The Tenth Commandment

Morning, we're finishing our series on the ten commandments. There's a fascinating book written not so long ago by a man, Oliver James, who wrote a book entitled, Affluenza. Affluenza, how to be successful and stay sane. In it, he analyses the dysfunctions of contemporary western culture that have generated relentless greed and the desire for more. Consumption, he says, holds out the false promise that an internal lacking can be fixed by external means.

We medicate our misery through buying things, he says. And he illustrates this point by highlighting the shift in attitude that happened roughly after the second world war in the nineteen fifties where modern marketing was born. He says people no longer bought soap to make them clean, they bought the promise that it would make them beautiful. In the virtual world of ads, toothpaste was not to kill bacteria, but to create white sparkling teeth. Cars were for prestige rather than for travel.

Even foodstuff such as oranges were for vitality, not nutrition. Needs, he says, were replaced by the confected wants that people did not even know they had. One ad executive, he says, had this to say about it. What makes this country great, and he has a positive view of it, by the way.

What makes this country great, and he's talking about America, is the creation of wants and desires. The creation of dissatisfaction with the old and the outmoded. Creation of desire for something and the dissatisfaction that disharmony inside people for what is old or outmoded. Now, if you were born after the second world war, or have lived after World War two, which is all of us, this is the world we live in. This is the world that has been created.

In the words of a contemporary executive, advertising at its best is making people feel that without their product, they are a loser. You are actually creating a mindset, in other words, of emotional vulnerability. You feel like you're a lesser person if you don't have the new iPhone or whatever. That's a pretty staggering insight, isn't it? It's a scary thought that this is intentionally done as well.

Our culture, the author of this book is saying, is, in his opinion, out of control in the constant creation of new dissatisfactions generating desires for people that they didn't know they had. This morning, in our final commandment, we look at this issue of dissatisfaction in our heart. And, you know, as we've worked through the ten commandments, we've been saying all along that God wants us to live free. To live free. The tenth commandment is therefore one that speaks to this idea of needs and wants and desires of materialism and our dread that unless we have more, unless we have the right kind of stuff, unless we have the right kind of relationships, unless we have the right kind of persona or view of ourselves, unless I have it, whatever it is, I cannot be whole.

I cannot be happy. I cannot be satisfied. In other words, we are trying to fix an internal lacking with external means. But this last word of God's ten words talks about this and it gives us hope and liberation and freedom. Let's turn to Exodus 20.

We're going to read the full list again as a way of memorisation and to have it fresh in our minds. Exodus 20, verse 1. And God spoke all these words saying, I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself a carved image or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above or that is in the earth beneath or that is in the water under the earth.

You shall not bow down to them or serve them for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments. You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain. Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Six days you shall labour and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, you or your son or your daughter, your male servant or your female servant or your livestock or the sojourner who is within your gates.

For in six days, the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea and all that is in them and rested on the seventh day. Therefore, the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy. Honour your father and your mother that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God has given you. You shall not murder. You shall not commit adultery.

You shall not steal. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbour. And then our text this morning, you shall not covet your neighbour's house. You shall not covet your neighbour's wife or his male servant or his female servant or his ox or his donkey or anything that is your neighbour's. So far the reading, may God add His blessing to it.

This morning, I want us to consider the Bible's teaching on this last and tenth commandment under two headings. The first I want us to think about is the diagnosis that God gives us in this command. The diagnosis that God provides for us. And then secondly, we'll look at the provision that God provides and offers. First of all, God gives a diagnosis of our hearts when we read this verse.

The tenth commandment, I don't know if you noticed, is set apart from all the other nine commandments. If you've had a look, if you've had a think about it. This is the only commandment that regulates our heart. Everything else has been about action. Honouring the Sabbath, honouring parents or those in authority over us, not stealing, not murdering, not committing adultery, actions.

This one looks at the motives and looks at the heart. The tenth commandment starts not with the doing, but with the attitude itself. It starts with the disposition of the heart. The tenth commandment you see focuses on what is beneath our actions. What drives our actions and our consciences.

Now many of you I'm sure have had medical scans done in your life, x-rays for broken bones and that sort of thing. Last year, I had to have a scan of my brain done. And I went and I had to lie in for forty-five minutes in this big noisy machine as it sort of sent all sorts of microwaves into my brain or whatever. I'm not a scientist, obviously. And at the end of it, I had this wonderful image on a computer that I could look at to see my brain, and I discovered there's not much in there.

But an amazing invention to be able to see what is going on beneath the surface, beneath what you can see from the outside. And as hard as it is, when we find cancerous masses or we find bleeds in the brain or something like that, as hard as that can be, we need that data. We need that diagnosis of what lies beneath the skin if we're going to help with what is so urgently required. And that in many ways is precisely what this commandment is getting at. It is, if you like, a spiritual MRI, a CT scan for the soul.

It offers diagnostic insight into the deep structures of sin that motivate us and drive us to confuse our heads, to cause insubordination to God inside of us. And when we notice this diagnosis itself, what God is showing us here, we just discover that very often it is covetousness that stands beside and behind every other sin that we do. John Piper writes this. He says, have you ever considered that the ten commandments begin and end with virtually the same commandment? You shall have no other gods before me.

God begins. Right? You shall have no other gods before me. The first commandment. And he says, the tenth, you shall not covet.

They are almost equivalent commands, he says. Coveting is desiring anything other than God in a way that betrays a loss of contentment and satisfaction in Him. Covetousness is a heart divided by two gods. God and whatever it is that I need. It's no surprise then that in Colossians 3:5, Paul calls it out for what it is.

Colossians 3:5, Paul says this. He writes to Christians and he encourages them, put to death therefore what is earthly in you. Sexual immorality, impurity, passions, evil desires, and covetousness, which is idolatry. Interesting that he writes that. Qualifies it as idolatry in a profound way.

The tenth commandment links to the first one, which says you will only love the one true God. They are bookends. They are bookends to one another. If God provides what we need, then it casts a light on us on whether we trust and whether we truly believe God is sufficient. Whether we truly trust and believe that God in His providence will look after us.

If God provides what we need and yet we long for something that He has not given us, then we live functional atheistic lives. We become functional atheists because we don't believe that God is good enough to give us what we truly need, or we believe that God is not powerful enough to change our circumstances when we need it. We don't believe in God. We become functional atheists in this worry, in this desire. We look past God to see what He should be giving us.

He alone is not sufficient. We need more. And so that thing that we desire says, I don't trust that God has my best intention at heart. Or it says, I don't trust God is powerful enough to change my situation and it eats and it erodes our trust in Him. And we look at other things.

We look at other gods. We look at other objects that may fill this space of fulfilling our desires. And so coveting is idolatry. The law of coveting is a battleground for the heart. The only law that talks about the inner motives.

Coveting comes down to discontentment. We are dissatisfied with our situation, envying or even grieving about what our friend or the stranger on the television screen has that we don't. But it's a tricky law that God gives us because it's a law of the heart. It's precisely because it addresses the motive of the heart that we also see that it's linked to all the other commandments. What is stealing if not coveting what someone else has and wanting it?

What is adultery but going after someone else's wife or husband or girlfriend or boyfriend. What is murder except for one to take life? It is linked. It is the sin beneath all sin in that way. The tenth law is actually addressing the motive behind all the other laws.

Whereas all those previous commandments regulated actions, this commandment ends and places the ball firmly into our core. What is your heart saying? What is the condition of your heart? I don't know if any of us have had to go and study some bits of law, whether that is, you know, you're in accounting, you have to do tax law. I don't know how they get through that.

Or, you know, having to buy a house. Mara and Annalise are doing that at the moment, and having to maybe study conveyancing law or business school. I had to do business law, contract law, and all that sort of stuff. If any of us have looked into law, has any one of us, and my mum's actually a lawyer, ex-lawyer as well, don't hold that against her. But mum, have you ever read or find a law that talked about you shall not covet?

You shall not desire someone else's stuff. That doesn't exist. There is no law that can regulate the heart. And yet God asked this of us. No human government can enforce this law, and this is what God desires of us.

This is the very fact why God and His commandments are more than civil laws. This is why the ten commandments are not just to be enshrined in our culture or our governance because it can't. It can't be maintained by a government. It can't be enforced by a government. These laws are more than civil laws.

They are principles of morality and ethics. They are family and household matters. God's household, His children that He is guiding and growing. These are values in God's family and this commandment, as we said, shows us the comprehensive and the inward nature of God's laws. God Himself searches the heart, the Bible says.

God Himself knows our heart. And God is concerned first and foremostly about the heart because we know we can do all the right stuff with the wrong motives, and the Bible says we still miss the point. We miss the point. So firstly, friend, how are you doing with coveting? Do you entertain thoughts for a relationship that is not with your spouse?

You could add pornography in here, and Jeremy mentioned that I'm sure when he was here on the seventh commandment, the lustful desire for someone who isn't yours. Do you desire to perhaps have respect and reputation that belongs to someone else? Do you want the money that another person is earning? Have you ever thought why Australia has such a huge credit card debt problem?

Because of an issue of coveting. Buying something that you can't afford. Buying something that you can't afford. And if you can't afford it, do you really need it? Now, I'm sure there's grey areas there.

But I think in general, that is our condition. Now if you say yes, or recognise some of these things in your life, then we are struggling with coveting. And this command tells us that God not only cares about our outward actions, but He cares about the heart and He is concerned about this matter of coveting. And it is part of our DNA, unfortunately, as human beings. We see so much of these ten commandments being broken in our first parents, Adam and Eve, in that first scene in Genesis 3 of how they moved away from God.

Adam and Eve back in the garden, who according to Genesis 3 saw the fruit that the serpent was tempting them with, and they said, it looks good. It looks really tasty. And they said, it is a delight to the eyes and desirable. Coveting means desiring, inordinate desire. And it is desirable for making one wise.

And what do they do? They take it. Our discontentment festers and begins to find objects to latch onto because it whispers the same old lie first heard by Eve from the mouth of the serpent. Until we have it, we will not be satisfied. Until we have that, we will not find peace.

And it can be in so many ways, can't it? Until we have that relationship, until we are married, until we have the approval of our parents, until we have the house and the home we've always wanted, until my children excel and they become good kids that people look up to and are impressed by. Until we have the body type we've always dreamed of. Until. Until.

And slowly but surely, those deadly words begin to sound from our lips on a regular basis, if only. But now we come to the solution which God thankfully always gives us. God's provision. How do we put the sin of coveting to death in our lives? How can we overcome it?

By thinking and remembering far more often than we are of what God has provided for us already. The apostle Paul talks about his struggle with coveting. Romans 7:7, he actually mentions that he kept all of the laws until it came to this one, and he realised he is a sinner and a wretch deserving to be punished for having broken all of them. He says in Philippians 4:11, he begins by saying, I have learned. He doesn't say I know this.

I've always known this. I have learned. In whatever situation I am to be content. I know how to be brought low, he says, and how to abound in every and all situations. I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, of having abundance and having need.

So what's the secret, Paul? Tell us. What is the secret? What have you learned? He tells us in verse 13, but I know that I can do all things through Him, Christ who strengthens me.

And for this reason, then Paul encourages the Christians in verse 19. He says, my God shall supply all your needs. All your needs according to the riches of His glory in Christ Jesus. My God will do this because I know He's done it for me. It's Paul's version of David's prayer in Psalm 73 that we read this morning.

Who have I in heaven but You? Who have I in heaven but You? The earth has nothing I desire besides You. I am satisfied when I realise I have You. You are enough for my heart.

In You there is riches, there is wealth. There is status, there is acceptance that satisfies. And when I have You, when I truly have You and I change my perspective again, I'm content. I'm content. Content.

You see, the throbbing discontent of our heart is a signal to us this morning that we need Jesus Christ. We need to learn to say to our discontented hearts, heart, you're discontented because you've been looking to fulfil and find peace in all the wrong places. The contentment that we are seeking, we never find because the wells from which you drink are full of salt water and you are thirsty. That is what lust is. That is what theft is.

That is what pride and insincerity is. It is going, rushing to the water, and drinking all that you can, and you realise it's salt. And you end up more thirsty than you were in the first place. But there's good news for discontented hearts. A fountain of living water, Jesus said.

Fresh, flowing, soul enriching water that He is able to give, that He is willing to give. King David, the same one who I believe wrote Psalm 73, although I may be mistaken. King David, this warrior king of Israel, he wrote another Psalm, Psalm 131. And he conveys in it the satisfaction and the contentment that will soothe us out of coveting. He writes, my heart is not proud, O Lord.

My eyes are not haughty. I do not concern myself with great matters. I don't care about them. I do not concern myself with things that are too wonderful for me, but I have stilled and quietened my soul. Like a weaned child with its mother.

Like a weaned child is my soul within me. This is a particular and interesting metaphor to use of a weaned child. On the one hand, we are children, David is saying, at a mother's breast. We are so dependent on mother's milk. We are so dependent on God for everything we need, for our vitality and our lives.

Without Him, we can do nothing. But we are a weaned child. An image of contentment. Unweaned children, unweaned babies cry at their mother's arms until they get what they want from her, her milk. Only then are they quiet, but a weaned child.

A weaned child is satisfied with mother. Satisfied with mum for who she is. That is how we obey the tenth commandment. If grace has really changed our hearts, we don't ultimately care if life goes the way we want it to as long as we have God, as long as we have Christ. The pursuit of recognition, of wealth, of power are nothing compared to the eternal recognition.

The eternal wealth, the eternal power, the majesty, the glory that we have with God. A weaned child is not someone who knows this principle, but who has worked the truth of the gospel into every facet of their life. A weaned child is nurtured and has peace because of this. That we have been made eternally right with God through Jesus Christ. And they worked that into their soul as spiritually mature Christians.

Internally, this quiets our hearts into profound contentment, whatever the situation may be. Like Paul said, in plenty and in want. Externally, that means we live with humility. We are able and willing to learn from others and to hear their thoughts of us. We're able to mature in our faith.

We're willing to trust God whatever may happen. And the more we mature in that faith, the more we run to the truth of the gospel of grace that we have Christ, that He will never ever be taken from us, that we have salvation for eternity, the more the believer realises this. The foolishness of coveting becomes apparent, and we realise we don't need what it was. We see eternity in that perspective in our here and now, and that changes everything. And so we don't desire what David says, things that are too wonderful, too great.

Not for us. We don't need that. And we can trust that if we really needed what we think we did, God would have given it to us. If we really needed it, if God is truly good, He would provide it for us. And perhaps we realise we don't need it yet.

And perhaps we may never need it. But if I have God, I have everything. If I have Christ, I have everything. I'm the wealthiest man in this world. As we finish the look at the ten commandments, I just want to finish with this, that these commands are not something we will do perfectly.

We cannot. And we will fail them. And so often as I've preached that, I've started with that same one point. It is a diagnostic for the heart. We realise how far we've fallen.

We realise we cannot maintain this. We cannot live this. It is impossible for us to do perfectly, but every time there is grace, every time there is forgiveness, every time there is provision. And friend, this provision sets us free. It sets us free now to run after these things because we know it is for our good.

We know that it will produce in us prosperity. What Gary prayed, honest work, honest jobs. It will create healthy relationships, healthy families. This is what we are set free to do. Paul said this he said, it is for freedom that we have been set free.

It is for the goal of freedom that Christ set us free. So be free. Be free to live these commands. Be free to run after them. Be free to desire them and work at them, to discipline yourselves, but also realise that Jesus Christ has perfected you already, friend.

That He has enabled you and He is bringing you to Himself. And that one day, because of His sacrifice on the cross, He will present you holy and blameless to God His Father. What a precious, wonderful truth that is. Let's pray. Father, we thank You for life-giving instruction.

O Lord, Your servant prayed that You would incline our hearts to Your testimony and not to selfish gain, to incline our hearts to Your testimony, to Your laws. And Father, I pray that You will incline us by the power of the Holy Spirit that You've poured out to desire, to think about, to reflect, to encourage our members and our family, our friends, people in our small groups, to encourage one another to live these lives that are set free, that we are the most blessed people in this world. Because, Lord, we realise that not only do we have You, which is enough, we have so much more. And there are so many things that we can and do thank You for in our life.

We do thank You for our families. We thank You for a government that allows us to meet. We thank You for cars and for disposable incomes that allow us to go on holidays. We thank You, Lord, that we can have a Sabbath rest, not just one day, but two days a week off. We thank You for a land of law and order.

Lord, if we see all these things, what is still lacking? What is it that we still are willing to sacrifice and worry about and have anxiety over? What are these things, Lord? Help us to find contentment.

Help us to draw near to You in our minds more often, to behold the beauty of Your majesty, to rejoice in Your holiness, to marvel at Your power, to be humbled by Your grace. And let, Lord, let us do this often. Spirit, remind us often so that we may have grateful, thankful, peaceful lives. That we may be a blessing to those around us. That we may love You and love Your church as You desire us. In Jesus name, amen.