10 Ten Commandments

Happy Sunday. We finally made it to the 10th Commandment. Thank you for joining with me through this series. Exodus 20:17 tells us, "You shall not covet your neighbor's house.

You shall not covet your neighbor's wife, male or female slave or ox or donkey or anything that belongs to your neighbor." There are several places we could go in the Bible to show examples of people coveting. There's a story in 1 Kings chapter 21 that comes to mind. If you want to read it, it's found in the first 16 verses.

Around 870 BC, Israel was ruled by a wicked king and queen named Ahab and Jezebel. Next to their palace, there was a beautiful vineyard owned by a man named Naboth. Ahab wanted the vineyard. He told Naboth that he would like to buy his land or make a trade for other land.

Naboth refused. He had good reason. His land had been in his family for generations and he was forbidden to sell it. King Ahab was furious.

He went home to the palace and had a pity party. He was so mad he wouldn't eat and he went to bed mad and his wife Jezebel asked, "What's wrong?" He told her the story and she said, "Don't worry, I'll take care of it." Take care of it she did.

She planned a meeting and invited all the town leaders and officials and invited Naboth and put him in a place of prominence and she hired false witnesses to tell the gathering that Naboth had cursed God and the king. The infuriated crowd took Naboth out and he was an innocent man but they stoned him to death. When it was all over Jezebel told her husband that he could have the land. Coveting led to false witness and to murder in this story.

There often stories on the news about this sin. Perhaps you remember the story from the ice skating world of Nancy Kerrigan and Tonya Harding. It was 1994 and Nancy Kerrigan was the darling of the ice skating world. Tonya Harding, another skater, was jealous and coveted Kerrigan's position.

And as the story goes, Tonya Harding hired a man to hit Nancy Kerrigan in the knees with a weapon to end her skating career. It was a mess, it was all over the news and it was all because of coveting. In Texas a few years back a mother of a junior high daughter wanted her daughter to make the cheerleading squad so bad that she hired a hit man to kill the mother of another student so that her daughter would be too distraught to make the cheerleading squad. Stories abound.

James 4:2 tells us a truth when it says, "You want something and do not have it, so you commit murder. And you covet something and cannot obtain it, so you engage in disputes and conflicts." The verse ends by saying, "You do not have because you do not ask." James 4:2 tells us the problem and offers the cure for coveting.

The last part, "You do not have because you do not ask," is talking about prayer and it lets us know that coveting is a spiritual problem. If King Ahab had prayed about it he would not have had such evil inclinations. Had Tonya Harding prayed, she would have realized her sin and none of that would have happened. Coveting is forbidden by God because it sets our hearts on things of this earth rather on things that are in heaven.

I love this example of from the life of John the Baptist. When Jesus was beginning his public ministry, the crowds that had been following John started to follow Jesus instead. One of John's disciples came to John and asked if he was upset that his fame was in danger. I love what John said.

It's found in John 3:30. John said about Jesus, "He must increase. I must decrease." That's a great attitude.

The other commandments deal about actions, but this one is about attitude. After all, our actions our attitudes lead to our actions, don't they? Over the past few weeks, we have turned these commands to the positive. Thou shalt not covet becomes be content with what you have and be happy for your neighbor.

Once upon a time, there was a man that lived in a small hut with his wife and two children and his parents. The noise and the mess and the crowded conditions really bothered him. He went to the wisest man in the village and asked him for help. The wise man said, "Do you have a rooster?"

The man said, "Yes." The wise man told him to bring his rooster inside and come back in a week. The man did just that. After a week of living with the rooster, the man came back to the wise man and told him things were worse, not better.

Now there was more mess and more noise. The wise man asked, "Do you have a cow?" The man said, "I do." The wise man said, "Bring him inside, too."

So, the man followed his advice, and for a week he lived with his wife and two kids and his parents and a rooster and a cow. Over the following weeks the man followed the advice of the wise man and in that time he brought in two dogs and three cats and his brother's children. Finally he couldn't stand it any longer and he kicked out all the animals and the guest leaving only his wife and his two kids and his parents. The home suddenly to him became quiet and spacious and everyone lived happily ever after.

I tell you this story because a cure for coveting is to be content. If I'm happy with my circumstances I will not covet someone else's. We need to learn to be happy. I've often said that one thing we do is that we look at those who have more than us and that can make us covet.

What we should do is look at those who have less. Often that can make us thankful and even generous. Let's pray together. Father help us to be content.

Help things not to be the apples of our eye, the things that are most important to us. Help you to be most important to us. Help us to be happy for our neighbors and our friends and our family and for ourselves with where we are and what we do. Father help us to be givers and not takers in this world that needs givers so much.

In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. God bless you.