Sermon on Lord’s Day 44 Q&A 113

113. Q. What does the tenth commandment require of us?
A. That not even the slightest thought or desire contrary to any of God's commandments should ever arise in our heart. Rather, we should always hate all sin with all our heart, and delight in all righteousness.[1]
[1] Ps. 19:7-14; 139:23, 24; Rom. 7:7, 8.

Scripture Reading: James 4:1-12, Colossians 3:1-17

Singing: (Psalms and Hymns are from the "Book of Praise" Anglo Genevan Psalter) 
Psalm 149:1
Psalm 147:4
Hymn 48:2,3
Psalm 62:1,6,7
Psalm 131:1,2,3

Beloved Congregation of the Lord Jesus Christ!

The central notion of the tenth word of God’s covenant with us is the word ‘covet’. The Greek Bible uses a certain word here that is translated in more ways into the English. Amongst the various English translations given to this Greek word are terms as ‘covet’ or ‘desire’ or even ‘lust’. I mention this because I want to define from the outset, which sin the Lord addresses in the tenth commandment. Though the English word ‘lust’ has a different flavor to it than the word ‘covet’, and the word ‘desire’ has a somewhat different flavor again, in the Greek it’s all the same word, and this is what God condemns in the tenth commandment. Covet, desire, lust –or, in the plain English of today- ‘I want’: that’s what God condemns in the tenth word of His covenant with us.

‘I want.’ The phrase characterizes today’s western society. Ever since the 1960’s western society has become very self-centered, egotistical; it has a very bad case of the ‘I-wantsies’. The most important person is the self, and it’s almost seen to be your right to have your desires fulfilled. To speak of coveting or lust as sin makes another giggle; how can you consider something to be sin when it comes as involuntarily to us as saliva at a BBQ?!

But the Lord has something to say on the matter, yes, and we hear His condemnation of the ‘I-wantsies’ every Sunday. Instead of His people thinking in terms of ‘I want’, God would have His people be content with what He in wisdom supplies. After all, He is our Father in Jesus Christ, and so supplies our needs perfectly.

I summarize the sermon with this theme:

God our Father would have us be content

1. Coveting is not always wrong.
2. Coveting has bitter consequences.
3. Coveting needs to be overcome.

Coveting is not always wrong.⤒🔗

It needs to be said first of all, brothers and sisters, that not all wanting is wrong. Our Lord Jesus Christ once said to His disciples, "With fervent desire I have desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer" (Luke 22:15). The Greek uses here the same word as in the tenth commandment. Similarly, the apostle Paul writes to Timothy that "If a man desires the position of a bishop, he desires a good work" (I Tim 3:1). Again, the Greek uses the same word as in the tenth commandment.

That should not surprise us. Commandments 6,7,8 and 9 also are all short, and put a full stop after the verb. "You shall not murder," says the Lord, and that’s an all-inclusive command prohibiting all murder. "You shall not commit adultery, says the Lord, and that’s an all-inclusive command prohibiting all adultery; the Lord allows for no exceptions. "You shall not steal," the Lord continues, and again makes that an across-the-board, all-inclusive command; there is no place for stealing.

But with the tenth commandment the Lord does not place a full stop after the prohibition against coveting. Instead, the Lord adds details as to what we may not covet. The objects we may not covet revolve around the neighbor. That is, we may not covet the neighbor’s wife, the neighbor’s house, the neighbor’s man-servant (we’d say today his cement mixer or his lawn mower), may not covet the neighbor’s maid-servant (we’d say today her washing machine or bread maker), may not covet the neighbor’s ox (that’d be his tractor) or his donkey (that’d be his car), or anything that is your neighbor’s. The focus is the neighbor, that is, is the things the Lord God has given to the neighbor. Here, then, is the material I touched upon with the eighth commandment: God owns everything, and He’s given parts of His creation to certain persons. If He in His wisdom has given a certain house to my neighbor, it’s not for me to protest that and lust after that house. If God in wisdom has given a certain woman to my neighbor, it’s not for me to protest that and want her for myself. That’s the tenth commandment: "You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife. You shall not covet your neighbor’s house…."

But, as I said before, that doesn’t condemn every want. Jesus wanted, fervently, to eat that Passover. Young men may aspire to the office of elder. Young people (and not so young) may want a spouse.

What, then, is the difference between a healthy want and a sinful want? The difference, congregation, revolves around the whole purpose of our existence on this earth. God created us so that we might glorify Him. A want that has the self in the center is condemned it the tenth commandment. On the other hand, a want that has God in the center is pleasing to the Lord. He, after all, is God, and so all our being needs to revolve around Him. When a young man desires to be an office-bearer one day, that’s a good thing – provided his motive is to serve the Lord, and not himself. When young people (and not so young) desire a spouse, that’s a good thing – provided the motive is God-centered and not self-centered. To say it all in the words of our Lord’s Day: in the tenth commandment the Lord tells us "that not even the slightest thought or desire contrary to any of God’s commandments should ever arise in our heart." The focus needs always to be God. Anything else falls short of God’s holy standard.

So: anything I want needs also to be what God wants. Where my wants are me-centered, I’m in the wrong and transgress the tenth commandment.

As it is, though, we live in a society filled with the ‘I-wantsies’. Despite the renewing work of the Holy Spirit, we remain inclined to all evil. It’s in us, then, to have big demands, to want this and to want that, to covet. So we do well to consider what the consequences of coveting might be; second point.

Coveting has bitter consequences.←⤒🔗

The Bible is full of examples that spell out the devastating consequences of coveting. I read in Micah 2 the following:

Woe to those who devise iniquity….
They covet fields and take them by violence,
Also houses, and seize them.
So they oppress a man and his house,
A man and his inheritance vss 1f

That little passage details two consequences on coveting. The first is the hurt the covetous person inflicts on his brother. The covetous person lusts after the neighbor’s house with as result that the neighbor is oppressed. But that’s not the only result, for the Lord also pronounces His ‘woe’ on the man obsessed by the ‘wants’. "Woe," says God, and we understand well that when God pronounces His woe, trouble will certainly follow for you!

As a concrete example, we may think here of Ahab. The king wanted Naboth’s vineyard for a vegetable garden. But Naboth told Ahab that God did not give him liberty to sell his possession to another. Ahab’s reaction? "He lay down on his bed, and turned away his face, and would eat no food" (I Kings 21:4). That is, he pouted, he sulked. He wanted that land so much that he couldn’t handle the frustration of not getting it. See there the result of coveting; not getting what you want makes you a miserable person. I’ll come back to that in a moment.

But sullenness was not the only result of Ahab’s covetousness. Jezebel offered to organize the requisition of Naboth’s property. And see: Ahab the king did not have the backbone to say No! For he wanted the property! The result is that Naboth ended up being stoned to death – the victim of Ahab’s lust for the block of land.

David saw that woman bathing in the courtyard beside the palace. Result: he committed adultery. And then, to cover up his sin, he had the woman’s husband killed. There’s the result of coveting: somebody else suffers, suffers badly. But the penalty for David was equally severe. For the Lord’s response through Nathan the prophet was this: "Now therefore, the sword shall never depart from your house…" (II Sam 12:10). So it happened. His son Amnon raped his sister Tamar – and David didn’t have the wherewithal to deal with Amnon according to God’s revealed law; son Absalom killed his brother Amnon – and David didn’t have the wherewithal to deal with Amnon according to God’s revealed law either; Absalom rebelled against David and sought the throne of Israel – and again David didn’t have the backbone to demand his death. There’s the result of David’s lusting: trouble settled upon his family for years.

Jacob’s sons were green with jealousy on account of the favored position their father gave to brother Joseph; they coveted his place in the family, wanted to be favorite themselves. Result: they sold Joseph to the Midianite traders, so that Joseph was doomed to a life of slavery. But the brothers did not get away Scot free; their deed ate at their conscience so badly for years that, when they had to go to Egypt to buy grain, they went with lead in their shoes…. And when father Jacob died, they begged Joseph not to deal with them according to what they deserved….

And no, brothers and sisters, that such consequences follow on the sin of the ‘I-wantsies’ is nothing new to us. We experience that the same thing happens today, happens in our own homes. What happens, girls, when you tell your Mom, "I want the same kind of shoes Susie has." I hope for you that your mother is wise enough to say No, but does your case of the wantsies not lead to you being sullen on account of Mom’s wise refusal; you wanted the shoes so much that you couldn’t handle the disappointment of a No? And what about you boys. You want things in your bedroom to be like this, you’ve got your mind set on it. But your brother says No. Result? There’s a fight in the house. That’s the result of the wantsies; coveting leads to friction.

Or consider the person who badly wants that particular promotion at work. He doesn’t get it, and that disappointment eats at his sense of self-worth, takes away his pleasure in his work, with as result that he’s miserable at home. Who suffers? Sure, he does himself. So does his employer, because he’s not producing up to standard. And so does the family, because Dad has become bitter.

Or consider the girl who longs for marriage, but no one asks for her hand. Or the young man who married so eagerly, but within a year has a sick wife, bedridden for life…. Or the parents who tried so hard to cause their children to walk in the way of the Lord, but their Johnny tosses home and faith overboard…. The battles inside can be so fierce; the disappointment can turn into bitterness…. In truth, coveting has bitter consequences.

Is it not good, then, you ask, to long for marriage? Is it not good to want your children to walk in the way of the Lord? Most certainly, it is. But there are things that we people cannot control. Whether one receives a spouse is one of them. Whether one retains a healthy spouse is another. Whether one’s children will serve the Lord is a third. That these wants become so strong in our minds that they drive us can lead to bitterness when we find our wants denied. Here I come back to what I said earlier: our wants are not to be self-centered, but God-centered. To want a spouse for own comfort is not pleasing to the Lord. To want our children to serve the Lord so that we have a good reputation in the church community is not a good motive either. Though we live in a self-centered society, and are ourselves inclined to be self-centered, we need to be on our guard that our wants –though themselves honorable- are God-centered. On anything else His blessing does not lie, and we shall suffer the consequences of our coveting.

The passage we read from James 4 gives us a clear example of the consequences of coveting. The passage is addressed to Christians, sinners renewed by the Holy Spirit and formed into the church of God. Yet the apostle asks them in vs 1: "Where do wars and fights come from among you?" Point is: this congregation of Christian believers was obviously racked by internal feuding. How come? Vs 1: "do they not come from your desires for pleasure that war in your members?" It’s expanded in vs 2: "You lust and do not have." There, brothers and sisters, is the same word as is found in the tenth commandment, the word that can be translated as covet or desire or lust. The Lord has said that His people are not to covet, to lust anything that is your neighbor’s, but that’s exactly what the Christians James addresses were doing. They wanted. There were urges within them demanding satisfaction. Vs 1: there are "desires for pleasure that war in your members." Those inner desires insisted that things must go my way, and I can’t handle it if things don’t go my way. Yet because things don’t go my way –what happens?- "you murder and covet and cannot obtain." No, not that we have to think of these Christians actually taking each other’s lives. We confessed in Lord’s Day 40, in relation to the 6^th commandment, that when God forbids murder he forbids also the root of murder (such as envy, hatred and anger), and accounts these things as murder. That’s what we need to think of here; these Christians ended up hating each other, and so becoming more jealous of each other, and in turn fighting each other. There’s the consequence of coveting, of wanting. My way, or no way. And the peace that was supposed to characterize the church of Jesus Christ was far removed from the believers James addresses.

That’s why James gets stuck into the congregation the way he does. Vs 4: "Adulterers and adulteresses! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God?" To covet, to give in to a case of the I-wantsies is purely worldly behavior. The people of the world let their lives revolve around themselves, want things their way and can’t handle it if things go differently. But not so the people of God. Hence the plea of vs 5: "Or do you think that the Scripture says in vain, ‘The Spirit who dwells in us yearns jealously?’" That is: don’t you know that God wants His people completely, totally for Himself? He wants you God-centered, not self-centered? Then why the infighting? Is fighting-driven-by-lust not by definition self-centered? As in: it has to go your way? Give it up in repentance, says James, and humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord (vs 10). And instead of speaking evil of the brother, instead of fighting against him, recall that the one Judge of all will one day come, and He will judge all men.

Coveting, wanting what the Lord has given to another, insisting on satisfying our own wants: it arises so naturally, automatically in our sinful minds. It’s like saliva; we find we have no control over it. That brings us to our third point:

Coveting needs to be overcome.←⤒🔗

But how, we wonder, do you do that? To mind comes such practical possibilities as shunning advertisements, making a point of steering clear of the ‘wantsies’ of our society. And yes, that can help. But let us be honest, beloved, it doesn’t solve the problem altogether. For our wants are not just material things. Wants can also reflect that one desires to be on top of the ladder; recall the boys fighting about how to organize their bedroom. What hinders the one from giving in to the other is his pride; neither can stomach being less than the other. How, then, can we fight coveting, lusting the other’s position in the family pecking order, desiring the other’s popularity, coveting the other’s brains?

Yes, beloved, the Lord shows us the way here. Consider the passage we read from Col 3. Paul tells the believers of Colosse that they were "raised with Christ." The reference is to Easter; when Christ arose from the dead people by nature dead in sin arose with Him to new life (vs 3f). We understand that this reality is true for God’s children around the globe, all the time.

On the strength of that Easter reality, now, Paul gives the Colossians an instruction. He tells them in vs 1 to "seek". But he doesn’t say that they have to "seek" wealth, or seek prestige, or seek to be on top of the pecking order. The reality of Easter, says Paul, means that the Colossian saints are to "seek those things which are above." Why the things which are above? Because that’s where Christ is, "sitting at the right hand of God." He repeats the point in vs 2: "Set your mind on" – what? The neighbor’s house? His dish dryer? His standing in the congregation? None of it; "set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth."

That God-ward focus has a two-fold consequence. The first is listed in vs 5, the second in vs 12. The first consequence is that those raised with Christ are to "put to death your on-the-earth members." That is, the saints are to put to death their earth-centered drives. Some examples are listed at the end of the verse: "fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil-desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry." A second list appears in vs 8: "anger, malice, blasphemy, filthy language…." All these things speak of earth-centered attitudes, and that’s not fitting for those who were raised with Christ to new life.

The second consequence, vs 12, is the other side of the coin. The saints of Colosse are to "put on tender mercies, kindness, humility, meekness, longsuffering; bearing with one another, and forgiving one another…." These are attitudes that come from heaven, and so are attitudes that ought to characterize those whose focus is in heaven. And we realize: where these attitudes are present, you don’t have the jealousy that leads to covetousness, and you don’t have the mindset either to focus on earthly possessions.

Paul mentions the same sort of thing to the Philippians. "Finally, brethren," he writes, "whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy – meditate on these things" (Phil 4:8). It’s obvious to us: where we meditate on heavenly things, we haven’t got time to get stuck on that shirt I always wanted, or gripe that my neighbor has a faster car, or that br so-and-so is a notch further up the ladder than I am. That heaven-centered focus leads to contentment in relation to the things of this life, and a keen desire to further the kingdom of God and His glory.

Precisely that is what God commands in this commandment. The opposite of coveting is contentment, like the opposite of being self-centered is being God-centered. And yes, when we are God-centered we can be content with what the Lord has given. For He’s become our Father for Jesus’ sake, and so made us His children. In His love for us, He gives us each day our daily bread. True, what He gives may not measure up to what we would prefer. But remember: we’re but people, and sinful too, and so our perception of what we need is warped. Our heavenly Father has the bigger picture in mind – how His kingdom shall be promoted, and what is good for us in making that kingdom come- and He gives us all that He in wisdom knows we need. So it’s for us to trust Him, and be content with what He supplies.

I realize well that this line of thought does not sit well with the mindset of our society, nor does it sit well with human nature. We want to be independent, have control of our own lives, see things go our ways. Here we need to dare to be different, deliberately different from the world in which we live. Instead of having the wants, we need to make a conscious effort to be content with what God gives.

"The Christian life is a great paradox," I read the other day. "Those who die to self find self. Those who die to their cravings will receive many times as much in this age and, in the age to come, eternal life (Lu 18:29f). If I crave happiness, I will receive misery. If I crave to be loved, I will receive rejection. If I crave significance, I will receive futility. If I crave control, I will receive chaos. If I crave reputation, I will receive humiliation. But if I long for God and His wisdom, I will receive God and His wisdom. Along the way, sooner or later, I will also receive happiness, love, meaning, order, and glory."

In truth: to avoid coveting, to resist the wantsies, is the way to happiness in the Lord. Amen.