Summary 

Coveting is one of the quietest and most dangerous sins we face. It begins as an inner desire for what belongs to someone else, but Scripture places it in the same company as murder and adultery because it is where so many other sins are born. We live in a culture built around stirring up unholy desire, making it easy to covet other people's careers, relationships, recognition, and possessions without even noticing. The good news is that the cross of Jesus Christ does not simply forgive our coveting. It removes the very reason for it. When we understand that God did not spare His own Son for us, we can trust that He will provide everything we truly need. Fixing our eyes on that love is what loosens the grip of the next thing.

Transcript

Lord, thank you for this beautiful passage from John where this woman desires to have a living water. And that speaks to our experience, Lord, because so often we, we are reaching for out for things to satisfy us, to give us a greater sense of meaning and purpose in life. So often we do that by coveting that which is not ours. Our neighbor's house and the stuff they have and the work they have and the job they have and the spouse they have and the kids they have and blah, blah, blah, Lord. And we know how utterly destructive that is.
And so, Lord, we long, we ask, like this woman did, Lord, give us this living water that quenches the thirst of our hearts. Please, please do this, God, and use this sermon as one of your means to do that.
Hear our prayers. Amen. Okay, let me tell you something about last Sunday. So last Sunday, immediately after the service, maybe you noticed I wasn't around because I. Well, one of the joys of being a pastor is that I get to be present in some of the key times in your life when you're in the hospital.
I find it such an honor to be there at baptisms and at weddings. And one of the great joys is that often I get to go and visit when there's a new baby. And so Tori and Jason were kind. They didn't know how much I was praying that they would say yes to me. But they're like, yeah, you can come visit.
I was like, well, I've got a flight at 3 o', clock, actually 2:52 to go out to Louisville for our denominations General Assembly. And so I'm going to leave right after the service and get down there. Of course some of you wanted to talk to me and, and whatnot. And I. So I got in the car and it's a half hour drive there at the UPMC on the other side of Carlisle.
So I drove down there and we just talked and it was great. And heard about the birth and we read some scripture and we prayed and then Tori's parents and grandmother came in and. And then I, I was bold and I asked if I could hold Caroline, which was like, I mean, if you've had, many of you have had the experience of holding a little one like that, it's such a. It feels like you're just holding the greatest treasure. I really don't want to give her up either.
Do I need new batteries? Is it cutting out? Yeah, okay, I'm just keep going, we'll get new batteries anyway. So eventually I'm like, oh, you know what? I should probably get going.
I get in the car. I'm like looking at my watch. Oh my word, I need to get going. I get behind a slow car all the way up 81 finally get. I mean seriously, it was like really slow and I could not get around.
81 has got all those tractor trailers. You're like, how is it possible right now that I'm just going this slow? So I get home and I'm like, bags in car, kids get in. Melissa made this delicious hamburger. Father's Day was awesome.
Eating in the car. Get to the airport and I come in, I've got to check one of my bags and I go there and I am one minute late and I'm not able to check my bag one minute late. So earlier in the week I had gotten an email saying I could change my flight because my original flight was going to leave around 5:50 and it would get in at midnight. So I changed it to this 3 o' clock flight so I can get in at 8 and then I had to change it back. So I'm like, okay, not worst, not the worst thing ever.
I'll just stick around the airport for the next three hours. I'll take a nap, which I did, and other things. Red and stuff. And then about an hour and a half before my flight, I'm like, I should check my bag now. So I go check my bag and the lady says, well, do you have any id?
You know, a driver's license or a passport? I said, here's my driver's license. And I thought, I can't get through security. Malaysia. Why is he been telling me to get real ID and I don't have it.
So I call Malise about seven times, frantically texting, didn't get through. She's a wise woman and like me, often takes a nap on Sunday afternoons. So I called Chris, Casey, Chris, would you please run to my house, they live about a block away and knock on the door and please please tell them I need my passport within 20 minutes or else I'm going to not get my flight. The police calls me up FaceTime, cannot find the passport. It's none of the normal places.
We finally find it, she run. I literally, of course, it's mdt, it's Harrisburg. I'm running. How am I gonna get the flight? And then I sit there and wait.
So I get on the plane, I go to Chicago, I fly through Chicago, about two and a half hour layover. I'm like, oh well, there's some lounges that I'm allowed access to. Because of our credit Card in Terminal 5. I'll go there. So I get out of the security, I have to go through security, get out of Terminal 1, I get on the train, go to Terminal 5, I go in, I'm gonna get in line to go through security, and it's international only.
I'm like, okay, get back on the train, go back, go back through security again, you know, whatever, blah, blah, blah. My flight, we fly to Louisville, there's a horrible storm. We circle around a bunch, they go, hey, we're going to Nashville. I'm like, okay, so we land in Nashville, we wait it out, we wait the storm out. Now they have to refuel the plane.
We get back on the plane. Well, actually, we never got off the plane. I'm telling a truthful story. I'm not trying to embellish. There's no embellishment here.
I get. We finally land in Louisville at 2:45 in the morning.
A couple buddies of mine who are pastors in Ottawa are on that plane, thankfully. And so we wait in line because everybody there is waiting for an Uber. So we wait for an Uber. We get to. I get to my hotel at 3:45 in the morning.
I walk up to the the check in and she says, I can't check you in right now. And I say, I literally left my house 14 hours ago. I would love a bed. And she said, no can do. Our computer system's changing over for the day and I cannot check anyone in.
You're going to have to just go sit over there. Oh really? So anyway, I get to bed at 4:00am Blah, blah, blah. I could keep going. It's actually even more complex than what I said, but I got three and a half hours of sleep that night.
And then I spent most evenings late into the night catching folk.
And so here's how I'm connecting this. Partly I want to tell you the story, I need to connect it to the sermon, which I don't think is too tricky. Actually, there's some holy desires. I mean, coveting is something that is odd because you have desires that are good and right. Desires.
I actually should rightly desire to listen to my wife's wisdom and get a real ID on my driver's license. That's a good desire now, but it's all kind of mixed in. Why do I always have to fly to General Assembly? Why can't I be one of the ones that lives close, who can drive?
God, why did you put us here, make us this way? Why did you have me drive or, you know, travel for 14 hours at the beginning of what's bound to be a long week. Why not that situation? Why not that person? Why not their shoes, their gifts, their hair, whatever it is, you know?
Yeah, well, I do say that sometimes.
And you and I can both hear Paul writing to Timothy, and we know it's true where he says, but godliness with contentment is great gain, for we brought nothing into the world and we can take nothing out of the world. But if we have food and clothing with these, we'll be content. I mean, I had food and clothing, but I was racing through my mind at times of all everybody else's opportunities.
So we all need to hear this tenth Commandment. You shall not covet, which gets at our desires for things which we were not given. The things of others, the traits of others, the opportunities of others. Should I take those batteries? I mean, I don't want to really stop, but if any batteries on here, nobody's going to be able to hear now.
They're gone.
Okay, let me continue on.
All right. What I want to. What I want to pose to you this morning, excuse me. Is that we do have these. This kind of mix, right?
We come to a passage like this, and it's very tricky. I mean, we kind of know when we're coveting it in such a way that actually is destructive. But for the most part, we also know that we have these desires that God gives us. And I want to say that there actually is something right and good about desiring. And sometimes desiring actually even that with what you don't have currently.
Okay? And I want to suggest to you that there's a lot of things that are holy desires. They're good desires. Not all of your desiring is bad. Not all desiring is selfish.
God gave us. He sort of made us to be desirous creatures.
It's a good desire to go to bed before 4am particularly on a busy week when I'm supposed to be present to the work that is given me to do, to attend to the speeches and arguments that are being made that I'm supposed to vote on. That's a good desire. Nothing wrong with that at all. Just last week we were talking about stealing. We heard in Ephesians 4:28, Let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labor doing honest work with his own hands so that he may have something to share with anyone in need.
Which is to say to have a job that not only provides your needs but actually provides enough that you can have to give Away is a good desire to put in the work to get those jobs. That is a good thing. To learn the habits, you know, to desire to have the habits that make you profitable in such a way. That's a good thing. Providing for a roof over your family's head.
That is a good and honorable desire. Education for your children. Date nights with your spouse. There's so many things that we could say, these are good and right and holy desires. To be diligent students in your work, so you might get into a certain school, so you might use your gifts for the blessing of the world.
There are many desires that we have that are good and holy desires. Proverbs 18:22.
Very specifically, it says, she who finds a wife finds a good thing, right? And obtains favor from the Lord. And some of you say, I desire to be married. Something like that. So it's not just the case.
You kind of look out and you say, ah, I desire that. Necessarily bad. Okay, that's partly what I'm saying. God actually makes us desirous beings, and he gives in us holy desires that can motivate us towards seeking jobs and seeking relationships, learning how to groom oneself, learning how to talk to somebody of the opposite sex, those kinds of things. These are holy desires that can motivate us towards good and wise living.
Ephesians 5 tells us that we're not supposed to hate our own flesh, but to nourish and cherish it as Christ does the church. And of course, in Ephesians 5, it's talking about the oneness of marital union. But you can think about how we're supposed to nourish our bodies. We're supposed to tend to our bodies. There's good desires for certain kinds of food, certain kinds of athleticism.
That's not altogether bad. Those things can help our mental acuity.
I said this before. A couple years ago, we were looking at Genesis, the beginning of Genesis, Genesis chapter two. You know, there's this paragraph in the middle of the chapter, and it's talking about, you know, the end of the creation week, and then how Adam looks upon the animals. And then at the end of the chapter, the Lord makes Eve. But in the middle of it, there's this paragraph that talks about how Eden is where the river flows out into four rivers.
And you're like, okay, this is interesting geographical orientation. But then just randomly kind of says, and the gold of that land is good, huh? What's going on there? And then it says, bdellium and onyx stone are there. And I think that from the get go, in a way, it's noticing beauty.
So even noticing beauty, that is not necessarily a bad thing. The Bible does that a number of ways. The minister's gowns, the high priest gowns had purple pomegranates on them, highlighting beauty. And of course, Adam was right to sing right when Eve was there. This at last, which is to say that to some degree there was a holy desire for something to complement him.
This at last, this bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh. You know, he was desirous of her and that was a good desire. Holy desires. And what I'm saying is that there are many healthy and holy desires that we are given. Most of all, we're to desire God.
We're to desire to know him and to love Him.
That holy desire can motivate us to study his word, to be mentored, maybe by an older Christian to make it your habit to worship together with the saints. These are good things. But for as much as we can say that there are holy desires, we know this command you shall not covet is a command for us.
Because so often we are not filled with holy desires, but unholy ones. Right?
I mean, we come to the end of the ten Commandments and this is the last one. And one commentator said, you know, it just doesn't have the same. I don't know, you get to the end and it feels like you should have a big one.
Something that really pops, stands out. This is how one commentator put it. It's occurred to me that whoever approved the final order of these commandments didn't have much sense of suspense or climax. He put all those dramatic, intriguing sins like stealing, adultery and murder first. Then he ended up with coveting.
It would have seemed more logical to begin with the bland throw away sins like coveting and then work up to the big stuff. I wonder if you feel that, because while it's good to acknowledge that there are holy desires, and many of those holy desires motivate us toward holy living and good living.
I think what we could do, even though we know coveting is such something that happens in our hearts, we can minimize the evil of it. It's so easy to sort of maximize the evil of something like murder and the exterior dynamics of what we do and minimize what's going on inside. And this one is all about what's happening inside. I mean, I can easily justify my thoughts and feelings, the thoughts and feelings that I had towards the woman across the counter for me at Harrisburg Airport. I missed it by one minute.
You know, I can justify the anger that wells up within me. Maybe I can justify it by my holy desire to be well rested.
I can easily justify my covetous thoughts, and I guarantee you can too. But we need to remember that not only did our Lord include coveting in his list of commandments, but he reiterated this command again and again and again in the Bible.
Did you notice when Rebecca was reading that this is the only command that actually literally just repeats the command? It says, you shall not covet. Right, you shall not covet your neighbor's wife, or, sorry, your neighbor's house. You shall not covet your neighbor's wife. It's the only one that says the command, the basic of the command, twice.
And I wonder if it's because we're kind of inclined to maybe push it to the side.
Think of how committed the scriptures are to this command, to not dismissing this command.
Another way to think of coveting is just desiring that which we were not or does not rightly belong to us. And so one way we can think about it is greed. Paul is greed right along sins like theft and murder. Greed, holy desires, unholy taking, coveting, right is listed right alongside theft and murder. When the apostle Paul says that the ones who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.
Writing in the book of Colossians, Paul says in chapter three, put to death, therefore, what is earthly in you? Sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness. He lists covetousness right alongside those others. And then he says, which is idolatry. Our Lord Jesus in Mark 7 says, for from within, out of the heart of man come evil thoughts.
Sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting. I mean, we're inclined to kind of go, okay. And all the. The constant message of Scripture is that this is so utterly destructive, practically destructive in your life, spiritually destructive with our Lord.
The truth is that coveting can sink us down to hell just as fast as any of the other sins.
Of course not. Too hard to think why. Let me say just one reason. Coveting causes so many other sins.
I mean, the coveting person can quickly go from simply desiring something which is not properly yours, to plotting how to get it, to grabbing it, to taking sinful deeds. Start often with sinful desires.
The New Testament writer, brother of Jesus James said, but each person is tempted when he's lured away and enticed by his own desire. Then desire when it's conceived, gives birth to sin, and sin when it's fully grown, brings Forth death. Coveting is at the beginning of that process. Unholy desire is at the beginning of the way to death.
And again, the Ten Commandments is not an exhaustive list, right? We've talked about this quite a bit. Remember the long examples I gave you from the catechisms, all the ways that they applied things like do not murder.
The Commandments are not exhaustive lists. They're kind of the main things that kind of breed, you know, speak to the bigger picture. Murder, of course, our Lord connects to anger and we can connect it so much more. And adultery to all kinds of other unfaithfulness, stealing to having a proper understanding of your own property and also respect for another's.
But coveting also touches on so much. Think of how we can apply it to coveting a person's attributes, right? We covet another's age, particularly once you're past 25, where you're physical, where you physically peak some happy news for us. We covet others looks, covet others minds, their mental acuity. We covet others athleticism.
I'm still a 13 handicap. Golly, their musical talents. All kinds of things we're commanded not to covet. And we're commanded not to covet another person's situation in life, right? Their marriage, maybe, the freedom they have in their singleness, maybe their children.
We're commanded to not covet. And we're commanded to not covet all things.
Maybe in a church there can be holy desires to grow in the Lord, but we can also covet another person's sort of spiritual attainment, the role that they play in the life of the church, having some leadership role or whatever it is, the recognition of their spiritual gifts. We are simply commanded through and through consistently in the Bible. Don't covet.
Unholy desire quickly brings death.
Of course, how, how applicable. You know, we talked in this series, we talked about idols. I said, probably none of you are like harboring little statues that you like innocence to in your house. So we had to think through, how do we apply that? My guess is that as soon as if we had an open discussion, well, how do we apply coveting to 21st century America?
It wouldn't be hard.
We know that the world we live in has sort of the motto, he who dies with the most toys, wins. It's all about what you get and frankly, what your neighbor does not get. We live in the modern world where there is so much that we can grasp and hold on to, say, look mine. And where our life does seem to consist in the Abundance of our possessions. And that's the world we live in.
I read this pastor who confessed this. I belong to the cult of the Next Thing. It's dangerously easy to get enlisted into. It happens by default, not by choosing the culture, but by failing to resist it. The cult of the Next thing is consumerism, caste in religious terms.
It has its own litany of sacred words, more you deserve it, new, faster, cleaner, brighter. It has its own deep rooted liturgy. Charge it instant credit, no down payment, deferred payment, no interest. It has its own preachers, evangelists, prophets and apostles, advertisers, pitchmen, celebrity sponsors, influencers, right? What is an influencer doing other than trying to get you to buy something?
They are trying to influence your desire for what you do not have.
It has, of course, its own shrines, chapels, temples, Meccas, malls, superstores, club warehouses. And this is dated, and so I added. It also has its own holy days, some of which we celebrate this week, Prime Day, Black Friday.
I mean, it's just the narrative that we live into. He who dies with the most possessions wins. It has its own ecstatic experience as the shopping spree, the cult of the Next Thing. Things central message proclaims, crave and spend for the kingdom of stuff is here.
So what do we do? How is it that this sin that so easily entangles us, how are we free from it? Because it is simply the world we live in. I mean, this guy says the only way to not be in it is to resist it.
How do we allow it to not so easily entangle us? And how do we put it to death, rather than letting our unholy desires lead to our own death?
And this is going to sound remarkably similar to last week's sermon in this regard. And this is the central thing of Christianity. I want to tell you again, look at the cross of Christ. Now here's what I want to say. Just like there are spiritual and practical implications of our desires, right, our unholy desires, there are also spiritual and practical implications of the cross.
Jesus tells us in the Sermon on the Mount. He says, look at the birds of the air. They neither sow, nor reap nor gather into barns. And yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?
He continues on. He says, consider the lilies of the field, how they grow. They neither toil nor spin. Yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God is so close, he so clothes the grass of the field which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you?
I said, there's like a practical way that the cross actually answers this conundrum that we find ourselves, that we live in this world that tells us to covet, and it's sort of the default experience of our hearts. How do we resist it? And how's the cross begin to answer that? Well, if we go back to Genesis, right back to Genesis, and what you have is, you know, the taking of the apple. And what we're told is it was desirous to be desired and it was to be desired, to make one wise.
And that they were. They were promised that they could be like God.
I want to suggest to you that actually having your eyes fixed on the cross orients you to the fact that you are not God. And what is our grabbing onto stuff but saying, you know, what, if I can just have all this, I can control other people's perception of me. If I have this, I can get this other thing that I want. If I have this thing that I haven't yet been given, look at all the opportunity. What could I accomplish?
I mean, so much of what we wear and what we have and what we eat, Posting so often as we do is for other people to say, wow, look at you. And what the cross does is it very practically humbles us, but also what it does, and this is the lie that Adam and Eve bought into, is that somehow that one thing that God said, don't eat this. They thought if we could just have that, then we'd have enough while they could look around and see all that God had given them. I mean, why is the gold there? In.
In chapter two, if you can remember back two years, why I said I think it's there is because it's just one demonstration of the utter abundance of God. You know, he gave them fruit trees bearing fruit. He gave them plants they could eat. He even placed them in a place that had good gold and medellium and onyx. It's almost just to say, look at how lavishly the Lord loves you.
Look at how lavishly the Lord loves you. And so the crossbow humbles us. But what it also does, both in a practical way and a spiritual way, it says, look at how wildly I have provided for you.
If he did not spare his own son, but gave him up for us all, how much more will he not give us? All things.
There's nothing that can separate you from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. Nothing.
If the Father so loves the world, that he gives his only Son that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.
Why are we worrying about wanting our neighbor's car?
I mean, and yet so much of our energy is spent on that.
So, brothers and sisters, look to Jesus.
Look at the cross. Look at how it humbles us, but look at how it also tells us that God will always provide.
He will always care for you. Hairs can fall from your head and it will be the Father's will and he will hold you in his loving arms.
This is the picture of God's provision for us that if he will go to the cross for us, he will give you what you need.
I personally found when I was thinking of this sermon, that this is actually such an utter, a perfect commandment to end on. Because, truth be told, as much as my heart is an idol factory, as Calvin says, the commandment about not bowing down to idols is not the same temptation. The commandment to murder, which Jesus properly applies to anger, is absolutely applicable to me. But man, coveting, coveting is the world we swim in.
I guarantee it. It's for you. So, brothers and sisters, look at the cross. Have it ever before you. Because it is so easy to get consumed with prime day, to get consumed with other people's vacations and other people's blah, blah, blah, and lose fact of the reality that the God who made the world, the God who made all things, has given his life for you.
How much more will he not give you? Everything else.
Lord, would you please give us holy desires, Holy desires that motivate us to work with our hands, that we might have something to give to those in need, to desire holy relationships most of all, Lord, move in our desires that we might fix our eyes upon Jesus, that we might desire to live at peace and rest in a world that is full of anxiety, fraught with worry, constantly desiring what we do not have, what you have not given us. Lord, we find our peace and our rest in you. In Jesus name, amen.

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