"Are You A Master or Slave of Your Desires"(10th Commandment: Sermon Series on the Ten Commandments)
Sermon Transcript for April 9, 2000
By Rev. Mike Beck
Scripture Reading: Exodus 20:1-17
We conclude this morning the sermon series on the Ten Commandments. I’ve enjoyed preaching these messages. I’ve appreciated your kind words that they have been helpful to you. For those who would like, we will put together both printed copies and a series of tapes with all eleven messages on them. Just don’t ask us to have it done this week. Give us until Easter to have that ready. We will for those who would like it.
Let’s take a moment to review. We’ve talked about the commandments revealing three things to us.
1. They reveal to us the nature of God.
2. They give us a blueprint for living and show us how we are designed to be in relationship with both God and with man.
3. The commandments show us we can’t keep them and our corresponding need of a Savior.
The first four commandments were vertical in nature dealing with our relationship with God. The First Commandment telling us God is to be on the throne and in the center of our life. Secondly, that when we worship our focus is to be on God and God alone. That we appreciate immensely Debbie’s, for instance, gift that she just gave us in worship. But the gift does not cause us to focus on Debbie; it’s to go beyond that to allow our focus to be on the God who Debbie seeks to serve through her song. Thirdly, the Third Command that we are to keep God’s name holy. I look out this morning and see that there are several golfers like myself here and most of us golfers have to ask forgiveness periodically because in our frustration we maybe at times dishonor the name of our Lord. And then, fourthly, if we’re to follow the Biblical principles of "Sabbath", a time for rest for body but also Sabbath in the sense of a regular time of worship before God.
And then the last six commandments are horizontal in nature instructing us how we are to be in right relationship with our fellow man. The Fifth Commandment, that we are to honor our father and mother. And then Six through Nine, prohibitions against murder, adultery, theft, and, last week, lying.
Which brings us to the Tenth and final Commandment. This commandment is both interesting and unique. A lot of the other Commandments you find parallels in other ancient sets of laws. But there’s no corresponding Commandment found in any other set of laws dealing with this inward attitude expressed in the Tenth Command that we are not to covet.
Covetousness can be the most deadly sin of all because it leads to other sins. Covetousness can cause people to become greedy and to steal. Covetousness can drive people to sacrifice the very lives of others for their own ends. Covetousness can give rise to unbridled lust which can plunge persons into adultery. And covetousness in our desire for what we do not have can lead people to lie about themselves and others to gain something for themselves.
But what does it mean to covet? As I’ve often done before, I kind of like to do definitions by starting out talking about some things that it is not. Covetousness does not mean to desire or want something. Now think with me. Without desire there would not be life. Our desire for food makes us hungry and we eat and gain nourishment. Our desire for sex within marriage strengthens that relationship and results in new life coming into being.
To covet doesn’t necessarily mean wanting something you don’t currently have. Almost everything we call progress has come about from a desire to bring something new and better into place in exchange for what existed before. Deanna and Matt are planning now to build a new home. Some of you are at the age that you’re beginning to think about retirement and you are planning for that. Some of you desire to travel to some place that you’ve never been before. Some of you are hoping and looking for a new job or advancement. You desire those things; but I want to say to you as your pastor today, we can desire things in the right kind of way without coveting.
Let me then give this definition of covet. To covet is to desire something in ways that end up being destructive to us or to other people or to desire something that belongs to somebody else that we have no business having. It’s an inner spirit that says, "I want this and I’m going to get it no matter what it costs me or no matter what the consequences." That’s what we are getting at in this Tenth Commandment.
Almost every culture has proverbs about covetousness. In English we say, "the grass always looks greener..." Where? "On the other side of the fence." A Scottish proverb says, "The covetousness man will never have enough until his mouth is filled with mold." And in India a Hindu proverb says, "If you mention money, even the corpse opens its mouth."
Covetousness, if we don’t keep that in check, leads us into all kinds of sin. And one of the most deadly things it perhaps does to us is that it robs us on the joy of the moment because our focus is entirely on getting what we don’t yet have.
There are numerous illustrations of covetousness in the Bible. Old David is kind of an enigma to us, isn’t he? It was his words, those great words of Psalm 27 that we used in our prayer today. But do you remember, David who lived in a society that practiced polygamy if you could afford it. Had numerous wives. Happened to look out his window one day though and saw a beautiful babe up on the roof next door. But unfortunately she belongs to Uriah. But David wanted her. So he sent word out to the front lines to have Uriah put right up front where David knew he’d likely be killed. And when that occurred he took Bathsheba to be his wife. Then one day the old prophet Nathan came along and said, "David, do you have time for me to tell you a story?" David said, "Sure." He said there was a guy who had a whole lot of sheep but his neighbor only had one. But do you know what that guy did? He took that one sheep that belonged to his neighbor. And David was furious. He said, "Tell me who that man is and we’ll bring the wrath of judgment down upon him." And I’d love to have been there when Nathan points his finger and says, "David, you are the man." David’s sin with Bathsheba began with coveting something that didn’t belong to him.
Judas, I believe the most misunderstood character of Holy Week. He was so focused on Jesus obtaining political power that he missed the kingdom of God that Jesus had come to bring. James, Chapter 1, 14-15 tells us how covetousness works in these words, "Each one is tempted when, by their own desire they are enticed. And then after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin. And sin when it is full-grown, gives birth to death." Desire, enticement, then after desire has conceived, sin which gives birth when it’s full grown to death.
The Tenth Commandment tells us not to be slaves of our desires. So how do we gain victory over it? It will only happen, friends, with change within. And that’s what we come every week to talk about. That I don’t have to stay the way I am. That in Jesus Christ there is both salvation and sanctification. That these desires within can be transformed and become Christ-like. Let me allow the scriptures simply to speak to this. II Corinthians 5:17, "If anyone is in Christ they are becoming a new creation. The old is passing away, and behold, all things are becoming new!"
Paul, in Philippians, Chapter 4, says this, "I know what it is to be in need, and I also know what it is to have plenty. He said, I’ve learned the secret, I’ve learned the secret of being content in any and every situation. What’s the secret? Paul gives it to us very succinctly in Colossians 1:27, "Here’s the secret, Christ in you. Christ in you, the hope of glory!" And then he goes on to give us this wonderful little formula in I Timothy 6:6 when he says, "Godliness + Contentment = Great Gain!" We strive after godliness, combine it with contentment and we will know great gain.
Where is this sin of covetousness affecting you today? Parents, is the desire for material possessions at risk of robbing you of your family, your health, or your spiritual life? Nothing wrong with possessions, until the possessions and the pursuit of them begins to possess us. Young people, is class rank or the desire for an "A" in that important class robbing you of your integrity? Married folks, is the temptation toward desiring another man or of another woman about to rob you of your marriage? Businessperson, is the desire for advancement, or power, or prestige and your coveting that at work about to rob you of your character and your relationship with God? If so, we need to turn back and know again the transforming grace of Jesus Christ and change our inner attitude and make a stand.
As we close this series, I hope more than anything else, that the preaching of these messages has caused you to have a different perspective of God’s commandments. Because our normal perspective is to see God telling us things that we can’t do which rob us of a good time and enjoying life when exactly the opposite is true. They are designed, in the words of Jesus, so that when we follow them "we might have life and have it more abundantly."
In taking care of my car, I try to change the oil faithfully and I try to follow the servicing guidelines in the Owner’s Manual that says at 30,000 miles you ought to check this and at 60,000 miles you want to replace this. And you know, when you follow that crazy Owner’s Manual, it spares you a whole lot of problems later on. It’s like the words of the commercial you’ve probably seen on TV where the mechanic says, "You can pay me now, or you can pay me later." In a sense, when we keep the commands and pay now, it saves us a whole lot of paying later on. When we follow God’s Owner’s Manual, God’s "Blueprint for Living", we discover a whole lot of other problems are avoided as we journey through life. My heart was blessed in the sermon, "Maintaining our Sanctity in a Sex Saturated Society", when a gentleman came to me in the hallway afterwards and said this, "I’ve been married twice. The first time I didn’t follow God’s design. The second time I did. And it’s made all the difference in the world when I followed the Owner’s Manual.
In the words of Dr. E. Stanley Jones, he says, "We really don’t break commandments, we only choose to break ourselves on them when we fail to follow them. We really don’t bread commandments", he said, "we only break ourselves on them when we fail to heed them."
Friends, Christians, we know the way and there’s one way for us to live, to trust and obey. That’s our closing hymn, #467.
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