We'll go ahead and turn with me to Exodus chapter 20 this evening. Our text is verse 17 on the 10th commandment, but I'll go ahead and read all of the commandments starting from verse 1 of chapter 20 down through verse 17. But before I do so, let's ask the Lord to grant us illumination for his word. Let's pray. Our Heavenly Father, we come to you mindful in these moments that, left to ourselves, we would not be able to rightly know you, love you, and glorify you. We would not be able to rightly understand you from your word. So we confess that we are utterly dependent upon you to open our hearts, to open our eyes, to open our ears. To hear and understand your word and to receive it with true faith in Jesus Christ. And so we pray that you, by your Holy Spirit, would enable us to do so this evening. For we pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen. Loved ones, hear now the word of God. This is God's word for you this very evening. And God spoke all these words, saying, I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself a carved image or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above or that is in the earth beneath or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments. You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain. Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, you or your son or your daughter, your male servant or your female servant, or your livestock or the sojourner who is within your gates. For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy. Honor your father and your mother that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you. You shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal, you shall not bear false witness against your neighbor, 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. May the Lord bless the reading and the hearing and the preaching of his word to us tonight. Well, beloved in the Lord Jesus Christ, the Pharisees, as you may know, during the time that Jesus walked on the earth, they were the Jewish leaders who were really more often concerned with their outward actions before God than anything else. And the Ten Commandments ultimately were often reduced down to mere external obedience to the law of Moses that helped them maintain their acceptance in God's sight. And over time, even the Jewish people somehow began to lose their appreciation for the importance of internal behavior. They had a tendency to reduce the Ten Commandments merely to external behavior. And truth be told, if we're honest with ourselves, we have that same tendency, don't we? But the one commandment that you cannot reduce down to mere outward obedience and external behavior is the tenth commandment. You shall not covet. You see, you shall not covet. This 10th commandment is totally, it's entirely about our inward thoughts, our inward desires, our inward motivations, our inward behavior. And you cannot get around that one simple fact, really, no matter how hard you might try to find that loophole. And as a result, this commandment influences all the other commandments because violating it is often the gateway to breaking the others, as Dr. Fesco once pointed out. And so this law, this commandment, it reminds us that God knows all the motives that is in your heart. God knows all of the thoughts and intentions of your desires in your heart. And when you understand this, when you really let that hang on your neck for a moment, it really ought to cause us to realize that the law of God is staggering. It regulates our entire life, not just our outward life, but it reaches into our inward life as well, just as much as the outward in the sight of God. And so this is why Jesus in his Sermon on the Mount and in the New Testament could really declare that the Ten Commandments were about heart motives in addition to outward actions. You see, he didn't raise the standard of the law higher as we might hear taught. He was simply interpreting the law through the Tenth Commandment's regulation of our inner motives and our inner desires. And so really, in other words, he was interpreting the law the way God originally intended it to be interpreted. And the Heidelberg Catechism tells us that God's will for us in the Tenth Commandment is that not even the slightest thought or the slightest desire contrary to any one of God's commandments should ever arise in my heart. Rather, with all my heart I should always hate sin and take pleasure in whatever is right. So let's think about the implications tonight of the Tenth Commandment for our lives. What does it teach us? The Tenth Commandment, it teaches us to not sinfully desire the things that we don't have, and ultimately it teaches us to find all our contentment in Jesus Christ. So let's think about this commandment in three ways. First, thinking about Israel's command to be content. And secondly, Christ's perfect contentment and how he fulfilled this commandment in our place. And thirdly, we'll consider our command to be content. And so first of all, Israel's command to be content. And let's really begin by thinking about the horizontal or that man-to-man aspect of the 10th commandment here. What does it mean to covet? Well, it means simply to desire or to lust but it's not just wanting something as interpreters point out it's sinfully wanting something that doesn't belong to us it's a consuming a consuming desire to have what someone else has to have something that god has provided for them but has not provided for us and so the Israelites were not to desire to possess what belongs to their neighbor. So in the commandment, it gives us several examples of what we are not to covet. You shall not covet your neighbor's house. You shall not covet your neighbor's wife. You shall not covet his male or his female servants. You shall not covet his animals. This is a pretty extensive list here. And God, in his wise wisdom, He understands our fallen tendency to kind of mischievously look for loopholes. And so he adds, you shall not covet anything that belongs to your neighbor. And so that pretty much makes this commandment airtight. The 10th commandment forbids coveting anything, no matter how hard we might try to get around that. There is any kind of coveting is forbidden here. And when we lust after these things, it can and it really often does lead to violating the other commandments. And we think of King David as one example among many in the scriptures. And his coveting Bathsheba, you remember in 2 Samuel. His longing to have a woman that wasn't his wife led to his breaking the seventh commandment, committing adultery with her. And his unholy desire to have what didn't belong to him led him to break the Eighth Commandment as well by stealing another man's wife from him. And all of this then led to him breaking the Sixth Commandment by having Bathsheba's husband, you remember, Uriah the Hittite, murdered on the battlefield. I mean, when you think about the heinousness of these things, what a terrible chain of events that King David ushered in. And this really is the kind of thing that coveting leads to if left unchecked. And so we can learn from this that one sinful inward desire for something that God has not provided for David led to his breaking of many commandments. And so the Israelites were not to covet anything that belonged to their neighbor. And at the end of the day, the Tenth Commandment targets our heart's motives. So now let's spend just a few minutes examining that vertical aspect of man to God or God to man dimension of this commandment. You see, God promised to give the Israelites the land of Canaan, the earthly land of Canaan. And he promised to provide for them everything that they had need of. While they were in the wilderness heading toward Canaan, you remember that God provided daily food for them, for the manna that he had given them, and that he also provided that pillar of cloud by day for direction to follow and to provide shade for. And also that pillar of fire by night for direction to follow and also to provide warmth for them. So God was taking care of all of their needs as they were making their way to the promised land of Canaan. And in Numbers 26, we learn also that God had promised to give each of the 12 tribes of Israel a portion of the land. They would all have a place to live in the land. And this land often was described as that land overflowing with milk and honey. It was a good land, as Exodus 3, verse 7 and 8 says, Then the Lord said to Moses, I have surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters. I know their suffering, and I have come down to deliver them out of the land of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land to a good and broad land, A land flowing with milk and honey. And later on in Ezekiel chapter 20, God calls that promised land flowing with milk and honey the most glorious of all lands. So the Israelites would have everything they needed in this world by trusting in God's provision for them. And so he had promised to take care of all of their needs. And if the Israelites, if they acknowledged these things as coming from God's goodness to them, they would have no need to long for what others around them had. When they saw what others had and realized that those blessings were given to them by God, they were supposed to appreciate that God had blessed them as well, even as he promised them to do, even as he promised to do that for them. So this is how they were to live. They were to live remembering that God had always taken care of their needs. They were to be content, in other words, with what God had provided for them, not coveting anything from their neighbor. And so it's been said that another helpful way to think about what coveting is, is that it's wanting something in such a way that causes us to be discontent. It causes us to be unhappy with what God has given us now in this life. And so the purpose of this commandment, it was also to teach the Israelites that their life in this world, it wasn't lasting, that it was only momentary. You see, the promised land, it foreshadowed something to them. It foreshadowed to them the promised land of heaven. And while on earth they were not to to covet and lust after earthly possessions ultimately though temporary earthly things pale in comparison to that enduring promised inheritance of heaven led away to god's people and so they were to be like abraham their forefather as hebrews 11 says that by faith abraham went to live in the promised land as in a foreign land living in tents with isaac and And Jacob errs with him of the same promise. For he was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God. He's looking forward to heaven. He's looking forward to his eternal inheritance. And so the Israelites were to set their lasting gaze on that earthly, on what the earthly promised land pointed them to. to the eternal promised land of heaven. And so they were to be content in the meantime with all of God's rich provisions that he's given to them. And so they were to keep their eye on the life to come, the greater life to come. And so this kind of contentment in God and resting all our desires on his promises of heaven really is the true essence of the 10th commandment. But let's think about now for a little while here how christ has fulfilled the 10th commandment for his people because he never coveted and he perfectly was content with god provided for him all the days of his life and that's our second point tonight christ's perfect contentment and it's wonderful really to think about how good our god is in giving us christ you see it's it's good and necessary for us to not only see god's perfect holiness not only see God's perfect righteousness that's revealed to us in the ten commandments and also to see our sinfulness in light of them but it's also good it's also necessary for us to see the perfection of Christ in them as well because he obeyed them in our place which we were unable to do for ourselves and see and that's the good news of Jesus Christ he has done what we could not do. And we get to really see how great our Savior is when we, in this right way, meditate upon the law of God. Just as a bride wants to know everything about her husband because she's captivated by him, so too do we want to know everything about our husband because we're his pride we're the church and so he shed his blood for us how could we not want to search out and know him better from god's word in light of his great love for us and so if you read matthew chapter 11 or matthew chapter 4 verses 1 through 11 there you'll see you perhaps you remember that jesus was tested by the devil in the wilderness through those three temptations first to turn stones into bread and second to throw himself down from the temple and third to worship satan in order to receive this world's glories and in this wilderness testing that that took place that our lord underwent the devil put before our lord things for him to desire things for him to covet this was especially highlighted in that third temptation in matthew 4 again the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. And he said to him, all these I will give you if you will fall down and worship me. You see, Jesus in that temptation was tempted to desire something that God had not given him to have during his lifetime on the earth. Thankfully, this wasn't something that was appealing to Jesus, and he rebuked the devil, you remember. Then Jesus said to him, Be gone, Satan, for it's written, You shall worship the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve. You see, Jesus did not want what didn't belong to him. He didn't want it. He didn't covet. You see, Jesus set his eyes on his reward in heaven, and he didn't covet after the things of this world. He stayed fixed on contentment in the will of God for his life and in God's provision for his life. You see, he knew that it was God's will for him to suffer in this life and even die a heinous death on the cross for his people and for his sins. the sins of the people before he would receive glory. Suffering now, glory later was his mission. And even amongst his most darkest moments on the earth, most darkest moments of suffering, he still entirely entrusted his life to the will of God. Even as he was contemplating the awful crucifixion that was ahead of him, He prayed, O my Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass for me. Nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will. You see, Jesus understood that God had promised him glory in heaven, in that great covenant of redemption before time, if he would suffer and die for his people first. And so he humbled himself. And he became obedient to the point of death, even to the point of death on the cross. And he endured the cross for us for the joy that was set before him, knowing that afterward he would receive what God had promised him, the glory, exaltation to his right hand, and that he would receive that name that is above every name. And so Jesus, he didn't covet earthly things because his eyes were set on things above, on heavenly things. So when we consider the tenth commandment of you shall not covet, we should not only see within it that it forbids coveting, but we should also be reminded of Christ's contentment in God's will for his life and his setting of his mind on heavenly things, not earthly things, and that he did this in our place because we've been ourselves discontent constantly in our lives. So when we covet and break this commandment, these are the things that are good for us to remember. With gratitude, even as we confess our sin before God, Christ actively obeyed this commandment in your place. And his act of obedience has freely been granted and imputed to your account in the sight of God, not by any of your perceived obedience or righteousness, but simply and only by faith. in what Christ has done. So by the cross and by the empty tomb, all your sin has been exchanged for all of Christ's righteousness, so much so that as Christ was crucified under the judgment of God on the cross, he was considered to be the greatest coveter that ever lived. Because all our heinous covetousness was placed upon him. But thankfully, all his righteousness was given to us. So praise the Lord, Lord. I mean, that is good news. And that's what the resurrection of Jesus Christ proclaims to us today, that God has accepted Christ's sacrifice in your place because you are a horrible coveter, and so am I. But Christ has taken it upon himself. And he's been raised, and God has accepted that sacrifice. And so Christ perfectly avoided covetousness and his resting content in the will of his heavenly father. It should also be mirrored by us who are being renewed in his image by the Holy Spirit. And that brings us to our third point tonight, our command to be content. You see, we find in the New Testament that the moral will of God in the 10th commandment, it still applies to us. Just to name a few places where we find this command in Ephesians 5, verse 3 and verse 5. But sexual immorality and all impurity or covetousness must not even be named among you as is proper among saints. For you may be sure of this, that everyone who is sexually immoral or impure or who is covetous, that is an idolater, has no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God. And then also Colossians 3, verse 5, it says, put to death therefore what is earthly in you, sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. tree. And so this command is still binding upon us today as God's people. But what are some ways that we break this commandment? Now, that might be kind of a sort of a sick consideration automatically just to begin to think about how we break it. Well, we've got to really understand that we break it. And so we really must know that bad news before we can really even more so appreciate the good news of Christ. But before we go too far here on this, I want to reiterate something, even as we're about to, like, really dive into our belly button and pull out some gross lint here. Before we do that, I really want to reiterate something briefly here, though, as we probe into our covetousness. You see, not all things that we desire are bad, and I think it's really important for us to recognize that. We desire food when we're hungry, don't we? We desire to love and we desire to be loved in healthy relationships. That's not necessarily in and of itself a bad thing. We desire community. We desire fellowship. We desire to have things that make our lives easier and comfortable. Those are not necessarily in and of themselves covetous when we desire those things. And the problem comes, though, when we desire these types of things in the world sinfully in such a way that we think that we can't be happy, that we think that we can't be content in this life without them. See, that's the key. It's when we begin to think that we can't live content in the will of god without something that is when we cross over to that line i'll cross over that line of this rule and covet and we covet when we say in our hearts if only i had a bigger house you know you shall not covet your neighbor's house or if if only it looked clean like hers i'd feel a lot better about myself or we might covet in our hearts if we say, if only my lawn was as green as my neighbor's. We might think that those are sort of light and hearted sins, but they're not. We're guilty when we desire this way because God says, you shall not covet your neighbor's house. We do that, don't we? We covet what our neighbor has all the time and and we covet when we have thoughts like this whoa that woman is beautiful i wish my wife looked like that or or we would covet in our hearts when we say that guy he's so friendly and he's so happy all the time if only i had married someone like him we're guilty when we think this way because the commandment says you shall not covet your neighbor's wife. And children and young people, now you might be thinking that you might have been able to get away scot-free here and maybe sort of, you know, nudge your parents a little bit. But think about this here. How often maybe have you in your life maybe not said it outwardly but thought it in your heart or maybe even cried it out to the Lord? Why did God have to give me parents like mine? If only I had parents like so-and-so. Come on now, I know you've done that. My life would be so much better if I had parents like that friend down the road. You're a coveter too, just like the rest of us. You see, we're guilty when we think this way because you shall not covet anything, even parents, that belong to your neighbor. And Kevin DeYoung, he said it well, If you are frequently complaining about your house, your spouse, the quality or the quantity of your possessions, or the general state of your life, you're breaking the Tenth Commandment. Let me repeat that. I think it's well said. If you are frequently complaining about your house, your spouse, the quality or the quantity of your possessions, or the general state of your life, you are breaking the 10th commandment. Ouch, that hits home. I mean, really, when we consider these things, we realize that this law reveals that we're all guilty of coveting and being discontent in this life, and that we are sinful, even in our very thoughts. And then also in our actions that spring out of them. And so, loved ones, I encourage you, in the name and love of God tonight, to confess your covetousness, whatever it might be. Confess your covetousness. Confess your sinful desires to have the things that don't belong to you. Confess your discontentment with the will of God for your life. Confess these sins to God tonight, even right now. And through faith, look away. Look away from your sin. Look away from your awful covetousness. Look away from your life and look to Jesus Christ for the forgiveness that you need. Find all your rest and contentment in him, loved ones. Because remember that he came for you. He came and he placed himself under this commandment. And he lived it out perfectly in your place. And he did so by being content with his Father's will for his life. And by treasuring heaven more than any earthly possessions. And remember that he then offered himself up in your place to the curse of God that was against you. It was for your covetousness and all your other sins that the Lord Jesus Christ laid down his life freely offering himself as a sin sacrifice in your place. Receiving all the judgment of God that you deserve. All the wrath and fury of God that was against you, Jesus, took upon himself. Thankfully, though, after he died, the third day, he rose again from the grave, which proves that God accepts his sacrifice. And if you trust in Jesus for the forgiveness of all your sins, that God accepts you in him also. Thank God. Thank God, loved ones, for that good news. And, loved ones, since he has so graciously reached down and purchased you from your sins and all your misery, don't live in covetousness any longer. Instead, loved ones, with a thankful heart, let your conduct be without covetousness, as Hebrews 13 says, be content with such things as you have. In light of the mercies of God, do this. And, loved ones, don't lay up treasures on earth, as Jesus said, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven where neither rust nor moth can destroy them and where robbers cannot steal them from you. And in God's grace, trust him to take care of what you need in this life. Now, I know that some of you, perhaps many of you, are going through very difficult, confusing circumstances in your life. And you don't understand what God is doing. And you might feel that temptation to just grumble against the Lord for bringing this upon you, not understanding it. And loved ones, confess that to the Lord and remember and ask Him to help you to be content in the will of God, knowing that your greatest need has been taken care of, the forgiveness of your sins, and that you have Christ's righteousness so that you will stand on the day of judgment and be raised to glory. And inherit what God has prepared for you from the beginning of time. And so don't lay up treasures on earth. Lay them in heaven. And trust that God will take care of your needs even in the midst of your crazy circumstances that you just don't understand. Set your eyes on heaven. And be content. Be content with what he has given to you now. That's the will of God for your life tonight and for the rest of your life. Trust in his providence. Loved ones, for godliness, the word of God says, with contentment is great gain. So in conclusion, think about this. Ultimately, what else do we need other than the blood and righteousness of Jesus Christ and the hope of heaven? When you really boil it all down, what else do we need than that? Our Lord tells us seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and everything else will be added to you. And so as we patiently wait on God in faith with grateful and content hearts in this life, looking forward to our treasure in heaven, may we always, loved ones, be found praising the name of Jesus with the words of Psalm 73 and finding all our contentment in him. Whom have I in heaven but you? May that be on our lips as we make our pilgrim way to our inheritance in heaven. There is nothing else on earth that I desire but you, the psalmist says. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart. He is my portion forever. And may the Lord help us to make that our confession and our prayer and our praise to God. for the rest of our days. Amen. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, thank you for your word, and we thank you that in it we find how great and holy you are. We find how sinful we are as we consider this commandment to not covet. And we also hear how wonderful Christ our Savior is, having been content in your will in our place, not coveting anything earthly but setting his eyes on the hope of heaven we thank you for this good news of jesus christ and we do pray that you would help us to hate our sin help us to hate our covetousness and confess it to you and to turn away from it and to trust in your providence for our lives with grateful hearts and so lord may this be done for your glory all for your glory for we ask these things in jesus name amen