COVETOUSNESS REDEFINED

#299                                     COVETOUSNESS REDEFINED

Scripture  Exodus 20:17, Luke 12:13-21, NIV                                                      Orig. 8/21/1966

                                                                                                                             Rewr. 10/28/1984

Passage:

Exodus 20:17

17 “You shall not covet your neighbor’s house. You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his male or female servant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.”

Luke 12:13-21

13 Someone in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.”

14 Jesus replied, “Man, who appointed me a judge or an arbiter between you?” 15 Then he said to them, “Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; life does not consist in an abundance of possessions.”

16 And he told them this parable: “The ground of a certain rich man yielded an abundant harvest. 17 He thought to himself, ‘What shall I do? I have no place to store my crops.’

18 “Then he said, ‘This is what I’ll do. I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store my surplus grain. 19 And I’ll say to myself, “You have plenty of grain laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry.”’

20 “But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?’

21 “This is how it will be with whoever stores up things for themselves but is not rich toward God.”

Purpose: To conclude a series of messages on The Ten Commandments, this one redefining a positive thrust to “desire for” what is good.

Keywords:      Covetousness             Holy Spirit Gifts        Series, Ten Commandments

Timeline/Series:         Sequential

Introduction

            I stood one day looking upon a woodland scene that is etched still upon my memory.  The characters in the drama in miniature that unfolded before  my eyes that day were a colony of ants.  They were busy about those things that seem almost mechanical with such creatures.  I was reminded then and now of that passage from The Book of Proverbs (Proverbs 30:25), “The ants are a people not strong, yet they prepare their meat in the summer.” 

            As I watched the busy activity at my feet that day, I wondered  how many hundreds were passing under my gaze, and how many thousands of others that I could not see, all of which had one common goal.  They were moving with unhurried pace, toward or away from the place that was their single destination.  There was one sure sign of where home was.  It was noted by the direction of those laboring under a burden.

            I was fascinated by the trail over which they travelled.  The woodland carpet had been worn nearly three quarters of an inch deep by their busy feet.  Here was evidence of insatiable desire for food.  Not by the wildest stretch of one’s imagination,  however, could this be called covetousness.

            Less than a mile away I had on numerous pastoral visits encountered another, though much larger, trail worn through a carpet of grass.  It was worn by a collie named Prince as he roamed inside a fenced yard, barking at and chasing everything that appeared to his searching eye.  That unreasoned longing more closely defines what God’s Word speaks of as covetousness.

I.          A Negative Notification.  V17, “Ye shall not covet your neighbor’s house; ye shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox,  nor his donkey, nor anything that is your neighbor’s.”

1.      The command first speaks of property.

a.       Note that this command takes a direction that the others do not.  It is self-limited. 

b.      The word “covet” means “inordinate desire.”

c.       Eve—“Do not eat”—Satan challenged her at the point that God was saving the good one for Himself.  She looked, she lingered, she longed, she listened, she lost.

d.      Lot—While Abram built an altar, Lot (Genesis 13:12) was said to be “pitching his tent toward Sodom.”

2.      The command secondly speaks of coveting the person of another.

a.       It speaks as the 7th, at the point of sensual desire.  Jesus enlarges on this to remind us that such begins with a look.

b.      We remember well the story of David.  I Samuel 17—a man of greatness—through II Samuel 10,  II Samuel 11—obituary—“From the roof he saw” his sin, death of Uriah, encounter with Nathan, the child’s death, Absalom’s rebellion.

c.       This also speaks, as the 8th, at the point of personal gain.  Recall Laban—When Abram’s servant went to find a wife for Isaac, Laban “saw the earrings and bracelets that had been given to Rebecca and he went to fetch the man.”

II.         A Positive Promise. Luke 12:31, “Seek the Kingdom of God, and all these things will be added unto you.”  I Corinthians 12:31, “Covet earnestly the best gifts, and yet I show you a more excellent way.”

1.      It is the positive promise of a job to be done, a task to be accomplished.

a.       Every person should have free and equal access to labor.  The biggest problem facing the next President is jobs.  Louisiana has unemployment from 4% to 14%.  The chief concern of governors, legislators, and police juries ought to be jobs.  God to Adam “by the sweat of your brow you will earn your bread.”  Proverbs 30:25, “The ants are a people not strong.  Yet they prepare their meat in the summer.”

b.      Any sin of coveting here, is in coveting not to work.

c.       It is certainly not a sin to covet a place of responsibility in your church.  The best performance of tasks is always by people who desire those tasks.

2.      It is the positive promise of family.

a.       Can there be higher or nobler thinking than to COVET family.  Two people in committed love.  A thousand when God’s love sustains. 

b.      We are told that there was a tribe in New Mexico  who had no word in their language for love.  Translators struggled with John 3:16.  Nearest word was similar to “heartburn.”  “God so hurt in His heart.”

3.      The positive promise of a faith to share.

a.       The teaching of Jesus is clear.  “Blessed are they who do hunger and thirst after righteousness for they shall be filled.”  This is uncommon desire.  But it is not inordinate.  In John 6:27 Jesus told a parable of a pearl of great price.  “When he found one pearl of great price, he went and sold all that he had, and bought it.”  Such covetousness is allowed.  Nay, rather, it is expected and demanded.

b.      The teachings of God’s Word contain no other message.  I Corinthians 12:31 “Covet the best gifts.”  I Corinthians 14:39, “Covet to prophesy.”  Psalm 51, “A broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise.

Conclusion

            Tell the story from childhood of desire to have as Fuller Callaway, III, had.  Call attention to the fact that while still a young man, having lived his life in luxury, [he died a suicide].