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When pain makes even sitting in a chair impossible, someone else’s ordinary comfort can suddenly look like the one thing that would make life right. In Exodus 20:17, God forbids coveting anything that belongs to our neighbor—but how do we distinguish a healthy desire for change from a heart dissatisfied with what God has given?
The following study questions are AI generated and may contain errors.
The pastor describes coveting as a “gateway drug” to other sins. Can you identify ways that covetous thoughts might lead to other commandments being broken? How does addressing coveting at its root help prevent those sins from taking hold?
The pastor distinguishes between healthy desire—wanting to recover from illness, accomplish God’s purposes, or grow in faith—and sinful coveting of what belongs to others. How do you personally discern the difference in your own life? What questions might you ask yourself to identify which type of desire you are experiencing?
The pastor shares his own struggle with envying peers in ministry who received book deals or prominent positions he desired. Why is coveting particularly difficult to recognize in professional or ministry contexts? How might honestly confronting it change the way we celebrate or support others’ accomplishments?
According to the sermon, coveting deprives God of our thanksgiving and praise while also depriving us of growth in godliness. How does actively practicing gratitude for what God has already provided work against covetous thinking? Can you think of a specific area of your life where this shift might make a difference?
The pastor suggests that the cure for coveting is redirecting desire toward being more like Jesus. What does that look like practically in daily life? How might it change your prayers, your attitude toward those who have what you want, and your sense of where God is leading you?
This transcript has been automatically generated and may contain errors.
Well, good evening, everyone. It’s good to be with you. Not quite like I usually am on Sundays, for those of you that are in person. I, as you probably have heard, did something to my back. And I can either lay down or I can stand up. I can’t sit, so I can’t get into a car, at least for any length of time, or that sort of thing. It’s an interesting experience. And it’s an interesting experience that I didn’t necessarily want while preparing for this next message, but it struck me how it ties into it.
Because, well, and it’s nothing compared to what many of you have been through, but it’s been pretty painful this week. It hasn’t been much fun laying and then standing up and laying and standing up, not sleeping all that well, all those sorts of things, and occasionally coveting a chair and trying to sit in it and realizing very quickly it’s not a great idea. Well, I just used that word, didn’t I? Covet.
And as I thought about this week and thought about how it’s feeling, it struck me how whenever any of us are not feeling right, whether it’s physical pain, it’s illness, many of us, we’ve been passing around some bugs around the church as well. And when you’re down with the flu or COVID or some undiagnosed bug of other origin, whatever it might be, when we have that and we see other people posting on social media, maybe what they’re up to, they’re enjoying themselves, or we talk to a friend on the phone or whatever it might be, or we think about what we’ve been planning to do the next day or that day, we think about the other people doing it, we covet it.
Right now, like I said, I’m coveting all of you that are sitting there in your chairs because I’m in one of my two states right now, and I really would like to be in that third state of sitting down because I haven’t done it in a week. Boy, does that sound nice. We get dissatisfied. And even when I can get the pain down, I’ve been getting different recommendations on what to do. My cousin, who’s a chiropractor, has been giving me advice as well and trying to work me to the point where I can get in the car and go see him, that kind of thing. Even when it gets a little better, I’m not really satisfied. I’d like to be able to sit up again.
And in life in general, we’re always thinking of those things we can’t do or we don’t have. And this last commandment, I believe, is really getting at the heart of that because we’re constantly looking for that. Where could I have more? Where could I have what I think will really make me happy? And I’m pretty certain right now I’d be pretty happy if I could sit with you.
On the other hand, last week if you’d asked me as I was sitting in one of the chairs at the church after the service or something, hey Tim, what would you need to make you happy? I probably would have said getting to sit in a chair because at the time I had it, I took it for granted. One of the things that we’re going to be thinking about tonight is how do we reflect on what God is giving us? How does that change the way we look at the things we don’t have so we have the appropriate heart, the heart that God wants us to have towards? Would you join me in prayer now as we dig in and we’ll think about that? Let’s pray.
Father, thank you for this evening. Thank you for your word. Lord, would you help us to be thankful for the things that you do provide to us? Would you help us to know when it’s healthy to reach for something else that we don’t have yet because it’s what you’re planning to provide for us? And help us to have discernment, the difference between that and reaching for the things that you don’t intend for us, that are for others. We pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.
Well, let’s go ahead and look at our commandment. It’s a little longer than the last few that we’ve looked at. We read in Exodus 20, verse 18: “Now when all the people saw the thunder and the flashes of lightning and the sound of the trumpet and the mountain smoking, the people were afraid and trembled and they stood far off.” That’s the reaction to the commandment.
But what I wanted to do that’s not coming up on the slide, I’m going to pull it up myself. Let’s look at the verse right before that. If we look at Exodus 20, verse 17, here is what we read there: “You shall not covet your neighbor’s house. You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife or his male servant or his female servant or his ox or his donkey or anything that is your neighbor’s.”
They hear that and they hear all the other commandments and then they have that reaction because they realize that this is challenging and they’re being confronted with the holiness of God. And we’re going to think more about that next week. But I want that to be in the background for us.
But let’s think right now about that term coveting. And we hear the term covet and we think generally this is bad. Occasionally we have this Christian-ese phrase, “I covet your prayers,” and you’ll hear someone say that. I’ve said it before and it’s sort of a thing that we say that we never use that word anywhere else and we use it there and we know in that case, well, it’s never bad to covet prayer, right? Please pray for me. I’d appreciate your prayers right now. It has been a bit painful and so sure, I covet your prayers.
That’s not what we know. We know that’s not what this means. That’s not how we ever use the word otherwise, right? We say we covet something today. It’s going to be one of two things. Either we mean it quite seriously: I really want what someone else has. Or maybe we’re using it humorously because it is a little bit outside our normal language in the English language today. And so we’re saying it more in the sense of someone gets a really nice burger, say, as we’re sitting next to them. And we say, well, I covet your burger. And we’re being over the top about our appreciation for it. It’s one of those two things.
But that first one, we intuitively, we get it. This is not a good thing to covet that which is your neighbor’s. Why does God need to say it? Well, because we may intuitively get the sense that it’s bad. We don’t intuitively get the sense that we need to stop doing it, though. Because we find justification. We find some way that we ought to want it.
Now, sometimes we abstract ourselves out from it. We don’t think, well, you see your neighbor driving with a new car. And you think, I want that new car. I want my neighbor’s car. I’m actually going to rewind a little and go back a couple of commandments and steal my neighbor’s car. We don’t go there. We just think about how much it would be nice if we had one, too. And what we’re really thinking is exactly what’s in this commandment. But we think really, well, I just want to improve myself. I’d like a new car. I could use a new car. God wants me to be productive. He wants me to take care of my family and friends. And a new car would help me to do that. And we put on all these layers.
But where the origin of it is, is that we saw our neighbor get a new car. And somewhere in our mind we’re thinking, it really should be mine. Now, going back to where I started. If you’re sick right now, I know several folks in our church family are normally in person and are not going to be here tonight because they’re sick. I know that I’m not there with my back. I’m just standing here with you virtually.
Is it bad for me to covet sitting down? If you have the flu right now, is it bad for you to covet being healthy? Well, no, it’s not bad to want to improve. The problem is what we’re really thinking there. Is it that we’re just wishing to improve and get to the state we know God wants us in? Or are we thinking, I’d really like what other people have? And sometimes we do the one and sometimes we do the other. Sometimes I do the one. Sometimes I do the other. Sometimes I’m thinking, I would really like what someone else has. Why is that person healthy and I’m not right now? Why is that person having fun and I’m not right now? Why does that person have that new car and I don’t right now? There’s that.
And sometimes we’re just thinking, I’d like to be healthy like everybody up there because I wish I were with all of you tonight. Or for those of you online, I wish I could be typing in the chat faster with you because I’m going to join you in the chat. And I’ve been before this, but I have to lay down while I’m doing it. So it’s a little bit hard.
Is that bad? No, that’s not what’s in view here. And we’ll get more into that in a moment. But Scripture uses this word another way and it gets translated another way when it is. The point is when we’re thinking, I’d take it from someone else if I could.
What’s the problem with that? The problem with that is that we’re not thinking about what God has for us and what God intends for us. We’re thinking about what God has given to other people and how we somehow need it more, deserve it more. And in that, if you really think about it, this commandment here, it’s fitting it’s the capstone of the Ten Commandments because we’re going to see it relates to all of them. And it relates to this particular problem, relates this problem to our relationship with God, because we say, God, did you really get right what I need?
We think about not taking the Lord’s name in vain and honoring the Sabbath and worshiping him on it and not having other gods before him. Everything we thought about over the fall as we were in the first part of this series. Well, when we’re saying, God, you don’t provide what I need, we can’t really come with the right heart to those first things if we’re saying that.
And so part of the problem with coveting is we’re just not coming before God with the right heart. Take a look at 1 Timothy 6:6: “But godliness with contentment is great gain.” We really want to be godly. We really want to live these commandments. Contentment is at the heart of it. God’s calling us to that. To look at what we have, be thankful to him for it. And in that, see how God brings out his nature, brings out godliness in us through that.
Because when we’re looking towards our Lord and saying, God, thank you for what you provide for me. Thank you for doing what you do for me. We’re going to be moving towards wonder. We’re going to be moving towards praise. It’s going to be like what we were talking about on Monday night. We’re saying, God, did you miss the fact that I need this? Well, then we’re going in the opposite direction. And we’re not fulfilling the first part of the Ten Commandments. And it’s so easy to slip into.
Here’s the convicting thing. It’s really easy to slip into in ministry. I was thinking about this again as I was preparing this week. When you were in school preparing for whatever it is that you now do or you did before you retired, you might have looked around at your peers and thought, well, I wonder whom amongst us is going to succeed? Who will be famous? Who won’t be famous? Who will accomplish something big? Who won’t? We sometimes make our guesses about that. But we’re all still, by definition, peers at that point.
But then you go out and you actually do something, right? And I was thinking back to the guys I went to seminary with. And some of them I think about and I grieve for and I pray for because they went into ministry and it didn’t work out and they’re doing other things now and perhaps are really happy about it, but I feel bad for them because I know they had that dream. I can say that’s nice of me, right? I’m thinking about them.
But there’s something uglier in there as well. Because there are others who went to seminary with me. And then what happened? Well, they got the right connections. And they got to pastor as an associate pastor in this really big church right away that wanted to go and send them off and plant a church and back them with all kinds of financial support and networks and structures. Or that someone that they were connected with was with a publishing firm and they got a book deal and they’re writing books now. And I’ll see some of the guys I went with and they’re being quoted across the nation. So I’m like, well, I want to be happy for them. I know I should be happy for them. And as long as they’re doing godly things, that’s exactly where God wants me to be.
But there is a part of me, because I love writing, that thinks, well, what if I could have gotten that book deal? Or what if I could have gotten that plum pastoral job that is in a church with enormous resources? What about that? Why couldn’t I have that instead? I don’t even want to fully flesh out sometimes where my heart wants to go when I’m thinking about it. The things I think about those people, the times where if something doesn’t go then quite so smoothly for them, it doesn’t make me feel bad like it should. It’s ugly. It’s exactly what’s being referred to here. This idea that I’m coveting something that God has given this other person. And God’s using that person.
It’s not just a ministry. It’s in all of our lives. We see the gifts God’s given somebody, both material gifts and just abilities. And we think, I wish I had that. And if that person lost it and I had it instead, I think I’d be happier. And that’s what God’s referring to here. That’s the opposite of thankfulness to our God.
And even if he provides things to us then, as we’re praising him, what we’re really saying is, I wanted to take that from someone else. God’s saying, don’t do that. Look to me. Look to my provision. Know that I’m providing exactly what I want you to have. It might not be there yet. Yet, it’s good to want to get over the flu. It’s good to want to get your back adjusted and fixed and be able to sit again. It’s good to recover from bad things. It’s good to learn. If you’re in school, it’s good to have a desire to graduate. That’s a good thing.
But we shouldn’t want to take from someone else. And we shouldn’t say, God, it’d be better if you’d given it to me. What were you thinking? Take a look at Matthew 15:18: Jesus says, “But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this defiles a person. For out of the heart comes evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander.”
This reminds us that God cares about more than just how we appear. More than how we present ourselves. That’s what Jesus is getting at. But notice the things that throw that off. The things that come out of coveting.
We looked at a number of them just over the past few weeks. If you think about the list Jesus has, it’s basically the second half of the Ten Commandments. We were talking about murder and adultery and stealing and false testimony. Each one where we’re taking something that someone else has and claiming it for ourselves. We’re depriving someone else.
And that’s what we see. On the one hand, what we’ve been talking about, we’re depriving God of his right praise that he should be receiving from us. And our thanksgiving. And in that, then we’re depriving ourselves because we’re not giving that thanksgiving to God. And we’re not experiencing growth and godliness. We’re busy, focused on ourselves and our unhappiness.
But it’s also taking away something from those around us. And maybe it’s not easy to see at first. Maybe it’s something like your neighbor gets the nice new car or has a nicer house or better whatever else. And it’s not that you go and steal, literally steal, right? Most of us don’t do that. But we simply aren’t as ready to help because we think, oh, he already has everything worked out. She already has everything worked out. Maybe we’re less eager to pray for that person because God’s already taken care of him or her. What about me?
And it can be those little things. We may not say it that boldly, but it just creeps in and our attitude isn’t where God wants it. Because we’re busy thinking about how it would be so much better if we had what that person had or those people have.
When we think about coveting, it’s a precursor to these other sins. It’s the gateway drug.
It troubles me so much that we’ve legalized marijuana. And you think about that legalization. Why was it that many of us opposed it? Well, for one, because God doesn’t want us to get drunk and the extension of that is not good to do things that purposefully mess with our minds. But more than that, it also leads to worse things. It’s been shown over and over again that people start experimenting with something like marijuana and then they find something stronger.
And if you think about coveting, it’s like that gateway drug. It’s like the marijuana. It doesn’t seem that harmful, right? It just makes our mind feel a little better as we’re busy thinking about how we should have what other people have. And so we justify ourselves. I’m not actually taking anything from anybody. I’m just playing around in my mind a little bit.
As we’ve seen in each case, whether it’s anger or adultery or stealing, desire to take something, right back to here, false testimony. Even if we’re just playing around with it in our heads, it’s displeasing to God. Again, we’re moving away from that thanksgiving that God wants and we’re not cultivating godliness. But we’re fooling ourselves. We are fooling ourselves if we think that just because we know it’s not right to actually act on it, that it’s not going to spill out in those different ways I was talking about. Maybe our outright theft, but they’re still not what God wants us to do.
And it’s funny, even the word, as I mentioned earlier, it can mean something good or bad. God wants us to be driven towards things. He doesn’t want us to say, well, I know that my life isn’t together. I know I’m not accomplishing everything I should. I know I haven’t gotten to where I’m supposed to be. And I don’t care. I’m just glad to be right here. No, God doesn’t want that. God doesn’t mind desire. He wants rightly ordered desire, focused desire.
Notice what we read in Psalm 19:9, “The fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever. The rules of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.” Did you catch that? Let’s go back. Take a look again. “The fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever. The rules of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.”
What’s that have to do with desire? I’ll take a look at the next verse. “More to be desired are they than gold.” Hmm. There’s something we actually can desire. “More to be desired are they than gold, even much fine gold. Sweeter also than honey and drippings of honeycomb.”
Notice here, God lists out good things for us to desire. It is never bad to want to know God’s Word more. To be more like Him. To have His Word in our brains more. Now, if we say, I wish I had the mind someone else had, and start coveting more the earthly side of it, yeah, then we can move back into coveting.
But if our desire, if our coveting is, oh, I just want to know God’s Word more. I want to be more like Him. There’s nothing wrong with that.
And like the other sins that we’ve talked about, here again, we’ve taken something that isn’t necessarily bad in itself, but we take it and we distort it. Is it bad to have things? No. Is it bad to have things that aren’t meant for us? Yes.
So we shouldn’t steal, right? Is it bad for someone to get married? No, Scripture is very clear on that. Is it bad to want someone else’s spouse? Yes, that is bad because we’re taking something that isn’t ours.
Is it bad to have strong feelings about something? Not necessarily. But if we turn it into anger, destructive anger, even to murder, is that bad? Yes. And so what we see here is that coveting is right at the heart of that. That wrong desire.
But I think we do lose something in the fact that we translate it, desire when it’s good and coveting when it’s bad, when we move it into English. Because we miss the fact that here is something that doesn’t have to be bad. It’s bad because of what we’re doing. We’re focused on our neighbor and wanting our neighbor’s things.
It’s not that if you need a car, is it bad to want a car? And even ask the Lord, hey. Well, hey isn’t the best way. Might be. It’s fine. God doesn’t need us to use formal language. But is it bad to go to the Lord and say, God, I know that you’ve given me these responsibilities and I really need transportation for it. Would you provide me with reliable transportation? That isn’t a bad thing.
The bad thing is when we say, I should have what my neighbor has. I should have what my friends have. I should have what the people at the other church down the street have with their big new building or their bigger sound system or whatever it might be. That’s where it’s bad. It’s not bad to want to improve. It’s bad how we go about it, what we’re focused on.
Is what’s driving us to improve to prove to other people that we’re better than them? Is what drives us to improve that we have what currently other people have? Or is our drive to improve that we want to follow exactly where the Lord is leading us and have the things and the abilities and be in the place that God wants us to be? That’s where he’s challenging us.
As I think about Psalm 19 using that very same word, it struck me of all the things we desire and all the struggles we have with desire, what is the thing that really drove me most? In those times when I have those ugly thoughts and I don’t like how I feel about other people. What if instead I was… instead of desiring what they had, what I think I should have, what they’ve achieved and what I think I should have achieved, what if instead I was just desiring to be more like Jesus?
Because over and over again, Scripture says that’s exactly where we should be. God’s going to lead us to where we should be, but where he wants us to be right in this moment is to be desiring to be more like Jesus. Because you know what the cure is when we’re coveting, when we’re falling into that? It’s to say, God, help me to be more like you. Help me to see that other person who has what I want, who’s achieved what I want.
Help me to see that person as someone that’s made in your image, that you have blessed with the things that they have, and to desire good for them instead. To maybe even think about how you might be calling me, the fact that I’m thinking about them, it’s not so I can want their stuff. Maybe I called to actually be a blessing to them, and not be focused on whether I should have more blessings.
It’s funny how desire can be so constructive when we’re desiring after Jesus, and desiring to be the men and women that God wants us to be, and how destructive it can be when we’re chasing after the things that we think are going to make us happy instead.
Sort of reminds me of the snow that we’ve been having, and the snow that we’re supposed to have again this week. I think about snow. Most of you know I love snow, and I think it’s beautiful, and it looks so clean and pure, and it is. It’s falling from the sky, right? It covers all of the dirt and the mud, and it’s wonderful.
It’s not so wonderful, though, if it’s an icy snow, and it lands where we would like it not to be, right? For example, if it lands on a tree branch right above the power line going into your house, then it’s destructive. If it lands on the tree branch right above your car, and that branch falls, it’s destructive.
And notably, that’s exactly where we are with coveting. Desiring to improve, desiring to get healthier, desiring to be where God wants us to be, desiring ultimately, above all else, to be more like Him. That’s constructive. And it brings that purity, just like that blanket of snow.
But when it instead is redirected by our sin, and we instead want it where we think it would be best, what we don’t realize is we’re actually putting all that snow and ice on those rotten branches of our lives. They’re going to collapse and cause destruction instead.
God’s saying, don’t do that. Look to Me. Be thankful for what I’ve provided to you. Desire Me and what I have for you. That’s far better than anything you’re going to come up with.
Would you pray with me, please? Father, we pray that You would help us to desire the things that You have for us, the plans You have for us, the accomplishments You have for us, the abilities You have for us. And yes, Lord, if there are places we need to improve, places where we need to get healthy, places where we need to finish an achievement, whether at work or school, in our neighborhood, in our families, Lord, would You help us to do those things?
We don’t want to be wrongly satisfied in places that aren’t where You want us to be. But Lord, would You help us to be satisfied with the provision You give us along the way, that we’re not looking to others, not wishing for their accomplishments or abilities or material things, but instead we’re just wanting what You want for us.
Most of all, we’re just wanting to be in relationship to You, with You, and serving this world for You. We pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.
It’s interesting when you think about what we’ve been talking about. Maybe this is the first time you’re here tonight, whether in person or online. And you’re here for the first time, and you’ve been to church in the past, and you’ve seen people take communion, and you think, I’d like that thing.
But sort of like how wanting something that isn’t ours isn’t helpful, taking those elements, if you don’t get to the right helpful place first, isn’t helpful. Because it leads us down the wrong path. We think, well, I’m taking this object. It somehow made me okay. As long as I have enough of that. That’s where our minds go. But what really matters, we don’t need that. We need Jesus.
And when we think about communion, it’s all about remembering what Jesus has done for us and being strengthened by Him. And so if you don’t know Him, we do ask that you let these elements pass you by now. Not because they aren’t intended even for you. It shouldn’t even be something that you yearn to take part, but yearn to take part in relationship to Jesus.
Come to know Him even this very night. Maybe that’s why you’re here tonight. Maybe you don’t even realize it, but God’s nudged you here tonight. All you need to do is say, Jesus, all the things I chase after, all the things I desire, one, I realize I’m hearing even tonight that other people have messed up desires, too, and want things that they shouldn’t have, too, and so on. And what I know I need is that I need your help and that I want to be a part of your people. I want to be a follower of you and know that Jesus will answer that prayer. And we won’t be messed up together. We are all struggling through this together, but that’s exactly what God intended, that we would be together in this life, helping each other, that we’d be strengthened by Him until the day that He makes all things good and right.
If you are in person, you’ll notice that the inner ring of the communion is gluten-free, the outer part is not. And so please do take the communion as it is passed.
On the night that He was betrayed, Jesus took the bread and He broke it, and He gave it to them, saying, “This is my body, which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.”
In like manner, after supper, He took the cup and said, “This cup is the new covenant, and my blood poured out for you unto the remission of sins. Do this as often as you drink of it in remembrance of me.”
Or as often as you eat this bread and you drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until it is done.
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