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�e Ten Commandments

Sermon Transcript June 12, 2016

Be Content Exodus 20:17

�is message from the Bible was addressed originally to the people of Wethers&eld Evangelical Free Church on June 12, 2016 at 511 Maple Street, Wethers&eld, CT, 06109 by Dr. Scott W. Solberg. �is is a transcription that bears the strength and weaknesses of oral delivery. It is not meant to be a polished essay. An audio copy of the sermon on CD is available by request at (860) 563-8286. An audio version of this sermon may also be found on the church website at www.wethefc.com.

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Sermon Text

Exodus 20:17 17 You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his male servant, or his female servant, or his ox, or his donkey, or anything that is your neighbor’s.

�e Ten Commandments

You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself any idols. You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain. Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Honor your father and your mother. You shall not murder. You shall not commit adultery. You shall not steal. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. You shall not covet.

Catechism

Q: What is the tenth commandment?

A: �e tenth commandment is: You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his male servant, or his female servant, or his ox, or his donkey, or anything that is your neighbor’s. (Ex. 20:17; Deut. 5:21; Rom. 7:7)

Q: What does the tenth commandment teach us?

A: To have full contentment with our condition, and a right and charitable attitude toward our neighbor and that is his. (Phil. 4:1; 1 Tim. 6:6-8; Heb. 13:5)

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Introduction: A Fitting Conclusion

�is morning we come to the tenth commandment: “You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his male servant, or his female servant, or his ox, or his donkey, or anything that is your neighbor’s.” By being listed tenth out of ten, does not mean that this commandment is the least of the commandments. Nor should you think that the breaking of this commandment is not as bad as something like murder or stealing or the breaking of any of the other commandments that come before it. In fact, on several occasions Paul elevates this commandment by saying that the sin of coveting separates a person from God. In Ephesians 5:5 he says, “For you may be sure of this, that everyone who is sexually immoral or impure, or who is covetous (that is an idolater), has no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God.” Jesus does the same thing in Mark 7 when he lists coveting among the many sins that make a person unclean. So this is not some junior commandment tacked on at the end of a long list of do’s and don'ts. Rather, I hope you discover this morning that this commandment is strategically placed among the other commandments and it serves as a &tting conclusion to the Ten Commandments. I trust you have seen by now that the commandments are not haphazardly arranged, but rather there is purpose to their order. �ere is good reason this commandment is the tenth of ten commandments. Actually, I think there are four good reasons we &nd this commandment occupying the tenth and &nal spot among the Ten Commandments. Reason #1 - Summary: �e tenth commandment is a summary commandment. You can’t break any of the other nine commandments without also breaking the tenth commandment. You could say that this commandment gets to the heart of our problem. It gets to the issue of what we desire more than God and how the feeding of our desires can oFen come at the expense of others. It is not wrong to have desires. Desires are a natural thing. Our problem is that we don’t have the right desires. Even when it comes to good things, we oFen don’t desire them in the right way. It is these “covetous” desires that lead us to forsake God or to not love our neighbor as we should. �e breaking of every other commandment is nothing more than an external picture of what we covet. �is commandment is the summary of the entire list of commandments. Reason #2 - Source: �e tenth commandment can also be seen as the source of our sin. All the other commandments have an external focus. You can see when someone steals

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or when someone commits murder. You can see how God’s name is taken in vain by the way we live and by what we say. But the sin of coveting is a matter of the heart. It is internal. Consequently, our sin is not con&ned to what we do and don’t do. God also requires an inward obedience. Jesus said in Matthew 15:18, “But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this de&les a man.” James puts it this way, “But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. 'en desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown gives birth to death.” And so coveting is that internal sin of the heart that is the source of all other sin. �omas Watson calls coveting “a mother sin” or a “begetting sin.”1 What he means by this is that this sin gives birth to other sins. For example, coveting leads us to break the &rst commandment because the object of our desire becomes another god that we worship and love. Adultery begins with the covetous desire of lust. Stealing begins with the envy for something that belongs to someone else. And so the sin is not con&ned to the external act alone. Truly we sin from the heart. A rabbi once said to Michael Horton, “You know, one of the greatest diIerences between our two religions is this idea that you’ve committed a sin just by desiring or thinking it. We believe you actually have to commit the physical act before it’s really sin.” �en he said, “Otherwise, we’d be sinning all the time!”2 But that is the point, isn’t it? It is exactly what we have been discovering all along in this series. Sin runs far deeper in me than I oFen want to admit. Reason #3 - Sentence: �is leads us to the third reason the Ten Commandments conclude with the sin of coveting. It is the &nal nail in the coLn that renders us guilty before God and deserving of the sentence of judgment. Perhaps prior to this series on the Ten Commandments, you may have given a cursory look at these commandments and felt pretty good about yourself. You have not murdered anyone and you go to church every week and you are not given to stealing. According to a Barna Report, most Christians when asked to grade themselves in the keeping of each of the commandments 70% to 90% of those surveyed felt that they were doing pretty well in keeping each of the commandments. When it got to the commandment of lying, just under 50% - that is 48% - felt that they keep this commandment.3 Hopefully having gone through this series, if you were asked how you were doing with each of the commandments you would be quick to respond to each one with the word, “guilty” . . . “guilty” . . . “guilty.” But just in case you actually think you keep the other commandments, along comes the tenth commandment and it exposes the sin that lives within our hearts. Martin Luther says of the tenth commandment, “�is last commandment, then, is addressed not to those whom the world considers wicked rogues, but precisely to the

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most upright—to people who wish to be commended as honest and virtuous because they have not oIended against the preceding commandments.”4 I think this is what Paul is getting at in Romans 7:7-8. Like the rich young ruler who came to Jesus, Paul a good Pharisee thought he kept the commandments. But then he says this, “If it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin. For 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.” Or, as Francis SchaeIer put it, “But suddenly, when one is confronted with the inward command not to covet, he is brought to his knees.”5

Reason #4 - Structure: Which leads us to the &nal reason why the tenth commandment is the &nal commandment. When you consider the structure of the Ten Commandments, the &rst and the tenth commandment serve as perfect bookends because they are addressing the same issue. John Piper observes, “Have you ever considered that the Ten Commandments begin and end with virtually the same commandment? “You shall have no other gods before me” and “You shall not covet” are almost equivalent commands. Coveting is desiring anything other than God in a way that betrays a loss of contentment and satisfaction in him. Covetousness is a heart divided between two gods. So Paul calls it idolatry.”6 It all comes back to what and who we worship. Melissa Kruger wrote a book on coveting called 'e Envy of Eve. When she was doing her research and the writing of this book, she said the image that kept coming to her mind was a scene from the &rst Harry Potter book. In this &rst book, Harry comes upon an enchanted mirror called the “Mirror of Erised.” When he stood in front of this mirror, he was surprised to see his parents standing behind him and smiling at him. He had never known his parents because they died shortly aFer he was born. He ran to get his friend Ron, so that Ron could see Harry’s parents. But when Ron looked into the mirror, he didn’t see Harry’s parents, rather he saw himself holding the Quidditch cup as the star of the Quidditch team. Later in the story, the headmaster Dumbledore explains to Harry how the mirror works. Here is what he says. “It shows us nothing more or less than the deepest, most desperate desire of our hearts. You, who have never known your family, see them standing around you. Ronald Weasley, who has always been overshadowed by his brothers, sees himself standing alone, the best of all of them. However, this mirror will give us neither knowledge nor truth. Men have wasted away before it, entranced by what they have seen, or been driven mad, not knowing if what it shows is really even possible.” �en looking at Harry, Dumbledore says, “It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live.7

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ReQecting on this image, Melissa Krueger observes, “many of us have a ‘Mirror of Erised’ in our mind in which we imagine all that we think would be best for our life.”8 When you look in that mirror, what do you see? What is the thing you think you need in order to be content? What fuels your discontentment? For some it could be money and possessions. But it is more than that. You could covet other people’s abilities and attributes. You could covet someone’s situation in life. You could covet marriage or singleness. You could covet success or prominence. You could covet health. It is that thing you think you need in order to be content. Many of these things, in and of themselves are not sinful desires. But if your motivation is wrong or if your attitude until you get these things is wrong, then you are guilty of breaking the tenth commandment. In other words, it is the thing that causes you to say to yourself, “God is not enough for me. I need something else besides God to be content.” �is takes us right back to where we started, “you shall have no other gods before me.”

Two Characteristics of Coveting

When the Westminster Catechism comes to the tenth commandment, it spells out for us what is forbidden by this commandment. It asks, “What are the sins forbidden in the tenth commandment?” Here is the answer: “�e sins forbidden in the tenth commandment are, discontentment with our own estate; envying and grieving at the good of our neighbor, together with all the inordinate motions and aIections of anything that is his?9 From this description of the tenth commandment, I would like to highlight two characteristics of coveting. First of all, coveting is a spirit a discontentment with our own estate. Too oFen we look to our circumstances as the source for contentment in life. I &nd it interesting in Philippians 4:11 Paul reveals that he has learned how to be content no matter what the situation happens to be. In fact, he shares in this passage that he has learned “the secret” to being content in times of plenty and in times of want. OFen when I come to this passage, I make the false assumption that it is not a struggle to be content in times of plenty. In fact it is the life of “plenty” many of us covet. I can understand the struggle to &nd contentment in the time of need. I get that. But is it really a struggle to be content in times of plenty? It is if the source of contentment is anchored in our circumstances. Even in times of plenty, many &nd that the things of this life do not ultimately satisfy. Jason Helopoulos says it this way. “Why is coveting so deadly? Because it can never be satiated. Coveting relentlessly craves more of this world.”10 �at is what Solomon discovered in the book of Ecclesiastes. He didn’t leave the pursuit of any pleasure untouched, but in the end he likened it to chasing the wind.

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Here is what you need to discover this morning. �e source of your discontentment is not found in your circumstances. You think it is, but it is not. You think that if this certain circumstance would change, then you would be content. But that is not true. Melissa Krueger writes, “In fact, rather than quenching the &re of coveting, oFen attaining an item gives us a greater desire for more. �e more we have the more we want.”11 Why is that? It is because our problem is not in our circumstances, but in the pattern of our heart that tries to &nd something other than God to be the satisfaction of our lives. So if asked you to share the source of your discontentment in life, you should readily confess that at the end of the day your heart is not fully turned towards God. You think what you see in that mirror is the reason for your discontent. But in reality, what you see in that mirror is what you really worship over God. �at is what causes you to be discontent with your current estate. �e second characteristic of discontentment that brings about a spirit of coveting is the old comparison game. Or as the catechism puts it, “envying and grieving at the good of our neighbor.” If you want to identify what you covet, consider where you compare your life towards others. Someone else gets that promotion at work or someone else has a nicer car or bigger house or someone else is more successful or someone else has a better marriage or someone else doesn’t seem to have a care in the world or . . . &ll in the blank. It is this kind of comparison that can keep us from loving our neighbor. Actually, it causes us to see our neighbor as our enemy because they possess what we want. And it also blinds us to the hardship of our neighbor and causes us to forget that everyone has their blessing in life and their hardships in life. From these two characteristics of coveting, we discover how the breaking of this commandment causes us to forsake our love for God and disposes us towards hating our neighbor. Jason Helopoulos said it this way, “Coveting pulls the heart down into the pit of self-seeking and the muck and mire of envy, slander, adultery, pride, dishonor, murder, thievery, and idolatry.”12 It truly does touch all the other commandments.

Coveting and Unbelief

What really is at the root of our coveting? What is it that really causes us to be discontent? �e root cause of our discontentment is unbelief. �is is the biggest revelation I had in putting this message together. It is a good thing to know that at the core of our struggle with contentment is truly believing that God is sovereign and good. Oh, we sign on the dotted line that says, “this is what we believe.” But it is the spirit of discontentment that reveals what we really believe.

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Sadly we so oFen forget what is most basic to our faith. We so oFen forget the good character of God. We forget that God is Lord of our circumstances. Psalm 139 tells us that our days are ordained by God and that God is intimately involved in our circumstances. All of our circumstances are an invitation to trust God and to learn what it means to &nd God to be our refuge and strength. We forget that the greatest thing in life is to know God and that oFen we come to know God through our suIering. We forget, that through faith in Jesus we have become sons and daughters of God and that nothing can separate us from the love of God. Listen to these circumstances in Romans 8, “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? . . . No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” In Hebrews 13:5-6 we are told to “be content with what you have, because God has said, ‘Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.’ So we say with con&dence, “'e Lord is my helper, I will not be afraid. What can man do to me?” We forget that God is working in other people through their circumstances just as he is working on us through our circumstances. Whether it be the blessing he brings into their lives or the struggles he ordains for them, God is at work. God knows what each of us needs to complete his work in us. Knowing and believing this helps me to rejoice with their successes and join with them in their suIering. If I truly believe this, then I am free to love my neighbor.

Coveting Overcome by Christ

It is through Christ that we overcome our coveting spirit. It is through Christ we are able to move from our discontentment to contentment. In Philippians 4:13, Paul says, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” Paul says this on the heels of having just said that he has learned the secret of being content. He can be content no matter the situation. He wrote this when he was sitting in prison. It is through Christ that we &nd our contentment. Elisabeth Elliot said it this way, “�e secret is Christ in me, not me in a diIerent set of circumstances.”13 At the risk of sounding over simplistic, let me just give you one thing to consider here. Almost every resource I looked at for this sermon gave the same instruction. If you want

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to overcome coveting and your unbelief, then seek God with all your heart. Another familiar verse is “Seek &rst the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added unto you.” What things? In the context of Matthew 6, it is those things in life we tend to worry about; food, clothing, tomorrow . . . and so on. You know! Circumstances! It is those things we covet. So what is the remedy? Seek God with all your heart and let him change the desires of your heart. Somewhere I read this week that if you want to cultivate a spirit of contentment all you need to do is think of all the people who have it worse than you. I don’t think that is good, or even biblical advice. With this advice, the source of your contentment still rests in your circumstances. It rests in the fact that your circumstances are not as bad as someone else. But what it does “get that bad?” What if you can’t &nd someone who has it worse than you? And furthermore, we already say that good circumstances are not the source of our contentment. Anything short of Jesus is missing the source of our contentment. Philip Ryken concludes, “�e &rst thing, the main thing, the only thing that really matters is to trust Jesus.”14 It is Jesus you want to see standing behind you when you look in that mirror. When he is your greatest desire, he can bring you contentment that transcends your circumstance. Paul writes, “Godliness with contentment is great gain.” It is what enables us to love God and it frees us to truly love others.

Bringing It To A Close

I would like to make a few closing statements about the series on the Ten Commandments. Here is what I hope and pray you heard and received from this series. I am sinful: To some, this may not seem like a very nice thing to say. But that is the purpose of the law. It reveals to us our sin. Some of you just didn’t realize how much of your sin it would reveal. As hard as it may be to look at the sin of our hearts, it is a good thing to do. So be humble. Knowing how far reaching your own sin goes, ought to make you humble in your assessment of yourself. �is humility shows up in your willingness to quickly confess your sin and in your patience and grace to others. AFer all, you depend on their patience and grace as well. I like that saying that says, “I am just a beggar telling another beggar where to &nd bread. I don’t make much about the beggar, but I do make much about the Bread.” �at leads me to my next point. I need Jesus: With every ounce of self-righteousness stripped away by the Ten

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Commandments, how will I ever be able to stand before God? �e answer is Jesus. He is God in the Qesh and he never sinned. When he went to the cross he took the punishment for your sin and through his resurrection from the dead he conquered sin and death. And so, if you repent of your sin, rely on Jesus and his death on the cross and his resurrection from the dead and submit to him as the Lord of your life, you can be forgiven. So be grateful. Actually a life of gratitude is one way we overcome a spirit of discontentment. We of all people ought to be &lled with a spirit of thanksgiving and it ought to shine forth with a joyful countenance and a gracious spirit towards all. I want to be transformed: When we come to faith, God gives us his Spirit and now his law is written on the tablets our heart. And so as we seek &rst the kingdom of God, God is the one who is changing us. On this side of heaven, we will always wrestle with our sin. But at the same time, God is changing us and conforming us to his image. So be

prayerful. In fact, I would encourage you to use the Ten Commandments as a prayer guide. Pray through the commandments. It could be as simple as this: Dear Heavenly Father, I worship you and praise your holy name. You alone are God. Help me to worship you in spirit and truth and forgive me for the ways I try to put you in a box and for the ways I try to form you into the image of what I think you should be like. Help me not to take your name in vain by the way I live. Rather, help me to live in such a way that others may see Jesus in me. Help me to &nd my rest in Jesus and not in my accomplishments or my pride. Help me to be still and know that you are God. 'ank you for my family and for those who are closest to me. Fill me with your Spirit so that I might be a servant in my home. Give me grace so that the words that come out of my mouth might bring encouragement and life to others. Forgive me for the ways I have harbored bitterness and anger in my heart. Give me a pure heart and a pure mind and help me to be a faithful husband to my wife. Help me to be generous with my possessions always looking to bless others with what I have instead of wanting to take for myself. May my words always be truthful and honorable and may I be marked with humility. Teach me what it means to be content with what I have, whether I am in plenty or in need. Help my contentment be found in that I belong to God through Jesus. Amen.

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1�omas Watson 'e Ten Commandments (Edinburgh: �e Banner of Truth Trust, 1965) 177 2Michael Horton 'e Law of Perfect Freedom (Chicago: Moody Press, 1993) 167 3George Barna 'e Barna Report: 1991-92 (Ventura, Calif.: Regal, 1992) 4Martin Luther quoted in Horton 5Francis SchaeIer, True Spirituality (Wheaton: Tyndale, 1971) 8 6John Piper Desiring God website: www.desiringGod.org October 30, 1988 7J. K. Rowling Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (London: Bloomsbury Publishing, 1997) 157 8Melissa Krueger 'e Envy of Eve (Scotland: Christian Focus Publications, 2012) Kindle Edition, location 3051 9Westminster Larger Catechism, Question 148 10Jason Helopoulos “�e Deadly Sin of Coveting” www.thegospelcoalition.org Feb. 2016 11Krueger 12Helopoulos 13Elisabeth Elliot, in David Howard “�e Intrepid Missionary Elisabeth Elliot” Wall Street Journal, June 25, 2015 14Philip Ryken Exodus (Wheaton: Crossway, 2005) 675

© by Dr. Scott Solberg - All rights reserved

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Sermon Title: Be Content Sermon Text: Exodus 20:17 Sermon Date: June 12, 2016

1. What is something that always brings a smile to your face? 2. As a group, choose one of the commandments and talk about how you could build a prayer based on

that commandment. Spend some time as group praying that commandment.

3. What did God speak into your heart through the sermon on Sunday?

4. Read Ecclesiastes 2:10-11. Why do you think at the end of Solomon’s life he experienced a prevailing emptiness? How does this compare to God’s invitation in Isaiah 55:1-3? 5. Read James 1:14-15. Have you experienced the reality of coveting being “a sin pattern and not a circumstance?” How have you seen covetous desires remain, in spite of changes in circumstances? 6. Read Psalm 139:1-16. What are the various ways David states that God is reigning over the events

of his life? How does this help you cultivate a spirit of contentment?

7. Read Philippians 4:10-13. Do you think it is more challenging to be content in times of want or in times of plenty? Why? How does Jesus give us strength to be content?

9. Read Matthew 6:33-34. New patterns of belief begin when we seek the Lord. What are some ways we seek the Lord in our everyday lives?

10. ReQection on the conclusion of the series on the Ten Commandments, which point resonated with you the most and why?

I am a sinner - Be Humble I need Jesus - Be Grateful I want to be transformed - Be Prayerful

Getting To Know Me Questions

Diving Into The Word

Taking It Home