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GOD REVEALS HIS RIGHTEOUSNESS TO EXPOSE OUR HEARTSEXODUS 20:17INTRODUCTION As we have considered the Ten Commandments during these last weeks it has occurred to me and I hope to you, that these commandments address every area of my life and every moment I am alive. There is no part of my life, no relationship, no use of my time, no thought, no emotion, no desire that these commandments do not deal with and thus rule over. Hebrews 4:12-13 is very instructive at this point. Verse 12 says, “For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any double-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and spirit of both joints and marrow and judging the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.” This law of God evaluates and searches out every part of my life. It tells me how God feels about all that I do, feel and think. Why is it that God’s word, his law is like this? That is what v. 13 answers: “For no creature is hidden from his sight but all things are open and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account.” God’s law evaluates every part of my life because I am always living in the presence of God who is the judge of all. God made me and he owns me. We are always in his sight and therefore always being evaluated. The standard against which God is always evaluating us is his law as summed up in these Ten Commandments. There is no part of your day that is irrelevant to God. There are no throwaway emotions or thoughts or words or actions. All that I do is under his scrutiny and will be measured against his law. God pays attention to everything, all the time. This is the tenth and final principle for understanding and applying God’s law. Every part of my life and every moment of my life come under the evaluation, the jurisdiction of this law because I always live in the presence of the God who made me and gives me life and before whom every human must one day stand and give account. This tenth commandment is meant to awaken us to the fact that God cares about all of your life, every moment of it. This commandment is not about what we do but about what we desire. If you know yourself even a little bit you know that your heart is full of desires and longings. He requires here that we not want or long for the things and people that do not belong to us, but that we only want and long for that which God chooses to give to us. In this commandment he forbids coveting and he requires contentment. This commandment is placed at the end of the commandments to make sure we all feel the fullness of our depravity. 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.” This is precisely what happened when a young, wealthy man approached Jesus and asked him what he must do to inherit eternal life. Jesus told him he must keep the commandments. The young man asked, "which ones?" Jesus replied by listing off the big five: don't commit adultery, don't murder, don't lie, don't steal and honor your father and mother. The young man said that he had kept all these commandments from his youth. Jesus then told him that he had not kept the tenth commandment and the proof was in his inability to do what Jesus commanded him to do: go sell your possessions and give to the poor and come follow me. He could not do this we are told, because he was a wealthy man. In other words he loved his money more than he loved God or eternal life. He coveted wealth more than he coveted God. Thus it is true for all of us and this commandment proves it: we all love the wrong things and don't love what we ought to love. What is the reason that God commands us to not covet what does not belong to us? Why does he care about our desires? An obvious reason God cares about our desires is that all action is preceded by desire and so if you always desire the right things, then you will never do the wrong things and always do what is right. Every word you speak and every action you take is motivated by a desire to obtain something you believe to be necessary for your life. Whether it’s cooking a meal out of a desire to satisfy your hunger or buying cocaine out of a desire to experience the pleasure of a high or reading a book to your child out of desire to teach him to read, everything you do is preceded by desire. However, there is a deeper reason as to why God cares about our desires. James 4:1-6 is one of dozens of places that shows the ultimate reason why God cares about our desires. Turn there with me so you can see why God cares about your desires. The passage begins by James answering the question: why do people fight with each other? Why can’t we just get along? The answer is because we all have hearts that are full of desires that are not being met. My heart and yours is full of longings and wants and desires and most of these desires are not being satisfied. Much of the time the reason our longings are not being fulfilled is because someone else is interfering. When I want to watch the TV program I want to watch and you have the TV controller and are watching what you desire to watch then I’m going to get mad at you and we are going to have a fight. I might win the fight and get the controller but I don’t really get the satisfaction I’m looking for because there are yet other desires in me that were not satisfied through our fight. This is the source of the endless cycle of human conflict. Eventually I am so frustrated that I ask God to intervene and give me what I want. I ask him to fulfill my longings and give me cooperative children or a more loving wife or a better job or more reasonable neighbors or better health or whatever it is my little heart desires. But God will have none of it because my prayers are evidence of my spiritual adultery. It is v. 4 that tells us why God cares about our desires. When you want something and don’t get it and get mad and fight with others the reason you are doing it is because you are a spiritual adulterer. You believe that someone or something is better or more satisfying or more necessary to life than God himself. God is jealous for our love and so when we love something or someone other than him he is justly angry, just like a spouse is justly angry when he or she finds out his or her spouse has had an affair. God made us to live in a faithful love relationship with him and so he cares about whether or not we desire him in the same way a wife cares about whether or not her husband desires her. Just as a husband is offended when his wife desires another man so God is offended when we desire, long for, lust after, covet someone or something other than himself. Spouses are not only offended when actual adultery takes place but are also justly offended when their spouse simply desires another person. So God also is highly offended when we desire to possess someone or something other than him. He alone aims to be the treasure of our life. He made us to be satisfied with him alone. MAIN POINT God made us to be fully satisfied with him alone, therefore…I. He commands us to not desire what we do not have The word that is translated “covet” in both the original Hebrew and in the Greek translation of the OT is a word that can also be translated “desire”, “long for”, or “want”. Just as we use the English word "desire" in both positive and negative ways so this Hebrew and Greek word is used in positive and negative ways. In the opening chapters of the Bible this word is used to describe both a positive and a negative desire. In Genesis 2 the fruit trees that God planted in the Garden of Eden are described as trees that are desirable. In other words, it was right for Adam and Eve to desire to eat from all the trees in the garden except for the one God told them not to eat from. Then, in chapter 3, when Eve is being tempted by the devil she looks at the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and sees that it is desirable for gaining wisdom. In other words, she desired to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil which God commanded her to not to eat from She desired the fruit on the tree prior to her actual eating of it. Her desire to eat was coveting, wanting what did not belong to her. In Psalm 68:17 God says that he desires, longs, wants to live on Mt. Zion. In the NT Jesus desired/coveted/longed to eat the last supper with his disciples. In 1 Timothy 3:1 a man who desires to be an elder is desiring a good thing. The point I am trying to make is this: not all desires are wrong. In fact, God made us to have desires. If you had no desires you would do nothing but sit in a chair. As I said in the introduction, everything we do we do because we want something. What makes a desire moral or immoral is the object of the desire. In this commandment God forbids that we desire, long for, want what belongs to our neighbor. As in all of the commandments God is forbidding the worst desire to have, while including all the lesser, forbidden desires. The commandment specifically forbids us from wanting to possess anything that belongs to our neighbor, whether it is his wife or his servants or his physical possessions. Merely wanting what belongs to somebody else is a violation of this commandment. This commandment tells us that longing to have someone else’s looks or someone else’s husband or someone else’s popularity or someone else’s intelligence or someone else’s retirement plan or someone else’s car are all sinful and worthy of hell. Quite often the desire to possess what someone else has leads us to take what they have. Last week I told you the story of how Queen Jezebel murdered Naboth in order to steal his vineyard for her husband, King Ahab. The entire tawdry affair began with coveting. Ahab wanted Naboth’s vineyard for his own and when Naboth was unwilling to sell he became sullen and depressed. His depression was the result of a coveting heart. His desire for what belonged to his neighbor eventually led to the breaking of at least three other commandments as false witness was given against Naboth, which led to murder, which led to the theft of his property. There is another sick example of coveting in the OT. King David had at least 8 wives and dozens of children. His oldest son, Amnon coveted his half sister, Tamar, who had the same mother as Absalom, David’s third oldest son. We are told that his lust was so great for Tamar that he felt sick because he could think of no way that he could have her. A friend of his, concerned for how distraught Amnon was becoming devised a plan to get Tamar alone with Amnon in his bedroom. When he got her alone he raped her. These are but two examples of how a covetous heart led to horrible and wicked actions. What is important to note is that God does not merely condemn wrong desires that result in wrong behavior. He condemns all wrong desire. This commandment is the reason that God is so opposed to envy and jealousy and bitterness. These emotions are the evidences and fruits of a coveting heart. When another person has something we want we are filled with envy and often this envy grows into a great bitterness and resentment as we say things to ourselves like, “How come they get such an easy life? It’s not fair that school is so easy for him when I have to work so hard just to get B’s. I deserved that promotion way more than she did. I’ve been here longer, worked harder, given more time to the company. Why does she have all the friends and no one wants to hang out with me? I don’t understand why the coach lets him start instead of me.” I don't think it is a stretch to say that all the bitter, resentful, envious relationship destroying emotions that possess you and I arise from our coveting hearts. We want but we don't get and so we kill and covet. While wanting what someone else possesses is the worst form of illicit desire, yet this commandment is condemning all illicit desire for what you do not possess. In Proverbs 6:25 men are commanded to not covet the beauty of another man’s wife. But in Matthew 5:28 Jesus uses the same word and says we are not to covet any woman to whom we are not married whether she is married or not. The traditional translation is we are not to lust after any woman, but the word is the same. Wanting to be rich, not just wanting someone else’s money, is condemned in 1Timothy 6. Jesus in Matthew 6 condemns desire for the approval of men, not just wanting the approval that belongs to someone else. How do you know if your desire for something is wrong, has become coveting? How do you know when your desire to provide for your family has crossed the line from legitimate desire to greed? How do you know when your desire to have successful children has crossed the line and become a demand that they be successful? How do you know when your desire to excel at some skill or at your job has crossed the line and become lust and craving? When has your desire to eat become gluttony? One test is what happens when you don’t get what you want? A heart that is not coveting will not be grieved by not getting what you want. If you become angry or envious or bitter or depressed because you are not obtaining what you want then it is almost certain that you are coveting something that does not belong to you. However, I also think that there are ways to measure your desires prior to not obtaining what you desire. You can know you are coveting before you are disappointed. Mainly I think it will be revealed by measuring your desire for this thing against your desire for God and your desire to love people. If this thing occupies your attention so that it is all you think about and talk about and where it consumes your time to such a degree that you find it difficult to think about God and talk about him and have no time to pursue him, then most likely your desire is an immoral, covetous desire. When your desire interferes with your ability to love people, most likely your desire has crossed the line. Matthew 6 probably sets forth the clearest test for whether or not our desires have become covetous. “Do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food and the body more important than clothes?” When our hearts are full of worry and anxiety then we are engaging in coveting something that does not belong to us. We are longing for something that is not ours. It is our emotional life that helps us to determine what it is that our hearts are set upon, what we desire. Emotions arise from what fills our hearts. You feel what you feel because you want what you want. Therefore, it is essential that we pay attention to how we feel so that we can identify what our hearts are set upon. Your emotions are the indicator lights on the dashboard of your life showing you what it is that your heart needs to be happy. God made us to be fully satisfied with him alone, therefore…
II. He commands us to desire what we do have The opposite of coveting is contentment. I once heard contentment defined like this: “Contentment is not having what you want but wanting what you have.” A content person is a person who is happy with his or her lot in life, not because she has everything that she wants but because she is trusting that God has provided all she needs now and will provide all she needs in the future. A content person is neither anxious nor angry. Contentment is directly related to our faith in God’s love and power. The degree to which we are not content is the degree to which we do not trust that God is a loving and powerful God. Our contentment with the condition of our life is completely dependent upon our confidence in the sovereign goodness of God. Thomas Watson said, “The root of covetousness is a distrust in God’s providence.” One of the most striking places where God’s providence over the conditions of our lives is taught is in 1 Corinthians 7. In this chapter Paul is seeking to correct a very erroneous doctrine that is being taught in the Corinthian church. I don’t have time to get into the details of the argument that he is making other than to show how confident Paul is that whatever condition we are in, the Lord has placed us in that condition. In v. 17 he says, “…each one should retain the place in life that the Lord assigned to him and to which God has called him.” Then he lists three pairs of life situations as examples of places in life that God has assigned: being a Jew and being a Gentile, being a slave and being a free person, being unmarried and being married. Paul says that God assigns each of these conditions. Now, this is not teaching a fatalistic pacifism. He tells the slave that if he has the opportunity to become free, that he should do so. He tells the unmarried that it’s OK to get married. However, a part of his argument is this: God assigns to us the conditions of our lives. You have the physical abilities you have because God decided to give them to you. You have the physical appearance you do because God gave it to you. You have the spouse you have because God gave him or her to you. You have the parents you have because God wanted you to have these parents and you have the children you have because God decided that these are the children he wants you to have. God gave you the job you have and the house you live in and the car you drive and the retirement account you have. God does not forbid you from getting another house or car or job, however he does forbid you to be discontent with what he has given you. He does forbid you from complaining about his provision. He does forbid you from worrying about what he has not given you or from desiring what you don't have to such a degree that you don't love him or others. We should always be suspicious when we are told that the present culture makes obedience to God more difficult than it was during any preceding age. When teachers tell us that it is more difficult to be a Christian in our day than any prior day, we should be skeptical. It's not harder to be a Christian to today than in any time prior to this. It has always been a miracle when anyone is a Christian. However, it seems to me that not coveting but being content is especially difficult in our present day, perhaps more than it has ever been before. Our entire culture is built upon the principle of discontent. You and I are bombarded thousands of times each day with messages designed to stimulate coveting and to produce discontent with our present situation. Billions of dollars are spent each year to convince you and I that our current house, car, clothes, deodorant, music listening device, soda, etc. is inadequate and we really would be happier with this new car, clothing, soda, etc. The messages we receive also demand that we act now and not wait to gratify the greed that has been stimulated in us. Our consumer culture, our entire economy is rooted in the demand that we all gratify our lusts for new and better and bigger things, relationships, abilities, physical appearance immediately no matter how much debt we must take on to have what is advertised. We do not need what we are being told that we need. We can indeed be content and happy without the newest gadget. The old couch is good enough, we don’t need a new one. We must fight for faith in the goodness and power of God so that we will be content with what we have. You will only be content when you settle the matter of God’s absolute sovereignty over everything, including the conditions of your life. If you don’t have something you want right now then it is because God doesn’t think you need it. His withholding from you the things you think you need is motivated by his love for you, not a desire to make your life miserable or to punish you. For everyone who is in Christ, God is always working out the circumstances of your life because he loves you and wants good for you. This is the absolute only foundation you will ever find to have a content life. This doesn’t mean that you don’t ask God to give you the things you want but it does require that you think correctly about prayer. Prayer is not what you do to manipulate or barter with God so he gives you what you want. Rather prayer is my making my desires known to my heavenly Father and then trusting him to provide me with what he knows that I need. I trust his love and his wisdom to determine what I need to live the life he has called me to live. God made us to be fully satisfied with him alone, therefore…
III. He commands us to pursue our satisfaction in him alone As I said at the beginning, ultimately the issue of my desires is all about my relationship to God. As Jesus said so clearly, “No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.” God’s command to not covet what does not belong to us is his command to pursue all of our joy in him. If you are not familiar with Psalm 73 let me encourage you to not let another day go by without reading it and thinking through what it says. I’d like you to turn there with me. Notice that the first half of the psalm is a complaint about how unjust the world is. The first 14 verses are perhaps the clearest statement of what coveting is as the psalmist makes clear in v. 3 when he describes the condition his heart used to be in: he envied the wicked. He wanted the easy and prosperous life that he saw the wicked experiencing. He coveted a carefree, increasingly wealthy life that he observed so many non-believing people experiencing. Especially when he compared his life to the life of his non-believing neighbors he was filled with lust and longing for a happier life. His life, compared to the life of the non-believer is a life that is plagued with trouble and punishment from God. He has served God faithfully and yet he has gotten nothing but trouble for his trouble, while the wicked have a party every Friday night and get to go on awesome vacations and have great kids with straight teeth. Notice what happens next. In vv. 16-17 we find the turning point. He is oppressed by what he observes as he compares his hard life to the easy life of the wicked until he goes into the temple. When he draws near to God and seeks God’s wisdom he suddenly discovers that while the wicked appear to have it easy here it is only a temporary ease. Their happiness is as fleeting and deceptive as a dream that you have while you sleep. When you are asleep, the dream seems real and seems to be lasting a long time but as soon as you wake up the dream vanishes and you realize it lasted but a few moments. That is the situation of all the prosperous non-believing people who we live around. There ease is temporary and unreal. The next thing he realizes is that God has always been with him (v. 23), even while he has been complaining and upset about his situation. Even while he has been coveting what others have God has been with him and has been guiding him. God has always had him by the hand. What he discovers is that knowing God is all he needs. Verses 21–28 are some of the best and happiest verses in the Bible. Here is the ultimate solution to coveting and to discontent. I can always be happy no matter what I’ve lost and no matter how little I have compared to what others have because I have the greatest treasure that anyone could possess, I belong to God and he belongs to me. I am loved by God through Christ and therefore I need nothing more. For me, it is good to be near God, not making $10,000 more a year, not having better children, not driving a nicer car, not having more and better friends, not having a nicer hunting cabin, not having better health, not having a bigger church. How do we become people who are so taken up with God and satisfied with him that we do not covet but live contented lives? First, we daily acknowledge that we will never, in this life, be free from wrong desires. As I said at the beginning, this commandment, perhaps more than any other, confronts us with our sinfulness. We cannot escape our covetousness by pretending we aren’t full of wrong desires but we must confess to God our lust filled hearts. Second, we must come to Christ who had but one passion in his life and that was to please and glorify his heavenly father. Jesus said it was his food to do the will of God and finish God’s work. He said within hours of his crucifixion that he had glorified God on earth by completing the work God gave him to do. We come to Jesus and trust his content life and his willing death to be sufficient to cover our coveting. We rejoice in his saving work on our behalf, not our sincere desire to not covet. Third, we daily ask God to make us more heavenly minded. Again, Thomas Watson says, “If we covet heaven more, we shall covet earth less.” We ask God to fill our hearts and minds with delight in the thought that one day we will be with the Lord forever. That is the thought that helped the psalmist. He said, “Whom have in heaven but you and earth has nothing I desire except you.” Fourth, daily seek to think about the glories of Christ and of heaven and of the wealth that is yours through Christ. Do this by reading, meditating upon and memorizing the Scriptures. Do this by daily talking with your family and other Christians about the amazing love of God for sinners. Fifth, give yourself and your resources away in self-forgetting service to God and to others. Your heart will be less afflicted with wrong desires if you are giving expression to the small desires to do good to others that are also in your heart. You must fight fire with fire. We must overcome covetous desires for the pleasures of this world by fanning the fire of desire for God and his salvation through Christ. It is only passion for Christ that will conquer passion for sex, for food, for approval, for a comfortable life, for friends, for a nicer car. God made us to be fully satisfied with him alone, therefore…
© Copyright 2006 John Swanson.
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