have to have something more new toy

To make them happy that their birthday or Christmas won't be truly satisfying unless they get a new thing

And we encourage that We teach them in practice that it's getting stuff that makes a day special and fun

Indeed some now are so far into this that at a birthday party every kid has to get a gift

If they're not then they're all leave so unhappy that only the birthday boy. Can you believe only him got a gift? You don't want everybody so especially the brother or sister of the birthday kid.

Yeah, they have to get gifts, too They can't feel satisfaction and someone else getting something

And seeing the birthday boy or girl get the gifts Maybe they need to be taught to do that. No, they covet

They cover what he's getting but that other birthday boy or girl what he's getting They feel so far and they so they feel sorry for themselves

So the parents they encourage their coveting by giving into it if they don't get something they are taught they won't be happy Thus the kids are trained.

I should say they're actually cultivated in their cold covetousness It's nurtured and always after the fascination with the next toy has worn off all it will take so they think

It's just a one more now. I don't think that's just for kids ever had that depressing feeling

Maybe you're walking through Walmart or a mall are strolling through Amazon and scrolling through Amazon.

You look at all the stuff You have the money But the sad thing is it's almost depressing you can buy anything but There's nothing you need

If only you could need so you could buy So for so for a short time at least you could finally be happy.

What do you really want? What makes you think if I only had that? Then I'd be happy Do you buy it?

One thing after another Even if you don't really need it. Oh, but you feel you really feel you do need it

You need that new car that new stereo that HD TV You need the gadgets the cruises the computers name name brand new suits

You need it all so you spend Even if you don't have the money in the bank

You flick to a glossy catalog or scroll through Amazon and you just have to have it You stroll through the mall it catches your eye the credit card will take care of it

So you go into debt for it and you not only rob God as his steward paying too much for something simply because you had to Have it now

But you show that in your heart you aren't satisfied with God that he's not providing you with enough Contentment enough self -control to wait to ask yourself whether you you really need this little treat instead

You think I want it the credit cards not maxed out yet so I can have it People waste their money on things.

They don't need Because they just want they're so sure they just need a little more and in the end

They find out they have less So what is it? What do you want?

Maybe a romantic relationship That will that will be what finally makes you complete like Jerry Maguire you complete me

That will give you purpose something to do with your life Someone to earn for to eat and sleep with someone to adore and to adore you back someone to finally cure that disease of loneliness

And what could be better what could be wrong with that? And so we become desperate Consume with this burning need to have someone which soon makes us willing to settle for anyone as Desperate we're vulnerable and faced with crucial decisions either pursue the

Lord Trust that he'll be enough or pursue this relationship this anyone which we know if we're honest with ourselves

Will take us away from the Lord the Lord or anyone Which we choose will depend on whether deep down We're really content with the

Lord Whether he really is enough. What do you what do you want?

maybe a new marriage a Phantom marriage makes us covet and be dissatisfied with the one we have we look at it and long for it and If we were able to ever able to get up the courage and act on our longings and scuttle our current marriage and go after that Fantasy spouse we'd soon find that the phantom marriage is a mirage.

What do you want? Perhaps you want an ideal family You know, you want a 1950s model dad happily coming home from work to mom cheerily cooking with two and a half kids harmoniously playing with a dog in the yard

Now certainly there's anything wrong with that. Is there and whatever part you play in that you will do your best

You'll be the ideal You know, whatever husband wife son daughter.

I Don't see a no dog here dog dutiful in your place and Maybe church a little religion is part of that kind of Norman Rockwell picture in your head of that ideal

Gotta have a little church in there, right? That's why you want a church that focuses on the family that has programs for the kids because it's all about this fantasy

It's all about you So the Lord is a pleasing word on a plaque on your wall. He's someone you sing and hear about on Sunday mornings

He's part of your bedtime stories He's someone you might even pray to or I read the Bible for because that's what you're supposed to do

In your family your fantasy family He's a small piece in your puzzle of a life and even if you manage to get it all together

Even if you've managed to get three and a half other people in a dog to be dutiful with you and your family

You're still gonna wonder Why you want more? What do you want?

Maybe a feeling of assurance a feeling of security

Of righteousness the the promise that you're okay That the

God will be on your side in the end that God will let you have it your way You'll go to heaven because after all you kept the

Ten Commandments at least most of the time Religion can be a great really maybe the great

The great way to covet in It in religion in the church you covet your own eternal happiness and nothing more

So you're willing to spend some time maybe even here on Sunday mornings and some money After all you feel it's a good investment a little bit now and you'll get a lot later

You want to feel righteous you want to feel that your life has been on the whole pretty good

You want what we talked about at the beginning some inspiration some sense of eternal safety to have the fears of death pushed away and if we sing a few happy songs and Hear a poem and almost cry and and then laugh again.

Why why all the while were we entertaining the kids? Well, that'll be worth something coming back for next week.

Won't it? We might even desire righteousness a kind of righteousness

Legalism is a way of desiring righteousness without righteousness being a gift from God without all that embarrassing

Repentance and that wholehearted love for the Lord without having to admit that I can only come

Just as I am without one plea, but that thy blood was shed for me

In legalism and man -made religion we grasp covetously for what we want

When we should be laying out our empty hands before God crying for mercy

That's why every stanza in that 12 verse hymn ends with a plea have mercy.

What do you want? perhaps most of all you want to be wanted

Our problem is that we want to be the objects of desire So we worship a

God who serves us we worship the way that suits us we throw God's name around for our purposes

We work for ourselves. We hate those who don't adore us. We're willing to use other body others bodies for our pleasure

We hold a penny as if it were ours to make us happy We speak with malice or we silently refuse to tell the truths that will rock our artificial tranquility

All in all we want to be The all -in -all We want to be the one for whom everything else exists for whom everything is designed to make us happy We want to be

God in Colossians chapter 3 verse 5 the Apostle Paul wrote that covetousness is idolatry

Covetousness is idolatry because idolatry is making a God in our image for our purposes

It's an attempt to tie God down with our image so that so that we can bring him out we can bring God out when

We want him to come out and maybe have him do the tricks. We want him to do You know save now because we said the right words

Appear on the bread because we said the right word. We don't like that do the tricks Well, they're feeling and fearing that he will get out of control

Idolatry is making a God we can control and Covetousness is a way of describing the same thing.

Only this time the focus is on the one we want to put in control That is us

My neighbor's house and spouse exists for me Says me The church exists for me and my family says me

We covet control being in charge being the center having the last word

That's why covetous religion is so rebellious it doesn't like someone especially some overbearing

Pastor telling me what to do So the covetous stay home and make themselves their own pastor choosing for themselves what they'll listen to or read

The idolater dares to put himself in charge of deciding who God is and what he's like what his word is the covetous the one filled with self -will desires

Does the same thing? Because covetousness covetousness is

Idolatry. What do you want? I want

What I want We desire what we desire what we see like even the garden what will make us feel good

What looks good to us what we think will boost us what will make us like God in control

What will give us the satisfaction we believe? Maybe the only money or a car or a boy or a girlfriend or our

Kind of religion a church that says have it your way Can give us it's all about us

So we eat or we buy or we seduce or we pay a tithe Hoping to impress a

God who owns it all anyway, we do it all for ourselves Wanting to satisfy ourselves because we just can't believe that God himself

The real God the God who became flesh in Christ. We just can't believe the

Lord himself is Satisfying and so we covet

The law this law in particular is meant to mirror

What we're really like to show us to reveal to ourselves our true desires to show that we desire the wrong thing

The Tenth Commandment is meant to deal the final blow to those who think that they are left standing after the preceding nine

It shows us that we might not always be able to answer the question. What do you want?

But one thing is for sure the Tenth Commandment lets us know for sure left to ourselves

One thing we want we do not want the Lord not the Lord of the

Bible Not the God of Mount Sinai who clapped the thunder and flashed the lightning who shook the mountain not a

God who makes us tremble at his word a terrifying awesome

God who shows us our sin and his power a Totalitarian Lord who tells us to bring every thought captive to obey him.

No. Thanks We don't want him left to ourselves

We don't desire that God but the final lesson of the

Ten Commandments is That he has not left us to ourselves The Apostle Paul tells us in Romans 7

Essentially in the words of that Martin Luther M because of this commandment the Ten Commandment we have this law to see therein that we have not been free from sin and When we see that when we really see that we will tremble and Shrink back as the people of Israel did when this law was originally given and then we can finally sincerely cry

Have mercy Lord This commandment is not meant to tell us to get rid of all desires

Instead it's meant to meant to bring us to desire to To desperation that every cell in our body every atom of our being grasped

Not for the things not for the illusions that we've so long sought but for God himself

The Lord who the next chapter tells us in Deuteronomy to love him to want him

With all our hearts and all our soul in our strength. He's the one

We should covet He's the one We must long for We cannot please

God without Desire without our desperately desiring him

This is why to obey this commandment our worship must be passionate our prayers intense our service a joy

We want Him and we want him

We love him Because he first loved us That we now see finally is the only way we could have been made to love him a

Rebellious people who have a hard time obeying even outwardly these commandments and now we're told that it's not good enough

Just to do what we're told we have to like it and that we know we can't do

Sin has come and blinded us and killed us It's taken away from us the ability to obey this commandment

The commandment has come to show us how dead we really are and so we cry out

Desperately who will rescue me from this death? Who will rescue me who will save us from this deadly covetousness?

Thanks be to God That Jesus Christ did not covet his own pleasure He didn't not even hold on to equality with God, but he gave himself up for us

He died for us so that we can be made alive that we can stop wanting things

That aren't ours to be like God and only then can we be saved have a new heart that wants

God's ways and Loves him So we cry out finally at the end of the