• you shall have no other gods before me,
• you shall not make… bow down to... or serve any idol
• you shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God
all establish clear boundaries that protect our relationship with God. The 4th commandment:
• remember the Sabbath and keep it holy
is a boundary to protect our own physical health and spiritual well-being by calling us to take time to rest, and commandments 5-9:
• honor your father and mother
• you shall not murder
• you shall not commit adultery
• you shall not steal
• you shall not bear false witness against your neighbor
are all boundaries to our behavior that help protect the bonds of relationship with our family, friends and neighbors. These five are the particular commandments we need to follow if there is going to be the basic foundation of trust which a society needs to be healthy.
And now we come to the 10th commandment and while this is the last in the list, it is certainly not the least and while some may say that because it comes at the end it is often overlooked and maybe not as important as the other 9, there are others who say that this commandment is actually the most important one of all.
I have to say that I was probably one of those people who thought this commandment was the least important of the 10, but I am now rethinking that idea. I am wondering if this might actually be the most important one because when we break this commandment we are in danger of breaking all the rest. For example, why do people steal? We steal because we want something that someone else has, and if we can’t buy it – we will take it. And why do people commit adultery? It’s because they see someone and desire to have them even though that person may be in a relationship with someone else. And why did Israel worship idols? It was because they saw people all around them worshipping idols and gods and they wanted to have what those people had and they believed those maybe those idols would help them get more of what they wanted in this world. And what was the first murder all about? Cain killed Able because he saw that God accepted his brothers offering and not his own. In some sense, Cain coveted Able’s relationship with God and he coveted the offering is brother gave to God and it was that attitude and desire which led to anger and then to murder. So in many ways, coveting what other people have can lead us to breaking many of God’s commandments, so maybe this last commandment is the most important one of them all. Whether or not it is the most important, it might be the most difficult to keep because while the other nine all talk about our actions, this one speaks directly to our attitude.
Did you notice that? The first 9 commandments all talk about what we are supposed to do and how we are to live, they all focus on actions. We are not to worship other gods, make idols, misuse God’s name, work on the Sabbath and disrespect our parents. We are not to murder, commit adultery, steal or lie. The first 9 commandments all outline behavior but the 10th commandment is unique because it doesn’t talk about action – it talks about feelings and desire and emotions and while we can work to disciple our behavior, disciplining our feelings is much more difficult.
Just an aside here, as we have been looking at the 10 commandments all summer we have also heard from Jesus sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5 because in that sermon Jesus takes these 10 commandments and expands on them to include our attitudes and feelings. For example, Jesus says that while the commandment says do not murder we are also not to be angry with people. And while the commandment says do not commit adultery Jesus says we are not to look at people with lust and while we are often amazed at how Jesus expanded these commandments to include our feelings and not just our actions, Jesus was only doing what God had done from the very beginning. This 10th commandment shows us that God has always been concerned about our feelings and attitudes and not just our actions. So in many ways the teaching of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount was nothing new, he was just pointing out in very clear and specific ways how to apply the truth of God.
So this commandment is unique because it deals with our feelings and let’s be clear that it deals with feelings that every single person struggles with at some point in time. It’s not just the poor who covet the riches of their neighbors, we are all susceptible to coveting those things we don’t have but see in others. For example, while the poor might covet the large house, new car and full bank accounts of their neighbors, the rich might covet the health, simplicity or strong family ties they see in their neighbors. The young might covet the stability of those who are older, but those who are older might covet the health, vitality and free spirit of the young. Coveting is not just a desire for more stuff or the money of someone else; it is a strong desire for anything that person has that we may want We can covet the healthy marriages and strong relationships that we see in others, we can covet other people’s jobs that seem more fulfilling and exciting, we can covet health care plans that provide more benefits, neighborhoods that are served by better schools, the good looks of movie stars or the hard bodies of athletes and believe it or not, we can even covet the strong faith we see in others when our own faith seems so filled with doubt.
We are all prone to coveting and God cares deeply about it because God knows that if this is left unchecked it will lead to all kinds of poor decisions and eventually broken relationships with everyone, but how are we to control a feeling? After all, we may not want to feel this way, we may not want to covet the things we see in others, but can we really control how we feel? The easy answer would be to say no we can’t control how we feel, and then just ask God for his forgiveness and mercy and move on, but I don’t think we can take the easy way out, after all, why would God tells us that we should not covet the things of our neighbors if there was not a way to overcome those desires. So how do we train our hearts and lives so that these feelings don’t surface in the first place?
The first thing we can do is not feed our desire to acquire. There will be those moments when we will see something that someone else has and our first thought might be how much we want it, but we don’t have to give in to that first thought. While a desire might enter our mind and heart, we don’t have to dwell on it. We don’t have to take that desire and turn it over and over in our minds and figure out how we can act on it or daydream about how great life would be if we could just get that one thing. We don’t have to imagine ourselves living in that new house or daydream about driving that new car and we don’t need to think about how great life would be if we were in someone else’s shoes. While a thought may enter our head, we don’t have to feed it and keep it growing; we can stop comparing our lives to the lives of others and not give fuel to our wrong desires.
The second thing we can do when a desire to possess something that someone else has enters our hearts and minds is to immediately stop and thank God for all that we have. It is easy to compare ourselves with others and find ourselves lacking and as the old saying goes, the grass always looks greener in someone else’s yard, so when the desire to possess something that someone else has enters our hearts we need to stop and ask God to show us just how blessed we are. God has blessed each and every one of us and we need to identify the unique way that God has created us and gifted us and then thank God for those blessings. But then we need to take a step further and figure out how to use these gifts and our lives for God’s glory. When we start using our lives to bless others, we will experience an abundance in life that will keep us from comparing our lives to others. The more we look at what others have and desire those things, the less satisfied and fulfilled we will be with what God has given us, but the more thankful we are for what God has given us and the more we use those gifts, the more beauty and power and fullness we will see in our own lives and the more content we will be.
The third thing we can do to stop covetousness in its tracks is to ask God to help us desire the right things. Here’s what is important to remember, there is nothing wrong with desire, in fact, God has placed the capacity to desire within us for good. We have strong God given desires that are good. We hunger for food and thirst for water each and every day. We desire relationship and we long to see the world a better place and these are God given desires because they are the desires that God has, God also longs for relationship and desires to the see the world a better place – that’s why he sent Jesus, to open the door so we could be in a relationship with God and to show us how good this world can be. So we were created with desire because we are created in the image of God and God has strong passions and desires, so desire in and of itself is not bad.
Look at Psalm 42:1-2. So we see that desire is not a bad thing, se just need to make sure that we desire the things of God. Do we desire more of God’s presence and power and grace and love. In Proverbs 13:12 it says desire fulfilled is a tree of life, and Psalm 37:4 says delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart. So desire in and of itself is not bad, it is making sure we desire the right things. Again from the Sermon on the Mount Jesus says we will be blessed, or happy, if we will hunger and thirst for righteousness. So desire is not a bad thing, we just need to ask God to help us desire the right things. The more we desire God, the more we delight ourselves in the Lord, the more blessed and full we will be and if we are full of God and God’s blessings, there will be no room in our hearts and lives to covet the things of others of the things of this world. So the key isn’t to ask God to help us desire nothing, it is to ask God to help us desire the right things.
So can we command our hearts and minds to not covet? Maybe not completely – but there is a lot we can do to train our hearts to desire the right things and if we can get our hearts right – if we can get this last commandment right and desire the things of God - maybe all the rest of them will begin to fall into place.
