The Tenth Commandment
opening song: Christ the lord is risen today (vs 2 & chorus)
Call to worship:
pastor andrew loginow
Ephesians 1.3-14
song: Come praise & glorify
Historical reading:
pastor bobby owens
Westminster Shorter Cathechism Q&As 80-81
song: christ or else I die
Confession & Pardon (w/ 10 Commandments):
pastor michael champoux
song:
Doxology
song:
Jesus is better
Sermon:
dr. alex loginow
The 10th Commandment
Exodus 20.17
Introduction
I wonder if you can identify with how I felt. As a kid every Christmas was filled with anticipation. I love Christmas now and I loved Christmas then. When I was a kid Christmas was filled with many of the traditions that still occupy our time every December: Christmas movies, Christmas carols, Christmas treats, Christmas parties, etc. But when I was a kid the main focus for me was on the presents Christmas morning.
I want to preface this by noting for the record that my parents never made Christmas about presents more than the incarnation of Jesus; they always pointed us to Christ and taught us the importance of the birth of the Son of God. I also want to note, and I can’t say this for sure, but as memory serves, I think my parents, for the most part, always got me what I wanted most for Christmas. But every year I would come to the end of the day thinking and feeling on the inside, “is that it?” There was so much anticipation that never seemed to deliver.
I didn’t know how to think through this as a child but looking back I can see that I thought I would be fulfilled with my Christmas gifts, or birthday gifts, or whatever, but they never fully satisfied the way I assumed they would. Regardless of what culture one lives in, the fallen heart is prone to wander, but it is even easier in our modern Western culture of consumerism that tells us we can buy our happiness. John Mayer wrote a song called, “Something’s Missing,” in which he summarizes the angst our hearts experience when we look to things we don’t have to fulfill us. Listen to these lyrics:
“I’m not alone, I wish I was. Cause then I’d know I was down because I couldn’t find a friend around to love me like they do right now. I’m dizzy from the shopping malls, I search for joy but I bought it all. Something’s missing and I don’t know how to fix it. How come everything I think I need always comes w/ batteries?”
Because our hearts are idol factories we have a sinful propensity to believe that people or stuff, like money, cars, homes, jobs, toys, degrees, or anything else can satisfy us. And it is in the face of our consumeristic culture and our idolatrous hearts that the final commandment declares: you shall not covet. The 10th Commandment addresses our heart’s desires and how these desires can only be satisfied in the gospel. The 10th Commandment reveals that the Kingdom of Christ is filled with people who are satisfied in Jesus.
The 10th Commandment
But that is not where each of us starts. Our natural fallen inclination is to covet and that’s why God has to tell us not to covet. God commands us not to covet anything that is our neighbor’s. The word translated covet is the Hebrew word, חָמֵד. The Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew Lexicon, which is the best Hebrew lexicon, defines חָמֵד. as, “desire: a. in bad sense of inordinate, ungoverned, selfish desire.” In the 10th word we are commanded not to desire, not to take pleasure in, something or someone that is not our own.
In this way the 10th Commandment is different than the 9 others because the 10th Commandment does not govern external actions but internal attitudes. The 10th Commandment regulates how we think or feel about that which does is not rightfully ours. And the prohibition to covet ends the Decalogue because it catches all the others. Just like the 1st Commandment covers all the others – in other words, if you break any commandment, 2-10, you’re also breaking the 1st Commandment – in the same way the 10th Commandment catches all of the others. Breaking all commandments is a violation of the 1st Commandment and breaking all commandments are encompassed in the 10th.
When you break any one of the commandments you are putting other gods before the one true God. Breaking any one of the commandments is to practice idolatry. And breaking any commandment stems from a discontent heart. Long before you’re breaking the 8th Commandment of stealing, you’re coveting that item. Long before you’re committing adultery, you’re coveting that person who is not your spouse. Sin is in your heart long before it is in your hands.
Talking about the 10th Commandment may feel strange to some of us because the word coveting is not used much in our vocabulary today. Much like the word adultery, it may feel puritanical, patriarchal, archaic, and obsolete to us. How many parents are teaching their kids not to covet? It’s difficult because coveting can’t truly be policed. Unless you vocalize your coveting, no one knows whether you’re coveting or not.
But God knows. The only one who sees the heart is God. But because coveting hides in the heart, we sometimes treat coveting as a “respectable sin” in the church. But that’s not how God feels. Coveting is rebellion against God and an affront to his holiness.
Coveting like every other sin is rooted in our pride. When we covet we think we deserve more or better than our neighbor. When we covet we think we ought to be God. When we covet we think we know better than God does about what we have. And the fruit of the sin of coveting is bitterness, jealousy, and idolatry.
Coveting is the fuel of our American consumeristic culture. We are constantly being sold the idea that we can buy our happiness. You buy a new iPhone and 2 weeks later there’s an even newer one out and your old one stops working. And it’s never satisfying. Let me ask you this question: how much money is enough money? How much money do you think you need to feel satisfied, like it’s enough; you don’t need any more money?
A reporter once asked John Rockefeller how much money it takes to be satisfied and he said, “one more dollar.” Jim Carrey once said, “I wish everyone in the world could have everything they’ve ever wanted so that they could see that it’s still not enough.” Chip Kelly is the head football coach at UCLA; he tells the story of traveling to Africa and visiting villages where people had nothing at all and how he was struck that these people were the most content people he’s ever met in his life.
God commands us against coveting because it is antithetical to his character but he also warns us against coveting because coveting, especially the lust for wealth, will kill your soul. 1st Timothy 1.6 says, for the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils. It is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pangs. Jesus said it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God (Luke 18.25). Coveting kills us because we think we will be satisfied and satisfaction never comes. The problem with trying to keep up with the Jones’ is that they’re always a step ahead.
And the truth is that when we are confronted with the 10th Commandment, we’re all guilty of coveting. We have all looked at something or someone that isn’t ours and we have wanted it because we have believed that we will be happier, we will be more satisfied, if we had it. We are all guilty of breaking God’s law. We have all sinned; we have all missed the mark of God’s holiness with our coveting. The bad news is because of our sin we all justly deserve eternal conscious punishment in hell.
Jesus Followed and Fulfilled the 10th Commandment
But there is good news. The good news is that the Lord Jesus both followed and fulfilled the 10th Commandment on our behalf. Jesus followed the 10th Commandment. Jesus never broke the 10th Commandment. Jesus never coveted.
Jesus obeyed the 10th Commandment (and every other command in God’s law), thus proving Jesus is the fulfillment of the 10th Commandment. Jesus is God incarnate; he is the eternal 2nd person of the holy Trinity who became flesh and dwelt among us (John 1.14). And in his incarnation and in his humiliation Jesus Christ not only abstained from coveting but also Jesus gave up that which was rightfully his so that we might inherit every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places (Eph 1.3). On the night when Jesus was betrayed he prayed to his Father not my will but yours be done (Luke 22.42).
And Jesus experienced the ultimate loss when he died on the cross to pay the penalty for the sins of his people. On the cross God the Father poured out his just wrath on Jesus for all of the sins, for all of the coveting, of the elect. Even though Jesus experienced death to fulfill the curse of the garden, death could not keep Jesus because Jesus never sinned. Death had no authority over Jesus because he was righteous so on the 3rd day the Lord Jesus Christ walked out of the tomb resurrected from the dead.
Listen to me; your heart will never be satisfied with anyone or anything other than Jesus. Question 1 of the Westminster Shorter Catechism says that we were created to glorify God and enjoy him forever. Because of your sin you glorify everything but God and seek enjoyment in everything but God. Jesus is the only one who can give you true and final satisfaction because Jesus is the only way back to the reason we were created – to glorify and enjoy God.
What you must do is repent of your sin and believe the gospel. To repent means to turn from your sin and toward Christ. It means to stop looking to anyone or anything other than Christ to satisfy your soul. To believe means to place your faith in Jesus alone. Faith is comprised of knowledge, assent, and trust.
That means to have faith in Jesus means to know who Jesus is and what Jesus did. If you have been listening to this sermon, you have all of the info you need about Jesus, but knowledge is not enough. You must also assent to the facts about Jesus; you must actually believe these facts about Jesus are true. And finally you must transfer your trust to Jesus alone. That means if you were to die today and stand before God and God were to ask you why he should forgive your sins and grant you eternal life, your only answer must be, “All I have is Jesus. He lived for me; he died for me; he rose for me. My trust is in Jesus.”
The 10th Commandment and the Church
And when God gives you the gift of faith, you are satisfied in Jesus. The Kingdom of Christ is filled with people who are satisfied in Jesus. This is true for a couple of reasons we see in Scripture. First, the Kingdom of Christ is filled with people who are satisfied in Jesus because God is sovereign. Christians should be the most content people in the world because we understand that God is meticulously sovereign over every atom, over every second of history. God is the author of every single thing that has ever happened in history.
That means we must be content wherever we are because God is sovereign and because in Christ God loves us more than we even know. That means wherever you are in your life right now – with your marriage, with your family, with your church, with your job – wherever you are in life right now, God has you here for a reason. God has you where you are right now for his glory and for your good. And not just your present good but also your future good. Dr. Russell Moore said, “Your work now is an internship for your royal vocation in the eschaton.” To paraphrase C.S. Lewis, this life is but the introduction to the story of eternity where every chapter is better than the last.
We must be content because God is sovereign but second, we also must be content because Jesus is enough. The gospel reveals to us that in this life Jesus is all we truly have, but Jesus is all we truly need. There is nothing else in our life that is indispensible. Jesus commands us that we must love him so much, that we must be so loyal to him, that our love for our own family and our loyalty to our family looks like hate compared to our love for and loyalty to him. Matthew 10.37-39 says:
Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. 38 And whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. 39 Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.
That’s true not only because Christ is owed our ultimate allegiance (though that is true) but also because Jesus is the only one who will never leave us or forsake us. If we seek our deepest satisfaction in other people we will be disappointed. I don’t have to tell you that. Like me, you’ve lost a parent, or you’ve lost a spouse, or you’ve lost a child, or you lost all your savings, or your house, or a job, or anything else. You can’t lose Jesus. By his Spirit, by his Word, by his sacraments, Jesus is with us always until the end of the age (Matt 28.20). It is only in Christ that we can lose everything like Job and still say, “The LORD gives and the LORD takes away; blessed be the name of the LORD (Job 1.21).”
Our problem is not that we aren’t spiritually content enough; no, the problem is that we’re too spiritually content. We live for money, homes, cars, jobs, etc. and that’s small potatoes. Church, in Christ, we have been blessed with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places. We become infatuated with these tools that God has given us to use for his glory and we miss the glorious one. C.S Lewis once again paints the perfect word picture in The Weight of Glory. Lewis wrote,
“It would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.”
The gospel reveals to us that our desires our good but they’re only met in the Lord Jesus Christ. Life is not about abandoning our desire like Buddhism teaches. God gave our desires to us, but God made us in such a way that our satisfaction could only be met in Jesus. Because that’s true there are things we should covet. Ed Clowney said, “We ought to covet Christ’s work among the nations and we ought to covet Jesus’ 2nd coming to make all things new.”
Jesus taught us to pray, “Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven” That petition of the Lord’s Prayer was inaugurated by the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus and will be consummated when Jesus returns to raise the dead, judge the world, and make all things new. And the only one who can get us there is Jesus. Jesus is our reward. Jesus is our treasure and by faith we have Jesus. “Jesus is better; make our hearts believe.”
As we conclude this little series on the 10 Commandments we are reminded that these words were given to Israel millennia ago but these same words still speak to the church in 2023. The Law reveals God’s glory and our sin. In Romans 7.7 Paul wrote, “For I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, ‘You shall not covet.’” Jesus not only keeps the commands, but Jesus fulfills these commands and in Christ we meet God’s righteous demand. The 10 Commandments shape our lives and our church and we must never forget them but we must always remember them in the context of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Conclusion
The Kingdom of Christ is filled with people who are satisfied in Jesus. We started the sermon with the lyrics from John Mayer’s song, “Something’s Missing.” John Mayer says that he has everything he can ever want and ever need and yet, something’s missing. I know what John Mayer is missing; it’s the same thing you and I need. We were created to glorify God and enjoy him forever and the only way we can do that is through faith in Jesus Christ. We started with song lyrics and we will end this morning with song lyrics. This time from a song by Andrew Peterson entitled, “All You’ll Ever Need.” Listen to Andrew Peterson’s answer to John Mayer’s question of why his stuff won’t satisfy him and the only thing that can satisfy him:
The blood of Jesus, it is like the widow's oil
It's enough to pay the price to set you free
It can fill up every jar and every heart that ever beat
When it's all you have, it's all you'll ever need
The blood of Jesus, it is like the leper's river
Running humble with a power you cannot see
Seven times go under, let the water wash you clean
Only go down to the Jordan and believe
And I need it, I need it
The closer that I grow
The more I come to know how much I need it
The blood of Jesus, it is like Elijah's fire
Falling on the alter of your faith
All the wisdom of the world could never conjure up a spark
But no power of Hell could ever quench this flame