Covetousness and Contentment

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⟦Transcript⟧ Well, if you’ll turn with me to Exodus chapter 20, we are finally at the end of our series on the Ten Commandments. One of those times of year, like I said before, where we tend to have more interruptions to our Sunday night schedule than usual, and then you throw into it that ten weeks is kind of a long series. I feel like we’ve been in this since sometime last year.

But thank you for hanging with me through it. And we’re going to look at the last of the Ten Commandments tonight, the Tenth Commandment. And it says in Exodus chapter 20, verse 17, You shall not covet your neighbor’s house, you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, nor his male servant, nor his female servant, nor his ox, nor his donkey, nor anything that is your neighbor’s.

So naturally, the first question we have to ask ourselves as we look at this verse, at this particular commandment, is what does it mean to covet? If it means just to want something, do not want anything, well, we’re told in Scripture that there are various things that we should want and we should seek after, things even that we should work toward. So we know that it’s not just a wanting of something.

I’ve heard it explained as it’s a jealousy over something. I think that comes a little bit closer, but doesn’t quite tell the whole story. As a matter of fact, we have to be careful to define our terms there then, because I was reading a passage of the Old Testament to Benjamin a few weeks ago that said, I am a jealous God.

And he stopped and kind of gave me that look where I can tell the wheels are turning. And I said, you’re wondering why it’s okay for God to be jealous and not us, right? And he said, yes.

That’s exactly what he was wondering. And I said, because jealousy is not ungodly if we’re jealous over things that belong to us. I said, God is jealous over our hearts and our devotion because those things belong to him.

I said, if mom started going out on dates with other men, I would have every right to be jealous about that because we’ve made vows to each other, and she belongs here with me and taking care of all four of you. That’s where she belongs. I’d have every right to be jealous about that.

I said, when Madeline gets a present on her birthday and sometimes you’re jealous, that’s what we call an example of ungodly jealousy. And we all have that as well. But God is jealous in such a way where he is jealous over the things that he actually rightly deserves, whereas we often can be envious over things that belong to other people.

So if we look at it in the terms of jealousy and envy, we’re getting a little closer to what coveting means. But it differs just a little bit because coveting is this overwhelming lust for something that doesn’t belong to us and we have no right to. So it differs from jealousy largely in its intensity.

It’s that ungodly jealousy that’s driven with a passion within us that I can only describe as lust. It’s when, you know, there’s a difference between wanting something or even a longing glance versus coveting. You know, I, Brother Phil, drove in here a few weeks ago with a new Jeep. It wasn’t new, but it was new to him.

And honestly, I like it better than the newer Jeeps. It was one of the older Jeeps and newly restored Jeep. Yeah, it was nice.

And he drove in here and that. And even Madeline would not shut up about the Jeep. Did you see Brother Phil’s Jeep?

Yeah. Did you see Brother Phil’s Jeep? Yeah.

Did you see Brother Phil’s Jeep? No. Really?

Yeah, I saw it. I still saw it from the last time you asked me. I liked that Jeep.

And I looked at it and I thought briefly, man, I’d like to have one of those. And then I went on my way. All right.

Coveting, that’s not coveting. That’s admiring something that somebody else has. You know, I wouldn’t mind having one of those.

Coveting would be, if I had gone home and started scheming, how can I get me a Jeep like that? And not necessarily by illicit means, but how could, which child do I have to sell to get a Jeep like that? Yeah, to get his Jeep.

If I start going to bed at night thinking about his Jeep, and I start waking up first thing in the morning thinking, I’ve got to get me a Jeep, then we’re talking coveting territory. You think of somebody who’s addicted to drugs, and they go to bed at night thinking about how to get that fix. And they wake up in the morning needing that fix of whatever it is.

You know, those drugs are at the root of a lot of the problems in our society. When you talk about theft, you talk about prostitution, you talk about all these things that go wrong, a lot of it is driven by people who are desperate and doing what they need to do to get that fix of something. Well, coveting is a lot like that drug addiction, where the addict goes to sleep thinking about his fix and wakes up in the morning thinking about his fix.

Somebody coveting is constantly thinking about how to get that thing that they’re after, whatever it may be. now why is that such a problem why is it such a problem to covet surely we want to encourage people to work hard surely you know I want to encourage my children to to work hard to save their money I want to encourage them to save it have a plan in mind and save up for something that you want I talked to benjamin last week he was wanting to spend five dollars on something when we went to atwoods that he said I may not use it for a while but I want it and I said you can buy it you have the money. You can buy it.

I’m not going to tell you you can’t with your money. But here’s what I think would be a wise decision. It went in one ear and out the other.

But I said, you’re eight years old now. You are exactly halfway to driving. Start thinking now about a car, and you’ll have something you really can be proud of.

I want them to work toward that and save and plan for the future. So where’s the line, and why is there a difference between coveting, the scheming towards something, versus, you know, I’m just planning ahead and thinking ahead. Well, the New Testament tells us that coveting is a form of idolatry.

It’s a form of idolatry. That’s why coveting is such a big deal, is because it’s a form of idolatry. That’s why God said don’t covet any of these things, because it’s tied back to that very first commandment, you shall have no gods before me, no other gods before me.

In Colossians chapter 3, in verse 5, it says, Therefore put to death your members which are on the earth fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. So it’s not Jared saying that covetousness is idolatry. It’s the Apostle Paul writing under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit and addressing the church at Colossae says that covetousness is a form of idolatry.

And we might wonder, how is that possible? Because you think of all the things we could covet. You think of all the things that are listed here in Exodus 20, 17 that somebody might covet.

And you might say, well, I don’t bow down to any of that. How is that my God? When we think of other gods, we tend to think of the Old Testament.

In the Old Testament, the pagan countries around Israel, they would have their Asherah poles and groves of trees, sacred trees that they would bow down to. They’d have statues of Baal. They’d have statues of Dagon. They’d have all these things.

When we think about other gods in our modern context, we might think of you’ve been to a Chinese restaurant where they’ve got a statue of Buddha in the corner or something like that, something that we might bow down to. But we know those are not the only things that can become gods to us. It doesn’t have to be a physical object that we physically bow down to for it to be a god.

Idolatry is any time we give our devotion to something other than God, any time we give the devotion that belongs to God to someone other than God. Excuse me, I just got a little tongue-tied there. So terrible when bad things happen to good sentences.

Idolatry is any time we take the devotion that belongs only to God and we give it to somebody or something other than God. and when we give the place in our hearts where he belongs to something else. Basically, what we do is we don’t physically, as Americans, we don’t physically bow down to things.

But in our hearts, our hearts bow down to things that are idols. And I list here some of the things that people coveted in ancient Israel. And the context is a little different.

The clothes are a little different. But it’s not that much different from what people would necessarily covet today to make a list of the top things. If this was family feud and we took a survey of 100 people, put up on the board the top answers of the things people covet, they would be more or less the same, except maybe livestock.

If we turn livestock into cars, then we might have today’s list. But look here. He talks about not coveting your neighbor’s house. Not coveting your neighbor’s house.

Not coveting the big mansion on the hill. But even if you’re not talking about the big mansion, talking about looking at your neighbor’s next door and how nice they’ve got their yard fixed up and all the things that they can afford around their house, we can very easily start to covet our neighbor’s house. That wasn’t unique to ancient Israel.

People today are still trying to keep up with the Joneses. He said, don’t covet your neighbor’s wife. So many bad decisions have started with somebody saying, you know, there’s somebody else’s wife, somebody else’s husband, and I sure like them better than mine.

A lot of bad decisions start there. That was not unique to ancient Israel. That happens in our day as well.

Your neighbor’s servants. And this really just goes back to their economic well-being. Don’t covet after the rich person.

And yet we all, you know, at times, would like to have what the rich person has. Their servants. Somebody to wait on us.

For a lot of people, the dream in life is to sit around on some island in the South Pacific and have people bring you things to drink out of coconuts while they fan you with palm fronds, right? My dad is still waiting for the day that he can be a professional beach bum. He tells me that.

That’s his career goal is to be a professional beach bum. Not me. I burn too easily.

But if we could do the same thing maybe on a ski slope somewhere, you know, I’d be up for that. But the idea of servants and somebody taking care of you, to be that economically well off, You know, we kind of envy people that are in that place in life. Again, the livestock.

Now, maybe here in rural areas, we might covet the livestock that our neighbor has. Like I said, today, it would probably be more in line with, you know, I don’t covet your horse so much as your car. But we can start to covet those things.

Possessions, possessions of all kinds. God doesn’t limit this here to where they think, oh, as long as I’m not coveting one of these things, the house, the wife, the servant, I’m fine. He says, nor anything that is your neighbor’s.

He says, any of the possessions, anything really that your neighbor has. Don’t covet your neighbor’s stuff. Don’t covet his clothes.

Don’t covet the greenness of his yard. Don’t covet the diplomas that he’s got on his wall. Don’t covet that his children are so well behaved.

Don’t look at somebody and envy them to the extent that that becomes the focus of your life. Again, there’s nothing wrong with looking at your neighbor and saying, man, they’ve really cleaned up around their house. I feel like I should do the same.

I wish my house was as clean as the one next door. You know, cleared out the brush and stuff. You know, maybe my neighbor’s kids are really well behaved.

Mine aren’t, but maybe my neighbor’s kids really are well behaved. Maybe I should do something to help mine behave better. You know, there’s nothing wrong with, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with looking at other people around us and being encouraged to do better.

being encouraged to work for other things, not only for our good and the good of our families, but ultimately for the glory of God. But it becomes a problem when we become fixated on those things. When I become fixated on my neighbor’s house, when I have to have something like my neighbor’s house, when I have to have my neighbor’s wife, when I have to have his servants or his livestock or any of his possessions.

You know, we’re not really all that different today. We still have trouble with this coveting thing today. And again, we might say, but I’m not worshiping it.

And as I was sitting here during the song service, singing and thinking about the message, I was thinking of this concept of coveting and how it really is, like the Apostle Paul says, a form of idolatry. And that verse from the Psalms popped into my head. I didn’t even have time to look it up, that says, as the deer pants for the water, so my soul longs after thee, where the psalmist was talking to God.

And I picture there what he’s talking about, a deer that is being chased by something, a deer that is running, probably being chased by hunters, exhausted, tired, thirsty, And all he wants is a drink of water. He’s dying for a drink of water. All he is consumed by is seeking that drink of water to refresh him.

That’s all he needs in the world. And that is supposed to be that concept of the deer panting after the water is supposed to be a picture of how we are supposed to long after God. And yet all too often, we could put something else in the blanks there.

As the deer pants after the water, so my soul longs after thee. Not, O God, but, O Ford Mustang. O ATV that I saw at Cabela’s the other day.

Anything you put in there. What we’re talking about here with covetousness really is a lust, a driving desire that we are supposed to have only for God. That we are supposed to look to God as the one thing that satisfies us, the one thing that completes us, the one thing we can’t get enough of, the one thing that we should wake up thinking about and go to sleep still thinking about, should be God, and yet we take other things and we put it in his place.

And we’re thinking about those things, and that’s covetousness. Why is it such a problem? Because again, it ties back to that first commandment, have no other gods.

And it’s a big problem not only because it becomes a worshipful thing, because it becomes an idolatrous thing, but also God warns against it because the consequences of it are so dire. Covetousness, covetousness, that’s a hard word to say, especially fast. Covetousness leads to discontentment. It leads to discontentment.

There have been times I’ve bought something I’ve needed and I’ve thought I’ve got a really great deal on that and it turned out to be a good thing. I could probably throw lawnmowers in there as an example. And I’m really happy with what I have until I see what somebody else has got.

And I start to get discontent. And what I was so excited to have now, I kind of resent and I’m thinking about what I need to do to move up and get something else. Trade it in.

Trade it in plus some dollars. Covetousness leads us to be discontented with what we have, with what God has blessed us with. And it encourages sin in other ways.

How many people, how many people throughout history, and I don’t expect you to have a number, but how many people, just think about this, how many people in history have wronged somebody else because they wanted what the other person had? How many acts of violence have been driven by you’ve got something, I want it, and I’m going to come take it because that’s all I care about is this need in me. Whether we’re talking about drugs, whether we’re talking about money, whether we’re talking about vehicles, all sorts of evil has come about and been perpetrated by one person on another because somebody was discontented with what they had and wanted what somebody else had.

I’m telling you, idolatry, which covetousness is, idolatry is at the root of all sin, and it’s at the root of all sin against one another. Not just our sins against God, but our sins against one another are driven by idolatry. And so what do we do about it?

Because it’s part of our human nature. You know, we’re just little green-eyed monsters when you get right around to it. I was talking to a friend the other day and said, we were talking about kids, I said, I still believe in the sin nature.

And she said, oh, you don’t hear that much anymore. Well, I don’t know what church you go to. We still believe in the sin nature.

We believe that mankind has fallen into sin. If you don’t believe in a sin nature, what was Jesus doing on the cross? If you don’t believe sin is real. And talking about the sin nature, I said, aside from what the Bible teaches, there are some practical reasons.

For me, the reason is always first and foremost, what does the Bible say? Hopefully that’s clear to you all by now. But aside from that, there are some practical reasons why I know the sin nature is real. And it’s because the choice to do right has to be taught.

And the choice to do wrong comes naturally. Right? We spend 18 years with our children trying to train them and equip them to do the right thing.

It’s the wrong thing that they seem to know by nature how to do. Nobody taught any of my kids how to lie. At least as far as I know, nobody taught them this.

If they did, I want to talk to whoever did it. But nobody taught my kids how to lie, how to hit, how to take things that didn’t belong to them. And yet we’re spending every day trying to teach avoiding those things.

And not just by dealing with the behavior, but by dealing with the spiritual condition behind it. You know, sometimes Charlo will call me in there to discipline. And I just get so frustrated.

You know, I’m not even going to talk to you about this. You know this is wrong. You’re doing it anyway.

You’re making a choice. There’s ugliness in your heart. You talk to Jesus about it because I can’t fix this.

He can’t. And, you know, they may think they’re getting off easy for a moment, but they really don’t. But nobody taught them how to sin.

And yet Charlie, at his very early age, he might be totally disinterested in something that’s laying on the floor, a toy, until somebody else picks it up and then he wants it. And by the way, the older kids do that to him too. They want his toys as soon as he’s interested in it.

As human beings, as adults, we’re the same way. We’re the same way. We see stuff that other people have and we want it.

Some of us control it better than some others of us. And at times, we control it better than at other times. But we basically, that is our nature.

So what do we do about it? All right, 1 Timothy. If you want to turn here with me because we’re going to look at a few verses.

1 Timothy chapter 6, verses 6 through 11, Paul talks about the perspective that we need to keep. He says, starting in verse 6, Now godliness with contentment is great gain. By the way, I want to stop there and explain.

He’s not saying here, godliness is great gain. Sometimes this verse will be read and it will be misinterpreted and misapplied as though what it’s saying is that if we just live godly lives, he is required, he is obligated to bless us with material blessings. You can probably, I don’t know who’s on right now this time of day, but you can probably go home and turn on a TV in and find somebody talking about that very concept.

This does not teach that godliness is great gain in the sense that if we’re good, God is obligated to give us material things. This says godliness with contentment is great gain. This means for us to truly be blessed is for us to live a godly life and be content with what we have.

Does it mean that our bank accounts will just fill up like a rain gauge in last week’s rain when we start to be godly and live contentedly? Now, what it means is that we’ll start to see possessions and things in a different light. We will learn to be contented with what we have.

We’ll learn to view everything we have as a blessing from God. Not as something that I own and can hold on to, but something that God has entrusted me with as a steward. And when I start to look at things from God’s perspective and see everything according to where it fits into the kingdom, then I’m going to feel like whether I’m Warren Buffett, you know, a billionaire, or whether I can barely scrape together money to go buy groceries, I am going to feel like my cup runs over with blessing because of what God has entrusted to me.

When our perspective is not based on the stuff, but is based on the contentment and the kingdom perspective, we will begin to understand how truly blessed we are. And by the way, we of all people should understand that. Because even the poor in this country are typically much better off than people in other parts of the world.

We want to talk about the richest group of people in the world. We’re it. Even though most of us in this room, I don’t think we’ve got any millionaires as far as I know.

If there are, you’ve been holding out on us and told us. We’re not wealthy people, and yet in material terms, we are some of the most blessed people that have ever lived on the face of the earth. If we could learn to be content with what we have and view it in terms of its impact in God’s kingdom, we’d understand just how blessed we truly are.

He says in verse 7, For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out. And having food and clothing with these, we shall be content. But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and harmful lusts which drown men in destruction and perdition.

He says, you know, we came into this world with nothing. It’s true. We came into this world with nothing.

You don’t own anything when you come into this world. As a matter of fact, I have a friend who says you’re in debt because when you were born, you were already indebted to your parents for nine months’ rent by the time you were born. So we do not come into this world rich, and we don’t take anything with us.

That old saying is cliche, but it’s true. You can’t take it with you. He says it’s certain.

We bring nothing into this world. We can take nothing out. So he says in verse 8, having food and clothing, with these we shall be content.

With the basic necessities of life, if you’ve got those, if God has given you what you need for another day, then we ought to be content with that. If he gives us our daily bread, then we ought to realize how blessed we are, because it’s by his provision. Preacher, I went out and worked for everything I have.

Well, who gave you the back to be able to go out and work? Who gave you the strong legs to be able to do it? Who gave you the mind to be able to tackle the tasks?

You may have gone out and worked for it, but God supplied it. And God supplied the ability for the labor. So I said, if God supplies your daily bread, especially if God gives you more than that, be content with what he’s given you.

And I forget this sometimes. This is tough for me. Charla and I are not wealthy people.

Anybody that goes into ministry trying to get wealthy is a fool. Some people do it, but, well, we can talk about that another night. So we are not wealthy people, but I’ve been a saver over the years.

And I’m saving for some particular things, not just to try to hoard money. One of the things is I want to be able to build houses where my parents and Charlie’s mom can retire and live near us but not with us, you know, where they can live a compound, I guess, for lack of a better word. So we can take care of them, but they can also have their independence.

and I’m saving up for everybody’s retirement. God has blessed us. God has always taken care of us.

And the more I look at the math and say, I don’t know how we’re going to have the money for these bills this month and how we’re going to afford this. We just went and bought a half year of homeschool curriculum on Friday and spent way more money than I planned on. And I look at all these expenses and I think, I don’t understand how all of this is going to come out.

The math isn’t there that we should be able to do this. And God always takes care of those necessities. He always has.

When I started out pastoring, there was one church where I made $900 a month, and yet God always took care of it. We ate some really bizarre combinations of canned goods, but God always took care of the needs. And yet I sit there and in my brain, there’s this invisible red line in my bank account, this invisible number that I know that if the balance dips below that, I panic.

And it’s not even that low of a number, but I panic. And suddenly the sky is falling and the earth is coming to an end. And yet God always takes care of it.

God has never once not taken care of our needs. God has never once not supplied that daily bread. I know that’s a lot of double negatives there, but I’ve done it on purpose.

He says if you have your food, your clothing, if you have your necessities, don’t worry about it. Be content. Here’s why.

Verse 9, those who desire to be rich fall into temptation and a snare and into many foolish and harmful lusts which drown men in destruction and perdition. The desire to amass stuff just for the sake of having stuff leads men into all sorts of wrong actions and all sorts of wrong attitudes and ultimately leads them down wrong roads. Sometimes people do unthinkable things because they’re driven by covetousness.

But he says, for the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Now, some people will say money, you know, the Bible says money is the root of all evil. No, no, it’s not.

Yeah. I heard a televangelist used to say the lack of money is the root of all evil. It’s funny, but it’s bad theology.

No, the Bible says the love of money is the root of all evil. It’s a tool. There’s nothing, folks, there’s nothing wrong with having money.

I’ve told you this before. I believe in capitalism. I believe God intends us to work and improve ourselves and improve the lives of others and I think God is.

. . Anyway, but money and stuff, they are a tool, not something to love, something to use, to bless others, to meet others’ needs, to meet our needs, to grow the kingdom.

It’s a tool. It’s something God gave us to use for his glory. For the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil for which some have strayed from the faith in their greediness and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.

But you, O man of God, he says, flee these things. I’ve heard many messages over the years about how to stand up to temptation. Very rarely do I see anything like that mentioned in Scripture.

What I usually see with temptation in Scripture is not stand and fight, it’s flee. Get out of there. He says, don’t flirt with the love of money.

Well, I can love it a little bit, and I just won’t let it get out of control. A little bit of idolatry will soon take over your whole house. It will soon take over your whole heart.

He doesn’t say fight the love of money. He doesn’t say try to stand up to the love of money. He doesn’t say put a saddle on the love of money and show it who’s boss.

He says flee from that temptation. Flee from these things and pursue righteousness. It’s not just that we’re running away from temptation, but at the same time we’re running towards something which is the righteousness of God in Jesus Christ. Pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, gentleness.

Some of these are the same as the fruits of the Spirit. I’ve been talking to Madeline some this week because she made a profession of faith, and yet, as we all do, makes choices. I’m like, is this what a born-again child of God should be doing?

No. So we’ve been having lots of. .

. And please don’t think I’m talking bad about her. I could easily put any of our names in there for Madeline.

We all do that. But I’ve had some conversations with her this week about the Holy Spirit. Because it’s important we understand the Holy Spirit and the change that He makes in us.

And I explained to her, you know, the God that spoke the whole universe into existence. There was nothing. And He said, let there be light.

And suddenly, it’s not just like light jumped out of a box. Light just came into existence. It’s hard to even fathom.

But the God who has that kind of power, that he created everything with just the words of his mouth, the God who created everything, took his Holy Spirit and put it inside of you. I said, if you really did, if you really did trust Jesus Christ as your Savior, if you really believe that he died for your sins and paid for him, and you asked his forgiveness, all the things that you would expect a six-year-old to be able to understand about the gospel, I said, if you really meant what you asked him to do, then his Holy Spirit lives inside of you now. She said, he does?

I said, yeah. And he’s always there with you. I said, mom and dad are not always there 24-7 to tell you what the right thing is to do and what the wrong thing is to do.

You need to get used to listening to this Holy Spirit because he will never, ever steer you wrong. And I threw out some scenarios. I said, you have this choice, you have this choice.

which one would the Holy Spirit tell you to do? And she picked the right one. I said, now when you hear a voice, and again, I don’t mean out loud, but there’s that little thought in our brain that says, do this.

On the other hand, who’s telling you that message? She said, Satan. As Brother Ken would say, old smutty face.

He’s the one telling you that. I said, we are all faced with that. That’s not just you as a new Christian.

Daddy’s been a Christian for many, many years. I’m still faced with that. Every day, I’ve got the Holy Spirit telling me one thing, and I’ve got that voice of temptation telling me another thing.

I said, the funny thing is, the more you lean in and listen to this voice of temptation over here, the more you lean over and get close to Satan so you can hear him whisper sweet nothings in your ear, the harder it is to hear the Holy Spirit over here. I said, but the opposite is also true. The closer you lean in to the Holy Spirit and you listen to him, the more distant Satan’s voice gets.

It’s always going to be there. But the more you lean in over here, the more you can hear him and the less you can hear that voice of temptation. I said, and when you listen to that Holy Spirit, 

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