Do Not Covet (Exodus 20:17 & 1 Kings 21:1-24)
Billy Milton - January 9, 2006
“Do not covet your neighbour’s house. Do not covet your neighbour’s wife, male or female servant, ox or donkey, or anything else your neighbour owns.”
To covet means, ‘to desire to possess a thing; to want to take possession of something or someone that is not yours to have’. It was a problem in Moses’ day and it is most certainly a problem in our day. Which of us, if we are honest, haven’t looked at someone and thought, “They’re so lucky. I wish I had their house, car, job, iPod, wife/husband…” whatever? That’s coveting, and its sinful.
Now, don’t misunderstand me. There are healthy and good desires but the thing that makes coveting wrong is that the desire is for something or someone that is not ours and which belongs to someone else.
Coveting is wrong for 4 reasons:
1. Coveting is idolatry
Colossians 3:5 says:
‘So put to death the sinful, earthly things lurking within you. Have nothing to do with sexual sin, impurity, lust, and shameful desires. Don’t be greedy for the good things of this life, for that is idolatry.’
So just how is coveting idolatry? 3 ways: By coveting….
• We let things, not God, become the centre of our hearts.
We sometimes sing that theologically flawed song, “And as we worship build a throne, come Lord Jesus take your place.” Firstly, we don’t build anything for Jesus – God has already done that; and secondly who are we to order Jesus to do anything? However, being kind to the writer, I think maybe he was trying to say that he wanted Jesus to be on the throne of his life. The trouble is for many of us is that there is no space left on that throne because coveting dethrones God and puts things in his place. We know that God ought to be our joy and our pleasure but when we put ‘things’ on our throne they disappoint. And so we seek the next big ‘thing’ to satisfy us. The advertising industry is built around this rule of human nature.
• We let things, not God, become the centre of our minds.
It’s an established fact that we become what we think about. If all we ever think about is ‘things’ and not God, that’s what we will become. By that I mean, when we become obsessed with the objects of our desire then God gets pushed to the edge of our thought life.
• We let things, not God, become the centre of our wills.
What we constantly think about will eventually govern our lives. The only rule for a covetous person is this: how can I get what I want? And if we want it strongly enough there is a strong temptation to bend the rules to get it. At that point we reject the lordship of Christ in our lives. If you are already a Christian you have in effect said that Jesus is Lord of your life. If your will becomes controlled by your earthly desires then that statement is not true – there is another god on your throne. That’s idolatry.
Coveting is idolatry because it takes over the role of God in controlling what we desire, what we think and how we act. However, there is another problem with coveting.
2. Coveting leads to other sins
Possibly the biggest problem with coveting is that although it is a sin of the mind it doesn’t stay as a sin of the mind. It almost always leads to other things. It has a subtle and creeping influence and it always inclines to the bad. Think of the story of Ahab and Naboth’s vineyard. The downwards spiral started with a desire and then – with considerable help from Jezebel – the sordid affair slid first into lying, and then into stealing and finally into murder. Now of course that’s an extreme case and few of us will ever sink to murder to fulfil our covetous desires. But we might sink to killing someone else’s marriage because we covet their spouse!
Its relatively simple just to dismiss coveting as something that only goes on in our mind but in Mark 7, Jesus made it plain that its what goes on in our thoughts that actually defile us and lead us into sinful actions. Your thought life does matter!
3. Coveting stops us being generous
It stops us from loving our neighbours. By its very nature it wants us to put me first! It looks at other people and says, “How can I get?” rather than, “How can I give?” This, of course, goes against the words of Jesus in Acts 20:35, “It is more blessed to give than to receive.” Coveting turns us from being outward-looking to inward-looking; from generous to selfish. Covetousness corrodes a church.
4. Coveting cheats us out of contentment
It’s worth reminding ourselves again that God gives us these commandments for our good. God is against coveting because it is bad for us. It robs us of contentment in life. Covetous people can never get enough in life. I remember listening to a very wealthy man talking about why he drove an average family car. He asked why anyone would choose to drive a big, expensive, gas-guzzling car. Many people say its because they travel a lot in their job and need the comfort and safety it provides, but he reckoned that for most people it’s a prestige thing. They love it when someone says, “Oh I love your car.” But he then pointed out that people normally only say that once or twice and then …that’s just the car you drive – it no longer has a big impact except on new people. So they need to get another one to get that feeling back again for a short time. But you can never get enough – its like walking to the horizon, you just can’t get there. If cars are not your thing then substitute clothes or computers or antiques or whatever provides affirmation for you.
Jesus made it very clear – where your treasure is there will your heart be also. One of the most contented people I ever knew was my own Grandpa. He worked for most of his life as a baker before retiring. He never owned a car or a house or a t.v.. He never wore fancy clothes. He never travelled out of Scotland in his life. He was married to the same lady for over 50 years. When he died he left his 4 children £150 each. But as long as he had a warm fire, a packet of Spangles and his Bible he was utterly content. His greatest pleasure in life was telling others about Christ. Most of this nation would have considered his life a wasted life – I reckon God would not agree with that assessment. Now I’m not suggesting at all that we should all reject modern living – my Grandpa is a relic of a bygone era – but somehow in all this helter-skelter of accumulation and achievement we need to near in mind that we were created for a different purpose and covetousness blinds us to our real purpose here on earth: serving God and his kingdom.
SO HOW DO WE CHANGE? 3 ways to keep our lives free of coveting.
1. Be aware of the danger
The subtle sins are the most deadly. Coveting is everywhere. It’s approved by society and its easy to do. You can even do it whilst pretending to listen to a sermon!! So how can we make ourselves more aware of the danger? Well maybe you could try this little exercise over the course of this week. Take a good look at your life – it’s the right time of the year to do that. Try and write down the answers to the following questions;
- What are my main desires?
- Are they good or bad desires?
- To what extent do these desires control how I live, how I relate to others and how I spend my money?
- Do I believe that having these desires granted would give me contentment?
- What are my priorities?
- What do I think they should be?
It could be that after honestly answering these questions you might need to come before God and repent of how much covetousness there is in your life.
2. We must realign our desires
When a plane drifts off course a pilot will carefully change direction to get the plane back on course. Sometimes all it takes is a millimetre of an adjustment to have a massive difference in the flight path. I play golf on occasions and it’s the same there. A millimetres error at the start of the swing can lead to the ball going a hundred yards off course. Sometimes we need to drastically change our desires; sometimes we only need to tweek them a wee bit. Whatever the case, if we don’t make the adjustment we will be off course, meaning, our desires will not align with God’s desires. If our desires are aligned to this world’s charts the outcome will be dissatisfaction. As Saint Augustine so rightly said centuries ago, “You have made our hearts, Lord, for yourself, and they are restless until they find their rest in you.”
True contentment, and as the big 50 appears on the horizon for me I’m beginning to appreciate this more and more, true contentment is only to be found in a right relationship with Jesus Christ. The reason for this is that’s how we were made. Check out Genesis 3 if you don’t believe me. Coveting things is a poor substitute for knowing God.
3. We must keep our hearts in shape
It’s not enough to do this once. As you know, I ran a marathon in October at which time I was pretty fit. That doesn’t mean that I could nip outside and run one again today because I haven’t kept up the training. If I want to do another marathon I need to get back into shape by exercising again.
Here’s a few tips to get into shape to fight coveting:
- Have contempt for it. Learn to see through the claims and promises of the adverts.
- Acquire a gratitude attitude. Learn to thank God for what he has given you. I sat down this week and wrote down some of the things I was grateful for about 2005. When I was finished, do you know what I thought – “Wow! What a great year. Thank you God!” The Apostle Paul said, “I have learnt to be content whatever the circumstances.” That’s tough! I find that a tough encouragement to follow. What about you? Paul was in prison when he wrote this. What about you? It takes practise to run a race. It takes practise to be grateful and to shun covetousness.
- Be a wise steward. In reality God has given each of us so much, so much. We need to learn to look after what he has given us rather than dream about what he hasn’t given us. Linked to this should also come the realisation that the more we have been given the more God holds us responsible for.
- Focus on relationships, not things. In the race for riches and possessions people and relationships can be sacrificed. How often have you spent a fantastic day with an old friend and said at the end of it, “We need to do this more often rather than just once a year.” Relationships have a lasting value. God desires that we have a good relationship with him and with each other. We’ll be learning a lot more about this in March and April during the 40 Days of Community.
- Be a giver. The best antidote to covetousness is a brutal one: it is to be freely generous with what we already have. The weed of covetousness finds it hard to become rooted in the soil of a generous heart.
We all have a choice. We can covet – and we will find that we have cheated ourselves. We can let Christ live in us and clean us – and we can be contented; both in this life and the life to come.
(This sermon is taken from J. John’s book ‘10’ and is part of a series on the 10 commandments.)