In all of the commandments, he has shown that it goes much further than surface level. He has shown that every commandment at bottom is a matter of the heart. He has shown that all of the commandments can be summed up into two commandments. Love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. And love your neighbor as yourself. And really, if we get that, we get the rest of the Ten Commandments. So this evening, we're coming to an interesting commandment. And it's interesting for two reasons. The first reason that the commandment, thou shalt not covet, in the old King Jimmy, or you shall not covet, is interesting is that in no other ancient Near Eastern law codification, or that is to say, in no other ancient Near Eastern people's group of laws will you find a commandment against coveting. Isn't that interesting? The Babylonians, the Assyrians, the Phoenicians, the Hittites, nobody had a command about coveting. Everything was essentially external commands. I think that tells you something about the God of Israel. I think it tells you something about Yahwism or the religion of the God of Yahweh. It tells you something about what Yahwehism flowered into Christianity. And it tells you this, that our religion is of the heart. We say that all the time. Jesus came and he basically applied that to every single area of life. And I think what Jesus did in the Sermon on the Mount essentially was give the heart of what Moses was trying to do in the first place. God wants your heart, period. You can give all the sacrifices you want. You could be surrounded by puddles of blood from lambs that have been slain. And if your heart is not in the right place, you are a what? You are a hypocrite and you are a Pharisee and you are Um, a simply externally religious person. The second reason why you shall not covet is an interesting command is because of all the commandments. The only one that really got Paul was the 10th commandment He says that in Romans chapter 7 verses 7 through 11. I'll just read a few verses here. He said 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 I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin came alive and I died. The commandment convinced him that sin lived within him in a very real way, and the law merely served to expose and amplify it within him. This is the sin of coveting. Now, just for the record, it's not that Paul was not guilty of all the other ones, but he told himself and convinced himself that he wasn't. But what he couldn't convince himself that he was not guilty of was covening. So coveting can lay inside our hearts for years and years and years as it chokes away the spiritual life within us without any physical manifestation of that sin. That's why this sin is so dangerous. Coveting is the mere image of the sin of idolatry It has as its object dissatisfaction with God. What do we do with idolatry? God's enough, so we go to something that is enough. In the time of the Israelites, God wouldn't give us rain, so we go to Molech. And Molech requires our firstborn, so we give him the firstborn because we want rain. We want rain more than we want God. We want rain more than we want a God with no rain and drought and the necessity and the trial and the venue and the context of having to actually depend on Him for our next meal. We're going to go to Molech. We're going to go to Dagon of the Philistines. That's what idolatry is, and coveting is the mere image of that, because what God has given is not enough, right? We want more. We want more and more and more and more. And just if you think this is a sin of Americans because we're so affluent, I lived in Mexico for three years amongst very poor people, and they coveted just as much as us. Even while I was there, it amazed me that some of them who didn't even have enough money to pay their water bills sometimes had smartphones. It was a really strange situation. And they were always coveting about who had the biggest smartphone as well. So once that sin of coveting goes unchecked in a person's heart, all bets are off. Sin is unleashed, and apart from the intervention of God, it assaults our joy in God. That's what it does. It assaults our joy in God and turns us into an idolatrous, pleasure-seeking train wreck. that seeks joy in anything except for God and His will. So I want to do three very simple and quick things tonight. I want to define covetousness. And secondly, I want to show how it's displayed. And thirdly, how we can defeat it. OK, so let's look very briefly at covetousness defined. And I'm going to start with question 85. What is the 10th commandment? And we all answer together. The 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. Question 86, what is required in the 10th commandment? And we answer, the 10th commandment requires full contentment with our own condition, with the right and charitable frame of spirit toward our neighbor and all that is his. So let me give you just a very brief definition of covetousness. I got this from John Piper. I don't think you can improve upon this for my money. He says, covetousness is the decrease of contentment in God with the increase of contentment in something other than God. I just think that that just nails it. The decrease of contentment with God and the increase of contentment in something other than God. In essence, The sin of coveting is a lack of contentment in God. It is a lack of contentment in his promises. It is a lack of contentment in what he has planned for you in this life. And it is the foolish notion that there is something in the created order that can give you something, that can give you that which you feel God lacks. So how many of us have read the book of Ecclesiastes? If you take the narrative that Solomon wrote it, that's fine. I think that there is a sense in which they're trying to do that in that book, but it does tell the story of this king who had everything. He had everything, and guess what he still didn't have if he was just focused on what he had? Contentment. He didn't have contentment, though he had everything physically speaking. And the whole point of the book is if I don't find contentment in God, I'm not going to find that contentment that I'm looking for. So there are any number of things in this life that mankind grasps after in order to fill up a hole in his heart put there by the fall. So since the fall, there has been and still is only one thing that can fully and completely satisfy the heart of man, and that is God himself. So listen to Blaise Pascal. Anybody heard of Blaise Pascal, 17th century French philosopher, scientist, mathematician? He was one of these polymaths, one of these Renaissance men. This is what he says. He says, what else does this craving and this helplessness proclaim but that there once was in man a true happiness of which all that now remains is the empty print and trace? This he tries in vain to fill with everything around him, seeking in things that are not there the help he cannot find in those that are. Though none can help, since this infinite abyss can be filled only with an infinite and immutable object. In other words, by God himself. You know, sometimes you've heard evangelicals say, you know, we've got a God-shaped hole and God is the only one that can fill it. And I, you know, I've had a lot of theologian friends and professors that they're just like, blah, blah, blah, foolish evangelicals. But you know what? They're right. The bottom line is they're right. Even if the cool, hip evangelicals are saying, the bottom line is truth is truth, and they're right. We have a heart that, if I could put it this way, if we were really made in the image of God, He made us to crave Him. He made us to find pleasure in Him. He made us to find contentment in Him. He made us to find our story and our narrative in Him, and to the degree, like foolish prodigals, we go outside of that narrative to try to find it in a narrative that the world writes, What do we expect when we're frustrated? What do we expect? We're like the prodigal son. We're in the pig pen and trying to eat the pods that the pigs are eating. We're like, man, this isn't fun. Well, what do you expect? You've gone away from the your father's country into the far country. You're out of bounds. So where does true comfort and true satisfaction and true contentment come from? It comes from no other source than God himself now. Listen to me, I know that, especially those of you who have read Piper, you get a lot of this, right? Like God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him, right? That's one of the most powerful phrases that John Piper has ever written. And if you've read any of his books, they all say the same thing, okay? They all say that, and he'll tell you that too. I'm not ripping on John Piper. But you know, sometimes we say that a lot, we throw that around, and I think that we should. But I just have a question for you tonight. Do you know what that means? Do you know what that means that God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him? Have you ever tried to apply that on a Monday morning when things are blue and grim? Have you ever tried to apply that when your marriage is kind of on the rocks? Have you ever tried to apply that when your children walk away from the Lord? Have you ever tried to apply that when you lose a child to a miscarriage? Have you ever tried to apply that when the clouds are over you? Because it's not just a theological phrase that's fun to talk about and banty around in evangelical circles. It's actually true. There's actually a lot of power in it. There's actually so much potency in it that it can cure and help you with things like anxiety. It could help you battle things like panic attacks. I'm meeting with a guy this week. I'm not gonna mention who it is, but I'm meeting a guy with this week who told me he's struggling with panic attacks and he wanted to meet and talk. You think I'm gonna give him Josh's wisdom? That's stupid. I'm going to give him the word of God. And I'm going to try to listen. I'm going to try to massage it into his heart. And the spirit's the one that's really going to do that. But by saying, if you really believe that we can begin to apply this, we could have been to apply this to actual problems in your life. Is God enough? Is God enough for you? So that's what covetousness is. But how does it how does it display itself? Number two, how does it display itself? Let's look at question number 87. What is forbidden in the 10th commandment? And we answer, the 10th commandment forbids all discontentment with our own state, envying or grieving at the good of our neighbor, and all inordinate motions and affections to anything that is his. All right, turn in your Bibles to 1 Timothy 6. We're gonna look at verses 6 through 12. 1 Timothy 6, 6 through 12. Paul says to his young protege, Timothy, now there is great gain in godliness with contentment, for we brought nothing into the world, and we cannot take anything out of the world. But if we have food and clothing with these, we will be content. But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation, into a snare, into many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. But the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils, and it is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pains. All right, so covetousness displays itself in many ways, but one of the most prevalent ways that it displays itself in our affluent American possession-driven, status-seeking, leisure-laden culture is the love of money. And notice and remember and correct people when they get it wrong. It's not money, right? It's the love of money. OK, I don't know what I'm going to do the next time I hear people say that it's wrong to have money. It's not wrong. Abraham was rich. Solomon was rich. OK, David was rich. And there have been many men and women throughout church history who have been rich and have done much in the kingdom of God with money. Money is not the issue. It's the love of money. And just consider that in our culture, now let's try to bring it home here, much of our culture lives outside of its means. This is indicated by the debt that many have. Debt, in the majority of cases, is an indication that somebody is discontent with what he or she has, and so she must spend beyond her means in order to obtain happiness or contentment. How many of us have done the consumeristic therapy, right? We're depressed, so where do we go? We go to the mall, right? And I mean, I remember doing this in college. I was just like, it was really procrastination, discouragement. I'm gonna go get some basketball shorts and a pair of basketball shoes. 150 bucks. And I get home, and like within five minutes, I'm depressed again. You know, it's just like, and maybe for you it's a little bit different. Maybe it lasts a little bit longer. But Paul tells us here, that there is great gain in godliness with contentment, being happy and satisfied with what the Lord has sovereignly given you and what he has sovereignly not given you, okay? Paul also tells us that many who desire to be rich will fall into temptation, into a snare, into many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. So senseless and harmful desires. Once one buys into the lie that God Himself, the benefits of redemption, and the providential blessings He chooses to give us and not give us, can't or don't fulfill our hearts because maybe we had to work a little to cultivate them, we look to lesser things like iPhones, social media, cars, Netflix, shoes, clothes, wine, and anything else that is a cheap fix to a deeper problem. These things try to convince us that if we just had a little more, that we would be content. It's like hanging that carrot in front of the donkey, right? And he just keeps going, but he's never gonna get to the carrot. So it is with humans. We try to find something of contentment outside of God. It's like putting a Band-Aid on cancer. It's like being thirsty and drinking vinegar. It's like what Jeremiah says in Jeremiah chapter 2 verse 12 through 13. Be appalled, O heavens, at this. Be shocked, be utterly desolate, declares the Lord, for my people have committed two evils. They have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewn out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water. So they have forsaken God, the source of living water, and they have gone to broken cisterns and they are trying to drink water that is shot through with dirt and mud. Now just think about that for a second. What a vivid illustration that is. God gives pure, clean, living water And what do we do? No, no, that's good enough. We're going to dig our own cisterns and they're cracked and there's minerals and contamination going into them. Oh, this is better. We convince ourselves that it's better, but it's not. And that's what Jeremiah says. Be appalled, oh heavens. He calls heavens as a witness against us that what we're doing is ludicrous. And so covetousness never brings satisfaction. As Kohelet says in Ecclesiastes 5.11, he who loves money will not be satisfied with money, nor he who loves wealth with gain. This also is vanity. Now the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil, but let me clarify what we're not saying with respect to coveting. It's not wrong to work hard. It's not wrong to make a living and provide for your kids and save up for college. It's not wrong to desire a better job when your current job isn't paying the bills. This is where we have to be very careful. We can desire another job, but here's the rub. Until we get that job, are we gonna be angry with God that we don't have it? Are we gonna be discontent with God that we don't have it? It's not wrong to dream. It's not wrong to dream of things that you don't currently have or are not currently experiencing and work hard to achieve it. All of this is appropriate and it's not coveting. It just comes down to whether we're going to be content or not. So money drives us away from the Lord, reputation, things, people. Wives, husbands, children, stages or circumstances in life. I don't know how many times I look back on my life, I remember myself saying, I'll be happy when I finish my college. I'll be happy when I get my master's. I'll be happy when I have a kid. I'll be happy when I get a, and it's just like, it's the carrot with the donkey. The carrot just keeps going, and we are the donkeys, and we just keep going after it, you see. So how do we fight for joy against covetousness? Finally, how do we fight for joy against covetousness? As Paul said to Timothy, we must flee from these things, but it's never enough to run from something. What do you have to do? You have to run to something, right? You can't just run away. You can't just run away and just say, oh, I'm plugging my ears. No, you've got to fill that void with something else. So Psalm 119.36, incline my heart to your testimonies and not to selfish gain. So listen finally again to John Piper. This is how you fight for joy. You run to the arsenal of faith and quickly take the mantle of prayer from Psalm 119.36 and you throw it around yourself. And you say, oh Lord, incline my heart to your testimonies and not to worldly gain. And then quickly you take down two swords, a short one and a long one, specially made by the Holy Spirit to slay covetousness. And you stand your ground at the door. And when he shows his deadly face, you show him the shorter sword. This is Piper. The shorter sword, 1 Timothy 6. There is great gain in godliness with contentment. Great gain, great gain, you say. You say, stay where you are, lion of covetousness. I have great gain in God. This is my faith. I have great gain. And then before he has time to attack, you take the longer sword, Hebrews 13, 5 and 6. Keep your life free from the love of money, and be content with what you have, for God has said, I will never fail you nor forsake you. Hence, we can confidently say, the Lord is my helper. I will not be afraid. What can man do to me? And drive it home. Do exactly what Paul says to do in Colossians 3.5, put covetousness to death. What a beautiful picture Piper gives us. You know, he's saying it's what I was trying to say this morning, what Paul says better than both me and John Piper, go to war with sin. Are you going to war with your passions? Are you going to war with your temptations? Are you going to war with covetousness? Guess what? It doesn't happen passively. You have to put on the war paint, right? You've got to put on the camos. You've got to get on your knees. You've got to take the sword of the Spirit, and you have to wield it. You need to tell yourself, even out loud, my heart is lying to me. You want to know good strategies and tactics for fighting sin and praying? Go read Martin Luther. That guy, I'm just gonna tell you, he cusses a little bit, just to warn you, okay? As he talks to the devil, he will cuss at him, and I'm not approving that, but I am saying, that man took fighting sin seriously. And he would yell at the devil, he would say naughty, he would throw his inkwell at the devil. He might have been a little crazy, maybe dancing on the line a little bit, okay? But he was crazy enough to take God's promises seriously. Are we crazy enough to take God's promises seriously? You will not be as content as you think you will when you get that thing. It may bring momentary contentment, but then there will be something else that we want. Our heart is always thirsty for something, and what we're thirsty for is meaning and purpose. And guess what? We have that in Jesus. We have meaning and purpose in Jesus, and so we need to constantly, as we run from covetousness, run to Jesus, run to the cross, run to him who is the bread of life, run to him who gives us spiritual water, spiritual food, and spiritual drink. Let's pray. Father God, we thank you that your son, though he was assaulted with the temptation of covetousness so many times in his ministry, said no. And as a result, we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who has been tempted in all ways yet without sin. What beautiful words, yet without sin. We thank you that we have a Savior who is without sin so that he could atone for those of us who have it. We bless your name, dear Father. We thank you, dear Jesus Christ, for what you have done, and we thank you, Spirit, for your work in our life. And we ask all these things in your holy name, amen. All right, the Lord bless you and keep you. You are dismissed.