In his sermon on the tenth commandment, Scott Brown emphasizes the value of contentment and how it connects to the sovereignty and provision of God. He explores the deep-seated sin of covetousness that goes beyond outward behaviors, probing the heart's desires. Brown suggests that understanding God's sovereignty is essential for true happiness, as it leads to peace and trust in God's provisions. He outlines the commandment's role in promoting contentment in various aspects of life, including marriage and economic situations. The sermon also illustrates how covetousness is pervasive, citing biblical examples and manifestations in daily life. Through various scriptures, Brown highlights the destructive nature of envy and the importance of contentment, urging believers to rely on God's provision and resist worldly desires.

Please open your Bibles to Deuteronomy chapter 5 and verse 21. Deuteronomy 5, 21. You shall not covet your neighbor's wife, and you shall not desire your neighbor's house, his field, his male servant, His female servant, His ox, His donkey, or anything that is your neighbors. And so we are finding ourselves now in the tenth commandment. This commandment, I would just like to suggest for you to consider this thought, that you can link this commandment to every encouraging verse in the Bible.

This commandment is the tributary of all the great streams of hope that there are for God's people. And this commandment is designed, I believe, for many things. This commandment proves God's concern for your happiness. It proves his desire that your heart would be at peace, that you would be completely content with all of his provisions for you. And so he goes into the inner recesses of our hearts to dig, to find something that would destroy your happiness.

Covetousness is that thing. And so in these secret places God probes to find anything that would contradict your trust in God and your happiness in all of this provision that you would glory in His sovereign hand toward you, that you would see that He has brought you to the place that you are today, that you would know that a man can receive nothing unless it's given him from heaven, and that you would be found so at peace that all the world would know that there is a God in heaven. And he does love his children, and he provides for them. So I love this commandment. I am amazed by this commandment, because It appeals to the faithful care of a sovereign God.

Here's one thing I absolutely am convinced of. If you don't understand the sovereignty of God, you'll never be happy. And so It is for us to understand the greatness of Almighty God. And so I love this commandment because it takes us there. It takes us to the great provisions of a faithful Creator who fills His children with hope.

He desires them to be abounding in hope. Are you abounding in hope today? Have you walked in here hopeful or hopeless? And this commandment helps us with it. Hey, here's another thing about this command.

This command is about winning and losing. This command is about having and not having. And the Book of Revelation speaks of a time when the value of the world economy will go to zero in one hour. How about that? Well, we've just seen in the last few months the value of the US stock market go in half.

That's pretty interesting. From half to zero is just another step like unto the one that we've just seen. And so this is a commandment also for tough economic times, where in some cases, maybe the imbalances will be reversed, and There'll be more equality of poverty. At the same time, though, this is not the way that God seems to work. He does have some with more and others with less.

And so he gives us a dear commandment to help us to survive tough economic times like we are in today. Here's something else I love about this commandment. It works both just as well in prosperity as it does in poverty. It works just as well when you're on the upswing as when you're on the downswing. And it comes to comfort you and help you know that there is a God in heaven.

And He has knit you together in your mother's womb. And He has sovereignly planned to place you on this earth at this time in history and give you whatever he might give or withhold whatever he might withhold by his own sovereign hand. One last thing I love about this text before we jump into it. This text is a tributary to one of my father's favorite verses. I'm just going to call it his life verse, Proverbs 24.1, do not be envious of evil men.

My father has quoted this verse to me many times in my life. And so when I read the 10th Commandment, I think of my father's counsel to me, even from a young boy. Scott, do not be envious of evil men. So let's go into the text. First of all, I would like to tell you where we're going in this study here today.

I've got seven points that I would like for us to cover. First, we'll survey the commandment. We'll walk through it. Secondly, I'd like to give you 10 pivotal accomplishments of this great commandment. And then next, number three, I would like to identify a number of passages of scripture that illuminate this commandment, speak into the various issues that are surfaced by the command.

And then fourth, I would like to give a number of examples of people, real live people in history where this commandment was violated or fulfilled. And then I'd also like to, fifthly, give Christ's commentary on this commandment. Sixth, I would like to give you nine manifestations of covetousness. There are not nine, there are probably 99 or 999 or 9, 900, 000. There are many, many ways that this commandment is violated in our hearts.

And then lastly, I would like to speak of the judgments for covetousness. So let's survey this commandment. You shall not covet. Now what is coveting? The dictionary says covetousness is an envious eagerness to possess something, a feeling of grudging admiration and desire to have something that is possessed by another.

It can refer to an excessive desire to acquire or possess more than one needs or deserves. Of course, if you grew up a Roman Catholic, you know that this is one of the seven deadly sins, one of those sins, unpardonable sins, causing a total loss of grace. Now the first place we see this sin is in eternity past, when Lucifer said, I want. And he said, I want, I want, I want. We see this sin next in the Garden of Eden, where Eve desired something that God did not desire for her to have.

She desired it so much that she listened to the serpent and did the evil deed. We can see covetousness in many places. You can see it in your own home. You can see it in the nursery where a child, a sweet little child is sitting there and he says to the child who's playing with another toy, I want, and he grabs it and the other child starts crying. We were at a conference this weekend where our brother, Vodi Bakham, was talking about children.

He was talking about the evil nature of children and how they are born sinners. And he says that they are vipers in diapers. And he said, if they were big enough, it's a good thing that they were created little, because if they're big enough, they could kill you. They'd kill you because of the sin in their hearts. But covetousness can be found in such tiny, sweet little packages as it is, as well as these other larger packages that we might relate with as adults.

And so we find that covetousness is something that is pervasive. Here, Moses speaks to us of a number of areas of covetousness. He actually gives us seven areas that we might covet. And the first is, you shall not covet your neighbor's wife. This has to do with wanting a woman that God did not give you as a wife.

It can include fantasizing about other women whom you know. It can include fantasizing about women whom you do not know. It can include pornography. It can be expressed in the sobbing of a wife who thinks or says, Am I not enough for you? And this is why pornography is such a despicable temptation.

It destroys the loving focus that God has for marriage, that there would be a woman who would be loved dearly and exclusively, and that there would be a man in that same condition. And so you shall not covet your neighbor's wife has to do with contentment in marriage. So here's the question. So how's the contentment level in your marriage, brothers and you sisters, you dear sisters, is there a divine contentedness in your marriage? You see how God puts his finger in the wound so faithfully, he would help us to be something that we're not today.

And I pray God would help us with this. That as we walk away from this text and move on, that we would be found so much more thankful for our wives and for our husbands. Are you thankful? Is your heart soaring with contentment with the wife of your youth or the husband of your youth. So he identifies your neighbor's wife.

That's number one. That's the first area. And then he says that there's something else to consider, your neighbor's house. So one thing that we know is that people don't live in the same houses. Some are larger, some are smaller, some are better and worse appointed than the others, and this is a cause for temptation.

Why would it be that God didn't have us all live in the same house? Have you ever think about that? I'll give you one opinion of why He might have done this, for our own sanctification, to help us to realize that there is a God in heaven, that He is sovereign and He gives gifts to whomever He desires. And so He doesn't have us all living in the same block house with the same generic appointments in the house. And he uses it to help us to see his own glory and his own grace, to trust in what he's given and his own kindness toward us.

And so yes, he would have one brother have a bigger house than you, and he would have another brother have a nicer car than you for a purpose, that he would sanctify and cleanse you, that he would wean you from this world, this passing way. And then he speaks of your neighbor's field, your neighbor's field. Now I will just have to confess, I have coveted other men's fields. My soil here is not as rich as some of the soils of my friends. It grows thicker, more lush grass that makes cows fatter and healthier and just so much happier.

But I don't have quite the soil that some of my friends have. This is talking about your neighbor's field here. You remember the story in 1 Kings chapter 21, Naboth's Vineyard. Ahab, that wicked king, was not content with what God had given him. God had given him everything that he could possibly want, but it wasn't enough because it's never enough.

What you have will never be enough. What I have will never be enough. How much is enough? What did John D. Rockefeller say?

Just a little bit more. That would be enough, wouldn't it? And so Ahab desired Naboth's vineyard and he coveted it and he killed the man so that he could have it. If only I had a bigger house, if only we had more property, If only we had a cooler car. If only I had nicer clothing.

Everything would be just fine. You shall not covet your neighbor's field. Ecclesiastes 5.10 says, he who loves silver will never be satisfied with silver, nor he who loves abundance with increase. When goods increase, they increase who eat them. So what profit do the owners have except to see them with their eyes because they disappear?

That's the implication. And then number four, he speaks of another area, his male and female servant. This has to do with the kind of help that he might be able to afford. The kinds of resources that are at his disposal. Everybody doesn't get the same kind of resources.

You know, if you read Proverbs 31, you notice that the Proverbs 31 woman had servants. How many of you have servants? Have you ever been jealous of someone who has more help than you have? Well, that's what he's putting his finger on here. If you have more resources at your disposal to do more, You might covet those resources.

And then there's the fifth area, or the fifth area, his ox. This has to do with the means of production, the tools that one has to produce a living, an ox. Oxen were work animals. And I would just correlate these with tools, or computers, or equipment. We see the guy who has the faster, batter, beefier computer, or whatever it might be.

And then number six, his donkey. I'm just going to liken that to transportation. Have you ever seen someone else's car and said, ah, if only I could cruise the town in that car. And this has to do with mode of transportation. So we covet another man's car so we get more car than we can afford.

And yes, we do look so good, but we're bankrupt as a result. When we moved to Dallas, Texas many years ago, we lived there for one year. I was sitting with a friend, I believe it was in a coffee shop, and he said, you know Scott, welcome to town. There are more thousand dollar millionaires here than you've ever known in your life. And this was when the oil industry collapsed and everybody had nothing.

But everybody was looking awful good. But it was all on the surface. And that's what he's speaking here of those transportation things, your donkey. And then number seven, anything that is your neighbor. So if anything isn't listed in the previous six, let's just cover it all, everything.

It doesn't really matter what it is. Anything that's your neighbor's. So this would be a good time for us to survey whether evil has filled our hearts in any way for any of these categories that are listed and any that are not listed. And so there's this last category that's comprehensive of all things. So that's sort of a survey of the commandment.

Now, I'd like to give 10 pivotal accomplishments, wonderful accomplishments, whatever, 10 blessed accomplishments, 10 absolutely helpful and health, life-giving accomplishments of this commandment. The first is this, Heart exposure and transformation. The blessedness of this commandment is partially found in its uniqueness. This is a different commandment than the other commandments. This commandment starts with the heart.

Have you noticed that all the other commandments start with behavior? This one doesn't start with behavior at all. It goes straight to the heart. It goes into the unseen area of your life. And so it's a different commandment.

Because instead of the deeds of the body, it speaks of the meditations of the heart, because God looks upon the heart. This sin does not need an outward manifestation. Now we'll get to some of the outward manifestations of it. But it doesn't need one to exist. For one to sin in this area, one does not need an outward manifestation.

Only you know. Now there may be signs of it out there that all the world could see, but only you know whether evil has gripped your heart and you have become a covetor. The next pivotal accomplishment is this. It accomplishes contentment. The beneficial quality of this commandment is that it just so calls the heart to contentment, to call us to see striving and know that He is God.

You know, He just, God is so kind. He goes, He probes, He goes right into the organ, the heart of the matter. He touches, He touches us right where we need, because out of the heart is the wellspring of life, and everything issues from the heart. And so he goes to this place of the heart where discontent exists. And so it's a secret sin of the heart.

But contentment is the beautiful accomplishment of obedience to this commandment. You know, Deuteronomy 7 verse 9 says, Therefore know that the Lord your God, He is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and mercy for a thousand generations with those who love Him and keep His commandments. If you would keep this commandment, you would find His mercy flooding your life. And that mercy would have its effect and contentment. Number three, a third accomplishment is conviction of sin.

You know the Apostle Paul uses this commandment to illustrate the goodness of the law. Paul takes this commandment regarding covetousness to give an illustration to the Roman church about how wonderful the law is. That the law exposes your envy and your discontentment. It exposes your covetousness. Paul said, I would not have known covetousness unless the law had said, you shall not covet.

And he said, the law said, you shall not covet. And he said, Sin, taking opportunity in the commandment, produced in me all manner of evil desire. In other words, it caused covetousness to be known and felt in his soul. So it was good. God told him he was a covetor by the commandment, And it was a good thing.

And he said, is the law sin? No, certainly not. But sin, taking opportunity by the commandment, produced in me all kinds of desire. For apart from the law, Sin was dead. And then he says this, he says, Therefore the law is holy.

The commandment is holy and the commandment is good. Paul uses this commandment to say that the law of God is good because it comes in and it deals with your discontentment and it exposes areas of failure in the area of covetousness. And so Paul uses this as an example to explain how good the law is. Fourthly, the fourth accomplishment of this commandment is that it promotes love between all people. Covetousness is one of those things that gets in the way of love for a neighbor.

You know, it can destroy your relationship with your neighbor, the guy across the fence. Covetousness can destroy your relationship with your friend. Covetousness can destroy churches, by the way. And so it promotes love between all people, including the wicked who have way more than we did. We'll get later to an example in David's life where he struggled with this.

He struggled with what the wicked had. And so this command accomplishes a wonderful thing in that it promotes love between all people. The wicked who have everything, those who are in our own Christian community, and those who live next to us in this world. Here's another accomplishment, a fifth pivotal accomplishment of this commandment. It rescues us from wasteful, fruitless, consumer, greedy, distracted, frivolous use of our funds.

It rescues us from that. So we don't have to keep up with the Joneses. We just need to keep up with what God would desire. We'd be delivered from the Joneses and be kept from any frivolous things that the Joneses do. Number six, it protects us from further sin in the current economy.

I think it's very relevant to what's happening today. It's possible that we're in the worst economy of my own lifetime, which isn't saying much. We've had an amazing run of prosperity in this nation to call the last 55 years hard times. I don't know how anybody could do that with a straight face or a clear conscience. But I will say that at least on balance, this looks like a bad time, considering the last 50 years.

The stock market has done what we've already said it has done. And this command, I think, protects us from many sins that we can commit in this current economy by not trusting God with His provision, by going out and doing crazy things in response to it instead of trusting God and being levelheaded about everything and knowing that God is faithful to His people. Number seven, it heals us of secret sins that corrode the inwardmost parts of the soul. This commandment is like medicine to the soul, because it relieves us of discontentment. Another pivotal accomplishment, number eight, it blesses love in marriage.

This is a marriage blessing commandment. It's interesting. Go back and think through the commandments and see how every one of these commandments blesses your marriage. It's an interesting study. I've been tempted to just spend 15 or 20 minutes going through each of the commandments and explaining how it blesses a marriage, how it blesses a relationship with your son or your daughter, how it blesses a business.

I mean, these commandments are so blessed in every area of life. But this is a marriage blessing commandment. A man or a woman is not satisfied with husband and wife, and so they turn to other thoughts that continue to flourish discontentment. And then they turn to images that further destroy their contentment in one another on the internet or wherever it might be or through a song, some way. It's amazing to me how many songs are marriage destroying, how they destroy contentment with your wife, shut them off, throw them away, erase them off of your hard drive, anything that contradicts this commandment to destroy your marriage and the contentment that's there.

Is there a song that you like that breeds discontentment? Destroy that song. Be gone with it. And so here we find this blessed commandment that heals marriages. You want your marriage healed, go to this commandment.

Number nine, it provides a contentment that saves us from accumulation of debt or too much debt. Often, this secret sin of the heart has an outward manifestation, debt of certain kinds. I'm not saying that every kind of debt is evil. I believe there are particular nuances that have to be developed for discussing the area of debt. Obviously, no debt is the high road.

Obviously, it's the very best. But let's be honest. That It is quite likely that some of our debt can find its root in this sin of discontentment. We want something that God has not given us, so we go find other means to get it, because we lust and do not have. Number 10, The last one that I'll list, the last accomplishment of this command, it sets us free from debilitating distrust and hatred of those around us.

You can go through your life hating those who have more than you do, those who pull the strings of the economy. You might hate the government which has so much and oppresses you so greatly. Don't covet. Don't despise those who have more, lest you be robbed of the peace that God would have you to take. Now in these beautiful accomplishments, I just want to make one qualification.

We discussed this in our men's Bible study, and that is this doesn't make all of our desires bad, okay? It really doesn't. Desires can be good. We're not like the Buddhist whose greatest good is to eliminate all desire. That's not what Christians do.

We live in a real world and there are desires that need to be managed. There are good desires. Psalm 37, 4 says, Delight yourself in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the Lord and trust in Him, and He will bring it to pass. So there are good desires.

Psalm 21, 2 says, The King shall have joy in your strength, O Lord, and in your salvation how greatly shall he rejoice. You have given him his heart's desire and have not withheld the request of His lips." You know, this Psalm that I just quoted, Psalm 21-2, is a very precious Psalm to me. Because 10 years ago, actually a little over 10 years ago, I had sold a company that I had built over a number of years. And I came home from the time of the closing of the acquisition, and everything was cleared out, and we were completely done with it. And my daughter, Blair, brought me this verse.

She said, she greets me, and she says, the king shall have joy in your strength because you have given him his heart's desire. That's a precious verse to me. Every time I read it I think of the ministry that my daughter had to me. I had a desire. It was a good desire.

If it hadn't been fulfilled, then it would have been goodness as well. But there are good desires that we can have. We can pray for ends. Let your requests be made known to God. Bring your needs before Him.

Yes, bring them. You have a need, bring them to God. Don't just squash them down and say, I'm not a human being. The ultimate good is no desire. No, that's wrong.

Let your desires be toward the Lord and see God fulfill them. So there are desires that should be flourished, nourished, and then sought through prayer. And so we shouldn't, in speaking of the badness of covetousness, lose something wonderful in the way that God has built us with desires, because he has built us this way for a purpose. So these are 10 great, wonderful, super duper accomplishments of this commandment. And then now let's go to passages of Scripture which illuminate the command.

In Romans 1, 29 we know that it's one of the signs of the desperate depravity of man, being filled with all unrighteousness, sexual immorality, and envy, in a long list of things. In 1 Corinthians 6-10, it's a sign of unbelief, but you can be delivered from it. The people in the Corinthian church, Paul says, some of you were homosexuals. Some of you were idolaters. Some of you were covetous.

But he says, such were some of you. But you're not that way anymore. You are washed, you are cleansed, you are sanctified. In Psalm 10-3, we know that it's a sign of a wicked heart. In 1 Corinthians 3-3, it's a sign of carnality in the church, for where envy and strife and divisions among you, there is carnality there.

In 1 Corinthians 13, 4, we know that envy is a sign of lack of love, because love suffers long and love does not envy. In Philippians 1.15 we read that some people preach, actually they are preachers and they preach out of envy. How's that? To be standing in a place to speak for God somehow and actually you're speaking from envy and whatever you say can be traced to your own desire to exalt yourself and to squash another. What a tragic thing that would be for us when we commit that sin.

Job 5-2 says that envy will destroy your life. It kills, it slays a man. That's what Job says it does. Envy has an effect on your body, so says Proverbs 14.30. Envy is rottenness to the bones.

Paul's life was a contented life and he said that I've learned in whatever state I am to be content. I know how to be abased and I know how to be abound. Paul's life in Ephesus was free from the love of money. He said, I have coveted no one's silver or gold. James gives a commentary on covetousness in chapter 4, verses 1 and 2.

He says, where do wars and fights come from among you? Do they not come from your desires that wage war in your members? You lust and you do not have. You murder and covet, and you do not obtain. So James makes a commentary on covetousness, and he tells us where it comes from.

Or it tells us that it's one of those things that causes wars and fights. And so you can see this sin in many places, in the nursery. You can see it when you do not win the award, when you do not get the important spot, when you don't get the right girl, when your best friend just got married and you're still single, when your friend got a new car for graduation, and you got a Chevy Cavalier. When you don't get a chance to speak, when you don't get invited, when you know other people were invited. Opportunities like this are marvelous for parents to teach their children how to be happy and to be contented with what God has provided.

To actually rejoice with those who rejoice. Instead of saying, oh, we didn't get invited, what's wrong with us? Parents have a wonderful opportunity there to teach their children happiness and contentment and rejoicing, to be happy for your brother instead of grinding away at what you did not get. You know, instead of having to hide when someone has a party in fear that someone will get their feelings hurt, you can be free. You can announce and you can set a culture of rejoicing with those who rejoice and not have to hide in the corner and sneak around from a bunch of covetous people who are going to be offended because they didn't get invited to your party.

So covetousness is certainly something close to home. Now I'd like to give you some examples of people in scripture. We begin with Lucifer in Isaiah chapter 14, in which we read, Your pop is brought down to Sheol. How you are fallen from heaven, Lucifer, son of the morning. How You are cut down to the ground.

You weaken the nations. You've set in your heart, I will ascend. I will exalt. I will sit on the mount. I will ascend above the heights.

I will be like the most high." Lucifer is the first example of covetousness. All roads lead, all roads of covetousness lead to him. Then we find Eve in the garden in Genesis 3.16. Then we find Joseph selling, Joseph's brother selling him into slavery. In Acts 7-9 we learn that the patriarchs were envious and that's why they sold him.

How's that? You have envy in your family? You children, do you have envy against one another? Is there a little girl here who has envy toward her older brother or sister? Is there envy in this church?

Children, please, let me have your attention. Look at me in the eye. I would like the eyes of all children. Remember this. What was it that caused Joseph to be thrown into prison?

What caused his brothers to sell him into slavery? It was this terrible sin of envy. Do you envy your brother? Do you envy your sister? Do you?

Root out this sin, confess this sin before Almighty God and run from it. Know what it does, it destroys your family. Rachel had envy of her sister Leah and her ability to have children. Are there any sisters in this church who are envious toward another woman because God has opened her womb and not yours? Is there any envy here?

Let God heal this wound in our church if it's anywhere. Or any other woman anywhere in the whole world who's been deprived of children by the hand of God because Only God opens and closes the womb. We have so loved the commandments of God in this manner. We pray that God would give us many children. So often prayers are left unfulfilled because God is in control of every single conception and birth in the world.

He did knit you together in your mother's womb. He did form you before the foundation of the earth. He didn't know you before you were even conceived. And so we need to understand that God is sovereign in all these things. Let there not be an envious woman in our church.

Who knows, there may be a woman who's had many children who envies the one who didn't have quite as many. Is that possible? Envy can cut in many ways. You know, there are so many examples of family envy in the Bible. David was envious of another man's wife and he took her, Bathsheba, and killed her husband.

David struggled with covetousness as a man out in business, if you would call it that. He said, I was envious of the boastful. I saw their prosperity of the wicked. Have you ever known men who are just so confident and they were, you know, urban cowboys and, you know, they were just, they were, they had it all, right? Well, David was looking at these men, he said, I envied them.

Their strength is firm. They're always at ease. They increase riches. He says, if I cleanse my heart in vain, all day long I've been plagued and I'm chastened every morning. David is comparing himself with the wise and the successful of this world.

He says, I want that. I envy that. He says, until I went to the sanctuary of God, and then I understood their end. He says, surely you've set them in slippery places. You cast them down to destruction.

He said, I was foolish. I was ignorant. I was a beast. There's David saying, I was so stupid to envy these men, knowing where they're going. And then he says, you will guide me with your counsel.

Who am I, who have I in heaven but you? There's nothing on earth that I desire besides you. My heart and my flesh fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. David struggled with looking at his surrounding businessmen with envy. The scribes and the Pharisees were envious.

You know that Christ was crucified because of envy. They were driven by envy. Mark chapter 15, verse 10 says, for he knew that the chief priests handed him over because of envy. Christ was crucified because of this sin that began in eternity past with Lucifer. We see Simon the sorcerer was envious of the power of God.

Bitterness was in his heart and he envied. We see that the Jews were envious of the Apostle Paul in Acts 13. They were envious of him so they contradicted and blasphemed him. And they opposed everything that he said. And then in chapter 17 in the book of Acts, the Jews were not persuaded becoming envious, and took some evil men from the marketplace and gathering a mob, set the city in an uproar, and they attacked the house of Jason." So, envy causes many, many things to happen.

Here's one person who never envied. Christ never envied. And so these are just some of the examples of envy in the Bible. Now let's go to Christ's commentary on this commandment. Christ has much to say about this sin.

In Luke chapter 12 verse 15 the Lord Jesus says take heed and beware of covetousness. Christ says, beware of it. He says, and remember, life doesn't consist in your possessions. And so Jesus tells his people, he says, beware of covetousness. And then he launches out into an elaborate explanation of how covetousness is inflamed.

He tells the parable of a rich man who had a plentiful yield. And he thought to himself, what am I going to do? What am I going to do with all this wealth? I'm going to build more barns. I'll pull down my old barns, and I'll build greater ones, and I'll store my crops and my goods and I'll say to my soul, soul you have many goods laid up for many years, take your ease, eat, drink and be merry and God says you fool, This night your soul is required of you.

And then Jesus says, So he who lays up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God, will find this end. And so Jesus, he warns of covetousness, and then he tells the story of the rich man. Jesus is telling us that in our desire for ease and accumulation and to have something for years and then to try to rest on it can be tied to this sin of covetousness. Often, often when we say, oh if I just could accumulate this and that, covetousness is at the root of it. We don't really trust God, we trust in ourselves.

This doesn't mean that it's wrong to accumulate. This doesn't mean that it's wrong to plan ahead for the future. There's wisdom in that. But there's also, possibly, covetousness in it. And then Jesus says That there's a root cause of it.

It's worry. He says, he says, therefore, therefore I say do not worry about your life, what you shall eat, or about the body, what you put on. Often discontentedness from covetousness has worry all wrapped around it. We're worried about what's going to happen. And so Jesus says life is more than food, the body is more than clothing.

Consider the ravens that they don't sow or reap. He says, which of you by worrying can add one cubit to his stature? He says, consider the lilies in the field, they grow, they don't toil or spin. Yet I say to you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these." And then Jesus says, if God so arrays the fields like this, will He not also care for you? He cares about a sparrow.

Do you think He cares about you? That's what Jesus is saying. The whole discussion begins with covetousness. He's unpacking what drives covetousness and how we can understand it when it's working in our hearts. You say, well, I don't covet my neighbor's house, but are you worrying?

That's the same thing. And then he says, there's no need to fear. Do not fear, little flock. It is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom. And then he says this, Sell what you have and give alms.

Provide for yourselves money bags which do not grow old. A treasure in the heavens that does not fail, where no thief approaches, nor moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also." And then Jesus turns the subject and brings it down to some very, very critical issues. And he says, this is all about being ready for heaven. Are you preparing for heaven or not?

Are your worries because you're preparing not for heaven? And he says, let your waist be girded and your lamps burning. You're going to meet your master. There's a wedding day coming, and it may come quickly. And blessed are those servants whom the master, when he comes, find them watching.

And so the Lord Jesus unpacks this commandment by teasing out a number of the issues that are involved. Worry the provision of God and also what is often at the heart of envy is that you could care less about heaven and you're not readying yourself for heaven. You want to be a big shot in this world And that's the real problem with covetousness. And so now let's move to nine manifestations of covetousness. We'll continue pressing, continue pressing on this commandment.

We're going to try to squeeze, squeeze it for whatever might be in us here. So nine manifestations of covetousness. Number one, absence of thankfulness for what God has given. Absence of thankfulness for what God has given. Absence of thankfulness for what God has given.

We've been talking about how we so often rail against the sovereignty of God. And covetousness is one of those railing thins against the sovereignty of God and His kindness toward you. Look at you. Look at me. We have clothes.

We ate this morning. What's wrong? God knows the future. Are you thankful? Are you thankful today for what God has given you?

Or are you pining away for what He has withheld or given to someone else? So number one, one manifestation of covetousness is an absence of thankfulness. Number two, another manifestation of consciousness is dreaming of what other people have. You want a different life than you have. You don't like your life.

You don't like the life that God gave you. You don't like the wife, you don't like the children, you don't like the money, you don't like the geography, you don't like the ground God gave you. You have an insatiable lust for something that you don't have. That's the sin that He's talking about when you have this sin? Dreaming, dreaming of another life that you don't have.

Instead of falling down on your face and giving thanks to God for what He gave you, have you thanked God for the mind He gave you? Have you thanked God for the face and the shape that He gave you? He gave you all these things. Are you dreaming about someone else's face or someone else's body or someone else's ground? And it's robbed you of happiness and it's destroyed the glory of God and its expression in the world.

Number three. How about this one? Dreaming of another time. Dreaming of a... You don't like this time in your life.

God has you right where he has placed you by his sovereign. But you don't like this time you're in. I ran across a poem that Charles Swindoll has quoted many times. It was spring, but it was summer I wanted. The warm days and the great outdoors.

It was summer, but it was fall I wanted. The colorful leaves and the cool dry air. It was fall, but it was winter I wanted. The beautiful snow and the joy of the holiday season. It was winter, but it was spring I wanted.

The warmth and the blossoming of nature. I was a child, and it was adulthood that I wanted, the freedom and the respect. I was 20, but it was 30 that I wanted to be mature and sophisticated. I was middle-aged, but it was 20 I wanted, the youth and the free spirit. I was retired, but it was middle-aged I wanted, the presence of mind without limitations.

My life was over and I never got what I wanted. What a tragedy it is to have The happiness that God so desires stolen from us by dreaming of another time that God has not placed you in now. David said rightly, my times are in your hands. My times are in your hands. Number four.

Manifestations of covetousness. Reluctance to practice hospitality. This is one that Dan Horn gave me last night when we were in the car driving. We cannot practice hospitality in our house, because it's not nice enough, it's not big enough. The sin of covetousness can cause people to be so selfish with what they have that they won't give what they have been given.

Instead they're worried about what they don't have that someone else might think it not quite enough. But the truth of the matter is you've got to deal with the cards that have been dealt to you. You've got to play those cards. And whatever God has given, use it to the hill. Use it to the maximum.

Spend it. Use it. Wear it out for the kingdom of heaven, whether it's a little bit or a lot. God gives a certain number of talents to one or another to another. The responsibility, though, is the same.

Milk it for all its worth for the glory of God. Covetousness can cause a reluctance to practice hospitality. Number five, a manifestation of covetousness. Guidance by advertising. Those funny advertisements that create want, that create dissatisfaction.

Number seven, Or number six, pornography. It's just another form of coveting your neighbor's wife and wanting something God has not given you. Number seven, debt is a form, can be a form, of coveting your neighbor's house, car, ox, donkey, whatever might be your neighbors. Number eight, another manifestation of coveting. I'm just going to call it copycatting.

Instead of looking to the Lord, one looks to other people and tries to live their life. Instead of falling down before God and saying, God, help me to know how we should live, we wrongfully try to duplicate someone else's life. Instead of seeing what the Lord is doing with us and with my family, My unique expression of the glory of God in the world. Isn't it obvious that God doesn't have everybody do the same thing? He does it for His own glory.

And so husbands and wives should unify themselves around what God would have them do. He's made the two one and they should fall on their knees together and say, Oh God, help us to create the life that you have appointed for us as a couple. A unique expression of the glory of God in the world that can't be duplicated by anyone else. That doesn't mean that we don't look to godly examples. God does provide examples for the flock to help us know how to live.

That's not what we're talking about. We're talking about just copycatting others instead of trustfully, prayerfully, humbly crying out to God and say, Lord, form us into the family that you would have us to be. Number nine, a ninth manifestation, and This is the last one that I'll list. Ninth manifestation of covetousness, intolerance. The covetous heart says, I can't tolerate anyone who has more than I do.

I can't tolerate anyone that's different. Everybody must be like me. Intolerance is often a sin rooted in covetousness. So those are nine manifestations. And now we move from conviction to terror, okay?

Because we're going to talk about the judgments for covetousness. We don't want to play patty cake with this sin. We want to confess it. We want to get free of it. Micah speaks of those who lay in their beds and they covet fields and houses.

The result, we are utterly destroyed. It's a destruction. David, Think of the result of his covetousness of Bathsheba. The death of his son and a thousand other sorrows came from one heart of covetousness. Think of Jezebel, who coveted Naboth's vineyard.

The dogs licked up her blood when they threw her off the building. Think of Gehazi, who coveted clothing and gold. He became leprous. Think of Lucifer, for of whom it is said, you shall be brought down to Sheol, the lowest depths of the pit. And so there is judgment, there's sorrows, There's harm in this sin.

So we need to understand that. Nobody gets a free ride with covetousness. And so we've covered these various issues surrounding this commandment. We've surveyed it, we've talked about the beautiful, wonderful, glorious accomplishments of the commandment, we've spoken of various passages of Scripture, we've illustrated it with people, We've given Christ commentary on it, and we've given these manifestations. And we've ended, though, with the terrors of defying God, of refusing to repent of this sin.

And so What are we left with here? What are we left with, with such a rich and diverse commandment for us meant for our good? Here's where I would hope that we would all move on with. And that is that we would understand that godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into this world and we carry nothing out of it.

And if we have And if we have food and clothing, if we have food and clothing with these, we shall be content, says 1 Timothy 6, 8. But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and harmful lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, for which some have strayed from the faith in their greediness and pierced themselves through with many sorrows. But you, O man of God, flee from these things and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, gentleness. Remember what God said to Abraham, I am your shield, your exceedingly great reward.

Remember the words in the Psalms, be still and know that I am God. Remember the words of the Lord Jesus, look at the birds of the air. Are you not worth much more than they? Aren't you amazed at the kindness of God that He would come and relieve His people from disastrous feelings? How He would come and and care about our happiness so much that He would that He would give us a commandment so that He would make us happy in Him.

That He would make us trustful, that He would make us with open arms, lifted up to Him, completely dependent upon Him like a child. Children who trust Him in all happiness and fear nothing in this world, and who love much all of their brothers and sisters, whether they have much or whether they have little. Would you pray with me? Well, Lord, I am so thankful for this commandment. Oh, how we love your law.

How sweet it is. How consoling it is, Lord. Let it run in here today. Amen.