In the sermon titled 'Identifying Discontent to Walk as Jesus Walked,' Jason Dohm discusses the importance of recognizing and addressing areas of discontent in our lives to better emulate Jesus Christ. Drawing from 1 John 2:6, Dohm emphasizes that those who abide in Jesus should strive to walk as He did. The sermon explores how Jesus embodies the opposite of the prohibitions in the Ten Commandments, such as being the 'anti-murderer' and the epitome of truth. Dohm highlights the subtlety of covetousness, using the phrase 'cloak of covetousness,' which can disguise itself as virtue. The sermon calls for self-examination to uncover areas where we may harbor hidden covetousness, urging believers to shift their focus from earthly desires to spiritual contentment in God. Through examining Jesus' life and teachings, believers are encouraged to trust in God's wisdom and timing, acknowledging that He provides and withholds in perfect love. The message concludes with a call to elevate our perspective, seeking fulfillment in Christ rather than in material possessions or social status.

The title of the sermon this morning is identifying discontent to walk as Jesus walked, identifying these areas of dissatisfaction or discontent in our lives so that we can more and more and more walk in Jesus' footsteps. And it's plucking language out of 1 John 2 verse 6 Where John writes, he who says he abides in him, he who says he abides in Jesus, ought himself also to walk just as Jesus walked. So if you say, I belong to Jesus, then you're to be learning to walk like Jesus walked. And that's really what our study of the Ten Commandments has been about. Jesus is the ultimate commandment keeper.

If you want to know what it looks like to keep the commandments, go to the Gospels. That's where you find it. We've been working through the Ten Commandments, commandment by commandment, and in each case when a commandment is framed in the negative, thou shall not, telling you what not to do, by the way, eight out of the ten are framed in the negative, they tell you what not to do. We find that Jesus is the polar opposite of what is forbidden. Jesus and how he thought and talked and lived is the exact opposite of what is forbidden in the 8 out of 10 commandments that frame it as a prohibition.

You shall not murder. Jesus is the anti-murderer. So far from unlawfully taking someone else's life, He lays down His life to give you life. You can't get more of the exact opposite of a murderer than Jesus Christ. You shall not commit adultery.

You shouldn't cheat on your wedding vows. So far from cheating on his wedding vows, he is the eternal faithful husband of his people. You cannot get further from an adulterer than the great groom, the Lord Jesus Christ. You shall not steal so far from taking what belongs to another Jesus freely gives. You shall not bear false witness.

So far from being a liar, Jesus is the truth. He goes beyond telling the truth to being truth. He is the ground of all reality and truth. Now you shall not covet. Jesus is the polar opposite of that.

Jesus is exactly the opposite of that. He is the ultimate Psalm 16 man. Psalm 16 is what we just read where the psalmist says you are the portion of mine, my inheritance. You maintain my lot. The lines have fallen to me in pleasant places.

If you want to see that on display, just go to the Gospels. Jesus never clamors for anything outside of his Father's good pleasure. Jesus never grasps for anything that his Father and his wisdom didn't have for him. And that's as he goes to the cross. If anyone would look at their lot and say, I've been given a bad lot, it's the man who gets sent to the cross, right?

Never Jesus, never for a second of his life did he think that. He would be the one who would say, The man going to the cross would be the one saying, the lines have fallen to me in pleasant places. Think about that. So we need to identify areas where we aren't walking like that and peel back the layers. You really have to peel back the layers because we're pretty sure that the other guy is coveting but we are really blind to it in our own lives.

And then we need to look at Jesus and learn how to walk like he walked. This is no small task. Listen to Thomas Watson who I think hits the nail on the head. He says, Thomas Watson says this of coveting, it is a subtle sin. Like murder is right out there on the surface, adultery is right out there on the surface.

You can trace it back into the thoughts and sometimes it's hard to dig down to where it is in your heart, but many of these things have at least a manifestation that's right out there, it's easy to see and pick out. But coveting, Thomas Watson says, is a subtle sin. He's so right. A sin that many cannot so well discern in themselves. This sin can dress itself in the attire of virtue.

It is called the cloak of covetousness. 1st Thessalonians 2 verse 5. Paul in 1st Thessalonians 2 verse 5 uses this phrase the cloak of covetousness. It is a sin that wears a cloak. It cloaks itself under the name of frugality and good husbandry.

Stewardship. I can't share what's mine because of stewardship requirements. Or I need what's yours so that I can steward it. It's the cloak of covetousness. It's the dressing up of sin.

It can dress itself in virtue. So this is a tricky one to identify in your own life. Easy in your neighbor's life, hard in your own life. So that's our task for today. As we come to the subject, let's ask the Lord to help us.

Lord Jesus, we see in you, in the Gospel accounts, a life so perfectly free of grasping. And we want to know how to do that. We want to be like you were and are so satisfied in all that a heavenly father in wisdom gives and withholds that we're never grasping and clamoring. Pray that you would help us. Help us identify things we've been so blind to.

Help us to find these things where we're coveting but we've we've cloaked it as if it's a virtue. Let your spirit move freely in Jesus' name, Amen. Okay, number four. So we have visitors say, why are we starting at number four? Because in each commandment, we've been working through a progression.

Number one, what the commandment forbids. Number two, what the commandment requires. Number three, what the commandment teaches about God because God's character is on display in the commandment. He's actually revealing himself in the commandment. So we did all that last week.

You missed, you're behind. And so we're starting with number four. Number four, how we have failed to obey the tenth commandment. And we always go back to Matthew chapter 5 where Jesus says, you've heard that it was said, you shall not murder. I say that anyone who hates his brother in his heart is a murderer.

That's a bad paraphrase, but if Jesus is going back upstream from the external manifestation of the sin, which is easy to see back into your thoughts, into your motives, into the words that you speak or mutter, and expanding the borders of the commandment beyond what we want to do, which is to shrink it down into some just external only thing that we can do and manage and say we've been righteous and Jesus brings it into our thoughts and motives. So how have we failed to obey the commandment? Not in the worst external version of it, but in our thoughts and motivations too. The tenth commandment forbids an inordinate desire and an over-the-top, inappropriate desire for something, a pining away for something that God has given to someone else but has withheld from me up to this point in my life. And I can't understand why He would have withheld it from me when he's given it to someone else.

So I'm pining away. The 10th commandment requires a view of and a disposition towards God and neighbor that brings me to godly contentment. Godliness with contentment is great gain, is what Paul says in 1 Timothy 6. So we want to be cultivating This view of God and disposition towards God that brings us to godly contentment and also our neighbor so that we have a view of God where He is a wise Father who knows it all, sees it all, actually knows what's best. And I don't fit any of those descriptions so I can just leave it to him to dispose of the circumstances of my life in a wise way knowing that when he withholds something from me he's doing it in perfect wisdom he's probably actually keeping me back from harm that I can't see.

And we want to have a disposition towards our neighbor where we can actually be happy when God gives them good things that he's withheld from us. And that doesn't sour our disposition towards our neighbor when God puts blessings into their lives that we wish He would put into our lives. So where are we likely to miss the mark? To do what's forbidden and to not do what's required of the 10th commandment? Well, we're helped.

God gives us a list, actually. This is one of the longer commandments and God has given us a list. I'm just going to start with the list. That's pretty safe ground. Number one on the list, house.

You shall not covet your neighbor's house. A house is almost always your most significant possession, your most costly possession. It's number one on the stuff list. So I'm viewing the house as representative of stuff because it heads the list. You're probably not buying anything in your life that costs more than the house that you'll buy.

You spend a lot of your time there, and it has a big impact on your security and comfort. Have you ever thought of that? It's a different experience if you can only afford a little house on a bad side of town in a more dangerous neighborhood than in a big house on a good side of town in a really safe neighborhood. Those are different experiences. So I mean it has something real to do with real matters.

This isn't just I want a big house. I mean it has to do with the life you're going to live within those four walls, the security that you're going to enjoy, the comfort or lack of comfort that you're going to enjoy. So if you're prone to covet stuff you're probably prone to have a house near the top of the list, because that's a big one. Now listen to what Jesus says in the parable of the soils in Matthew 13 verse 22. Matthew 13 verse 22.

This is just part of the explanation of this parable. Now, he who received seed among the thorns is he who hears the word and the cares of this world and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word and he becomes unfruitful. So the Word of God is sown and some life's what looks like life springs up but then the cares of this world worrying about world stuff and the deceitfulness of riches choke the life out of of this plant and it becomes unfruitful. Now this is describing a false professor, it's describing an unbeliever, But I don't think that because it's describing an unbeliever that it has no application at all for the believer. Don't think that.

It actually does have an application, even though it's not talking about a believer, it has an application for a believer. And what is that application? Covening is a choking sin. Covening is a choking sin. It chokes the life out of things.

Anyone who's found themselves in a pattern of coveting, pining away for something that God has withheld from you in his fatherly wisdom knows that it starts to sap spiritual life. Jesus is saying that. Paul says this, for the love of money is a root of all kinds of sin. It's a root. So, but Paul in 1st Timothy 6-10, Paul is saying it's a mother sin.

It gives birth to other sins. It's a root of all kinds, All sorts of things grow out of that root. Other sins grow out of that root. So it's a mother sin or it's a root sin out of which other sins grow. Jesus calls it a choking sin.

Covetousness, even though there's no horrific external manifestation like murder or adultery is as bad as any of them. I mean, I think if you knew that there was a sin that would choke spiritual life out of you and would be a root for other sins, you wouldn't think of it as a small sin just because it's something that happens in the heart that doesn't have this dramatic external manifestation. It usually leads to the dramatic external manifestations because it's a root sin. It will lead you to murder. We saw that in James chapter 4 last week.

It'll lead you into adultery. It'll lead you to steal. Coveting is behind all of those sins. So that was number one, a house. I think it's a placeholder for stuff.

It's just number one on the stuff list. Number two, on God's list in the commandment in Exodus 20, spouse. You shall not covet your neighbor's wife. I think it's fair to say, or husband. Spouse.

We go from house to spouse. This is your most significant relationship. Again, I think this is a placeholder. It's a stand-in for covening relationships. And spouse ought to be number one on that list.

It is the top of the relationship list. You ought to not have a closer relationship than that relationship. And by the way, you don't have to have a spouse to covet a spouse. You can pine away for a spouse if you don't have a spouse. We think of it in terms of like I wish my wife could be more like his wife or I wish my husband could be more like her husband.

You cannot have a spouse at all and pine away for it but just know this God in his wisdom has the timing on all of these things. You think, God doesn't know what he's doing because he hasn't brought a spouse into my life yet, not so fast. Slow down. And what other area do you think God doesn't know what he's doing? He knows what he's doing better than you know what he's doing.

One of the risks of relationships is that you look for in the relationship what you should be looking for in God. And the risk would be the most in your number one relationship. So married people and future married people just know this. When you start targeting your spouse to give you the things that God says he'll be for you, you are building destruction into your marriage. How can they possibly live up to that and bring into your life all the things?

God says, I'll be this to you and I'll be this to you and I'll be this to you and you're looking at your spouse. Like, why won't you be these things for me? That is poison in the well, friends. You better be satisfied in God and then it's so much easier to be thankful for the things that you ought to be thankful for in your spouse instead of pining away for all the things that they're not. Don't put poison into that well by looking for things in your spouse that God says He'll give to you.

That's really counterproductive. That's really counterproductive. Husbands, is discontent with certain things about your wife, making you wish you had a different one? For heaven's sake don't answer that out loud. For your own safety.

Is discontent with certain things, things that annoy you about your wife, making you wish in your heart of hearts, unspoken, that you wish you had a different one. I started talking about this last week. I said, there's two huge problems with that. One is you're actually blaming God. This has nothing to do with your spouse.

Your discontentment is actually grumbling against God. You see that again and again and again and again and again and again and again in the Old Testament. The Israelites are grumbling about something and Moses says, you know this is about God. Everything we have, God gave us, everything that has been withheld, has been withheld from God. He is King, He rules from heaven.

Your grumbling is not against me, it's against God. Husbands, that's true. Your dissatisfactions with your wife go beyond your wife to God. God is to blame. You are blaming God.

Secondly, I said last week, husbands, you are supposed to be the source, the primary human source of blessing and help and spiritual nourishment and cherishing in your wife and you know what you probably have just the wife you deserve for how you've cared for her. You probably have just the wife you deserve because of how you've cared for her. You don't like how this neglected woman is. Shame on you. Wives, I said I was going to fold you into this conversation that you wouldn't escape forever.

Is discontent with certain things about your husband making you wish secretly that you had a different one. You know that can be good things. This is peeling back layers and getting where we didn't think it was covening. I only want them to lead spiritually. What's so wrong with that?

Nothing's wrong with that, but when that becomes pining away for something else, then it's true of you too, your discontent is in God. Your grumbling is really against God. You can want the very best things in your husband, and that doesn't have to be sin, but it so quickly becomes sin, and a sin that you actually have put a label of virtue on. I only want what's best. Yeah, that's what we all say.

I only want what's best over our dissatisfaction with God. That's called mislabeling. Just a couple of points of counsel if you find yourself in that loop. Anybody who has never found themselves in that loop to some extent. Hasn't been married for very long or is really self deceived.

I think that's true. Stop trying to extract from your wife or your husband what you should be getting from God. It's so unfair to them. Trying to just draw out of them what you should be what you should be and can be getting from God. Who can live under that expectation?

That is so toxic. The second point of counsel I would offer is, know that you cannot harangue your spouse into your desired mold. You cannot badger your spouse into your desired mold. But my desired mold is Christ-likeness. I only want them to be Christ-like.

It might be, okay? But You cannot nag anyone into being more like Christ. You just can't. There are tools at your disposal, but that's not one of them. There are biblical tools at your disposal, Like prayer and encouragement.

I'm not saying it's never appropriate to talk to your spouse about their shortcomings. But this is ground that has to be tread so carefully. I mean timing means a lot. Your disposition means a lot. If you've actually been a help or no help at all means a lot.

A spouse is a gift from God. Listen to Proverbs 18 22. He who finds a wife finds a good thing and obtains favor from the Lord. God has given you a spouse. The writer of Proverbs, the inspired writer of the infallible Proverbs says, God gave you a good thing, and it's a sign of God's favor.

You should memorize that and make it a mantra. Take this on faith and stop grasping in your mind. Number three. Number one was a house. Number two was a spouse.

Number three is what a skilled servant can provide. You shall not covet your neighbor's male servant or female servant. So like we discussed last week, you can't just say, well that's not for our day. We have an equivalent for all of these things in our day. It's what a skilled servant can provide.

There are certain things that a skilled male servant can provide, certain things a skilled female servant can provide, and we still want all of that. Outsourcing is paying someone else to do what you can't do or don't want to do. Sometimes you can do it, you don't want to, so you pay somebody else to do it. Sometimes you're unable. Brain surgery, you can't do.

You pay for that, you outsource that. So I don't have the tools or the skills to do much of anything. And I don't buy the tools on purpose because I know that as soon as I own the tools, I'll have to acquire the skills. This is who I am. So, I do a lot of outsourcing.

And when I'm at the end of the money, I'm at the end of getting what the tools and the skills can do because I outsource it. That has implications for me. More importantly, that has implications for Janet Dome. I knew for sure I was going to get an amen on that. She must have laryngitis.

There are all sorts of things that a skilled servant, male servant or female servant can provide. You find them in the stores. Or you find people getting it when they have renovations or when their car gets fixed and you're going to have to wait until next month. These are the things that Fit under that category It's easy to pine away to be in a different state of life So you don't have to worry about any of that stuff You know like you just the need happens and you outsource it and can get it fixed that day. Not everybody's living in that life.

Everyone at some point in their life has had to delay it. So don't pine away to be in the state where you never have to wait a day to get that thing done or fixed or addressed. Number four, the capability and output that a work animal can provide. In the commandment, it's your neighbor's ox or his donkey. Okay, but those are just work animals.

Those are methods of production. So they make you capable in ways that you're not capable if you don't have the ox or the donkey. They make you able to produce a certain amount of output that you don't have if you don't have them. So this is just about capability and output in our modern environment. We need an extra bench in our van.

If I have to spend one more week in this minivan, I will scream. We're the only people who covet 15 passenger vans. They are things of wonder. If I had a riding mower, I could reclaim two hours of life every week. Now, hey, that's good.

Like reclaiming two hours of life every week is good. You can spend that two hours in another way and really in a better way. That's a riding That's a riding mower I think is a modern day ox. Modern day ox. God doesn't think you need a riding mower right now.

I want to point out how subtle this can be. I wasn't asking for the lottery winners Ferrari. A Ferrari is a hundred thousand dollar sports car. I wasn't asking for that. I wanted two hours of my life back.

But you know what? That can take you into pining away or grasping for something that God hasn't put you in a position to have. Now what isn't on the list but might also be something that you pine away for? As I was trying to develop this, this thought popped into my head. What are the prosperity preachers promised?

That's a really good question. That really takes you to a down a helpful track because they're actually exploiting your inclination to grasp for things that God in His wisdom hasn't given to you. That's exactly what they're promising. They're saying you just haven't tapped into God in the right way to give you the things that you thought He was withholding it from you. It's because you haven't tapped into them the right way.

That's what they're saying. They're exploiting your inclination to covet. Have you ever heard them called health and wealth preachers? Yeah, that's what they're promising. Health?

If you tap into God in the right way, you'll never get sick. Or if you do get sick, you can get healed like that. Oh, it's easy. What a discouragement to people who have not found it so. What a terrible trick to play on people who have not found it so because that's not how God works.

But you know health... Good health can be something that God is withholding different people. I mean, John Calvin is a good instance of this, but many of the people who have been used mightily by God through the centuries have the same experience. His health was terrible. God withheld it from him and it stretched him and grew him in ways that made him useful in God's hands.

Is God allowed to do that? Suffice it to say, he thinks he is. Think of what money can buy with wealth. The joke is money can't buy you love, money can't buy you happiness, but it's fun to try. It can buy you the counterfeits of love and the counterfeits of happiness, but think of what money can't buy.

Somebody with real health problems, ask them how much money they would give to be well. These are things easily coveted. Or how about this also from the prosperity preachers. Lack of headwinds. You know headwinds like pushing back against you all the time.

I'm just trying to make progress and I have 100 mile an hour headwinds. I can hardly lean forward to make Progress. The prosperity preachers call this the victorious life. God just like everything's easy. No headwinds.

Every obstacle just falls over at your breath. You know, there goes the obstacle. It's a beautiful life that doesn't exist for anyone ever. And it's often exactly opposite of how God actually works. Really when we ask for a life with no headwinds, we're asking for stunted growth and the end of God discipling you.

I want that life too. No headwinds. The sun always shines, the birds always chirp. You know what? You would be so fat, dumb, and happy.

If God gave you that life, you wouldn't make any progress at all, ever. I would, but you wouldn't. None of us would. What about this one? Position.

Easy to covet position. We all want to be recognized, to be advanced, to be somebody. That can be an idol. We saw last week in Colossians 3, but I said Paul repeats it in Ephesians 5, so you find exactly the same thing in Colossians 3 and Ephesians 5. A list of bad things ended with covetousness, coveting, and then in both places, comma, which is idolatry.

Which is idolatry. Coveting at its heart is really giving away God's place for the thing you're pining for. Position can be such an idol. In years of being in a profession and then in years in being in church leadership, people who are so sure they're ready to lead scare me to death. Because my experience in both the professional world and in the church world tells me that the guys who are really nervous about leading and don't feel quite up to it are the ones who ought to be leading, who are scared of it because they understand the weight of it and they understand their own frailties enough to think that they might buckle under the weight of it and Then you got these other guys who are so sure that it's way past time for them to be up front.

They scare me to death. I want nothing to do with putting them up front. I want the guy who's really qualified but is really nervous about his own qualifications. Give me that, give me one of those for ten of the other ones. Children.

How about that? Children. You can covet children if you don't have children, if you've been married for five years and you got no children. In our environment, Are you kidding me? Like when is it gonna happen?

And then a certain outcome with your children. It does matter how you parent and you are to be a means of gospel preaching and to bring the means of grace into the life of your children you know that doesn't guarantee you anything. You think homeschooling and bringing your children to a family integrated church guarantees that they'll follow the Lord. Have you lost your mind? You're going to throw out the doctrine of election in favor of confidence in family integration?

You haven't been around very long. I've been around longer than that. Homeschooling does not deliver that. That's point number four, how have we failed to obey the tenth commandment. Point number five, how the Lord Jesus has perfectly obeyed the tenth commandment.

We've been here so many times, we're coming back. Go to Philippians 2, Turn to Philippians 2. The same old verses. They're more applicable today than ever. Philippians chapter 2.

You're just looking at Jesus in the gospels and then how he's described by the apostles, just zero grasping, zero clamoring for anything other than what his father would have for him. It is wonderful. Philippians chapter 2 verses 5 through 8. Philippians 2, 5 through 8. Paul writes, Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bond servant and coming in the likeness of men.

And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross. The ESV actually renders it, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped. Both of those, did not consider it robbery to be counted equal with God and did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped are perfectly good translations. A translational choice had to be made there. I think the ESV translator's choice there fits more with the context, but honestly they're both perfectly true.

And so I don't know which is right, But I know identifying that Jesus didn't count equality with God a thing to be grasped is perfectly observable in the gospels. He laid, and perfectly consistent with what this text is saying, he laid aside his rightful glory in heaven to take on flesh and live a life that you would never sign up for, to die a death that no one ever would sign up for. There was never a nanosecond where he thought That's a raw deal. That's a raw deal. So you could always see the big picture.

He knew his father and he knew what he was doing with that life and death. Jesus is the anti-covetor if there ever was one. He is the exact opposite of clamoring for something, grasping for something, pining away for something that God in his wisdom says, not now, not you, not now. What was at the heart of Satan's temptations in Matthew chapter 4? Covening set the heart of all three of them to get Jesus to grasp for something.

Jesus, grasp for food. You haven't had food for 40 days, you're famished. Turn these stones into bread. He wouldn't grasp. Jesus, grasp for proof that you're the Messiah.

Throw yourself off the pinnacle. There's a psalm that says that God won't let even your heel be harmed, to be harmed by this. Jesus wouldn't grasp for it. Jesus grasped for glory and honor and power. Here you are on this dusty planet.

I'll give you all the glory and the honor. Jesus didn't grasp for it. How many times did Jesus do something mind-blowing in the Gospels and then say don't tell anyone? Healed of his leprosy, completely healed of his leprosy, don't tell anyone. And on and on.

It happens many many times in the Gospels. He was never reaching for position or recognition or status or influence even though He was the Christ. In John 6 verse 15, Jesus perceives that the people are about to take Him by force to make Him king, and He departs to be by Himself to pray. I turn to Psalm 131. Psalm 131.

To me Psalm 131 describes what a person who has learned to follow Jesus is like. There's some things in Psalm 131 that don't pertain to Jesus because He's also God. I'm saying someone who learns to walk like Jesus walked, Psalm 131 describes them. It's only three verses. The whole Psalm is only three verses.

So you can memorize it and say I memorized a chapter of the Bible. Psalm 131. A song of ascent. So the people of God would sing these as they were coming up into Jerusalem for the feasts of David. Lord my heart is not haughty nor my eyes lofty.

Neither do I concern myself with great matters, nor with things too profound for me. Surely I have calmed and quieted my soul like a weaned child with his mother, like a weaned child is my soul within me. O Israel, hope in the Lord from this time forth and forever. You're familiar with the term above my pay grade, that's verse 1, above my pay grade. God's pay grade.

I am not so proud to think that I can understand everything. So I'm not concerning myself with the great matters, and I'm not weighted down with things too profound with me. God, you handle the things in your pay grade. You dispose of those things that I don't understand and I acknowledge there's a lot that I don't understand. This is a person who's learned to be so satisfied in God, have this view of God that he is an all-knowing, all-loving Father who withholds at just the right thing at just the right time and gives just the right thing at just the right time so you just you handle those things.

Now verse 2, a weaned child with his mother. I want you to think about that. Just consider what's being said. Now, first of all, think about an unweaned child with his mother. Food.

I smell food. That's an unweaned child with his mother. Often, I mean, if they're hungry at all, oftentimes you find mothers handing off their unween child because if they're holding the child, the child smells food and is agitated by it. Have you seen that happen? An unweaned child, but a child who's weaned is not thinking in those terms and like there's no where else an unweaned child would rather be.

There's no agitation. It's like warmth and security and comfort and just total relaxation and trust. That's the unweaned, that's the weaned child in the arms of her mother or his mother. Just completely satisfied. No agitations at all.

No clamoring like, oh it's time to eat mom. No, no, no, that's over because of the weaning. Everything is in the Lord's hand. Happy to not have to know everything and just to know that He knows everything and that He'll do what's perfectly wise with it. This is the person in Psalm 131.

So what is the point? What is the point of gazing on Jesus, just thinking about what we see of Him in the Gospels and in the writings of the Apostles? It's the same as the point of every other one of the Ten Commandments when we've done this. When we've done this, 2 Corinthians 521, 2 Corinthians 521, for he made him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in him. To be qualified, to be my substitute, to take my place, he has to obey the 10th commandment perfectly.

And the 9th commandment and the 8th and the 7th and the 6th and the 5th and the 4th and the 3rd and the 2nd and the 1st commandment, all the commandments perfectly. But as we watch him do that in the gospel accounts, he's winning my salvation. He's winning my salvation. He's making it so that I don't have to live without hope in this world because there's no way back to God because God must be just. Applications.

I give you one. One application. Eyes up. Eyes up. So often our eyes are just straight ahead and earth, earth, 360 degrees, earth, earth, more earth.

Get your eyes up. Turn to Colossians 3. Turn to Colossians 3. Turn to Colossians 3. Eyes always on the earth is what brings us into covetousness, makes us covet, leads us into coveting.

Colossians 3 verses 1 through 3. Paul writes, if then you were raised with Christ, so here's The invitation, believers, if you were raised with Christ, if you're a believer, if you've been born again, seek those things which are above where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on things on the earth, for you died and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When we're coveting, that's exactly what we're not doing. When we're doing that, we're not coveting.

You have to keep top of mind that if you've been washed in the blood, you're new and you're not a citizen, your citizenship doesn't belong here. You're a citizen of another country. You understand that contentment with God, in God, isn't resignation for subpar. Please please look up. I want lots of eye contact.

Satisfaction in God is not resignation with subpar. It can sort of feel like that. Okay, fine, I'll be satisfied in God. You're not understanding it if that's what it is. Real satisfaction and total satisfaction is in God.

Coveting is stupid. It's dumb. It's an indication that we've not drunk deeply at all of God the Father, God the Son, God the Spirit, the Triune God. The people who go and drink deeply. They don't chase after trinkets.

They don't chase after trinkets. I was praying this morning. I was thinking. I was praying about our first love. Do you remember?

Do you remember? You wouldn't have thought about chasing trinkets when it was all fresh and new and you had been under the weight of your sins and all that was off of you and just to spend a minute with Christ with your everything. We got to go back there. You know, got to go back there. Got to recapture that.

Not so that it's all feeling all the time, but just that he's so precious to us that this clamoring for house, spouse, productivity, all this other stuff just seems stupid. I wish I had chased houses and spouses more, said no Christian ever on her deathbed or on his deathbed. You won't be the exception to that. Oh God, please help us to be satisfied in you. Convince us, convince us at the deepest heart level of how exhilarating it is and can be to follow the king That we really aren't trying to be talked into resignation to subpar, but that we're actually being called forth into the most exhilarating life that can be lived.

Help us to believe that. I thank you that it can be believed and that it can be proven true. I Thank you that we can have as much of you as we want. You are not a God who is withholding yourself from us. That our lack of experiencing you, knowing you, is all associated with our dullness and coldness.

Set us free, God help us. We pray in Jesus name, amen.