Intro…
Welcome to the Cornerstone Baptist church podcast. My name is Justin Wheeler, I am the preaching pastor for Cornerstone and today we are in week 44 of our journey through the Heidelberg Catechism. Today, I will be talking to you about question 113-115.
This week our question deals with the tenth commandment, which reads:
Deuteronomy 5:21 ‘And you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife. And you shall not desire your neighbor’s house, his field, or his male servant, or his female servant, his ox, or his donkey, or anything that is your neighbor’s.’
“It is lawful to use the world and to desire as much of it as may keep us from poverty…but all the danger is when the world gets into the heart.” Thomas Watson[1]
There are two Greek words used in the NT to help us understand the nature of covetousness. The first is pleonexia and it means the state of always desiring to have more. It is greediness that has no end. It is a desire for more that is insatiable. No matter how rich this person becomes he always wants more. No matter how much food, land or pleasure this person has he always wants more.
The other term is philarguria which signifies an inordinate love of the world and especially money. It is the ravenous pursuit to be satisfied by the things of this world while never believing that what you have is enough. Like a sailor adrift at sea who begins to drink salt water to quench his thirst, the covetous person will continue to drink even though his thirst is never quenched and eventually his drinking will lead to death.
When these two words come together they teach us that covetousness is not simply a desire for more of what the world offers but also a love of the world itself. Like Watson said, the real danger is when the world gets into your heart.
Transition…
God’s prohibition against covetousness is about the idolatry of stuff. It is about loving and desiring what you don’t have and it causes us to overlook and be thankless for what we do have. Our questions this week are going to help us come to terms with the fact that whether we want to admit it or not, coveting is a problem for all of us and we need some help if we hope to live with the contentment in heart and life that God calls us to.
Lord’s Day Focus...
Question 113: What is God’s will for you in the tenth commandment?
Answer: That not even the slightest thought or 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.
Heidelberg answers the question by pointing out that covetousness is first and foremost, contrary to the commands of God. It is to desire what God forbids and therefore the prohibition against coveting is truly aimed at our being content with what God has revealed to us and how God has blessed us. If covetousness is the problem, contentment in Christ is the goal.
I think Jesus is trying to help us understand the connection between these two things in Luke 12: 15 where he said, “Take care, and be on your guard against all covetousness, for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.” Be on guard against all covetousness. Be on guard…it’s almost as if these things are going to sneak up on us and that is exactly what will happen.
We don’t naturally recognize that we have a problem we just desire things left and right. We know that covetousness and materialism are problems, but we never assume that they are a problem for us. When was the last time you confessed to coveting?
But then Jesus went on to say, “One’s life does not consist in the abundance of possessions.” This is materialism plain and simple. Materialism is the tendency to consider material possessions and physical comfort as more important than spiritual values. Materialism is an inordinate desire or dependence upon money and material things.
Jesus is referring to both covetousness and materialism here and when you put these two things together, you have a type of idolatry that is very powerful and I would argue that this has in many ways become the heartbeat of our culture.
Some time ago, I came across an article on Huffington post about how materialism is redefining the American Dream.
The American dream is becoming more and more materialistic. I guess it was always a bit materialistic, but when I look at America today, I see a nation obsessed with shopping and buying unnecessary products. Previously, people aspired to have a nice house in the suburbs with a couple of cars. Now, there is no end to the products that people want: the latest IPhone, expensive cars, designer bags--the list is endless. The American dream revolves around luxury goods for most people. As Ellen Goodman put it, "Normal is getting dressed in clothes that you buy for work and driving through traffic in a car that you are still paying for, in order to get to the job you need to pay for the clothes and the car, and the house you leave vacant all day so you can afford to live in it."
Shopping is not a problem on its own; It's the obsessive accumulation of unnecessary products, along with the hope that buying a Chanel bag will somehow make you happier that is problematic. The things that we own often end up owning us, and that's what I see around me.[2]
I would add that this has not simply become a way of life, but it has become the meaning of life for most Americans. The type of covetousness and materialism, which Jesus is warning us against, is the heartbeat of the culture that we live in.
When was the last time you thought about the covetousness in your heart? When was the last time you stopped to think about how easy it is to covet? The truth is we don’t often think about it, we just do it.
When driving down the road we see someone’s shiny new vehicle and the longing in our heart leaps into action and we think, “I wish I had a truck like that.” We go to have dinner at a friend’s house, and we see their new larger TV and we think, “I want a TV like that.” We begin to scroll through our Facebook feed, and we notice that an old friend is on a family vacation to Disney World and we think, “Why can’t I afford a vacation like them?” We catch a glimpse of our neighbors’ beautiful wife and think, “Why couldn’t I have married someone like her?”
Covetousness is a type of sin that blinds us to its own reality, and we convince ourselves that it is not a problem for us. That’s why Jesus tells us to be on guard against it.
Question 114: Can those converted to God obey these commandments perfectly?
Answer: No. In this life even the holiest have only a small beginning of this obedience. Nevertheless, with all seriousness of purpose, they do begin to live according to all, not only some, of God’s commandments.
Now that we’ve come to the final commandment, we need to do some hard thinking about what role these ten commands play in our lives as followers of Christ. We know that salvation is not the result of our works, it is not earned through moral conformity or personal merit. Salvation is a gift of God’s grace. God doesn’t love and accept us because we have made ourselves lovely and acceptable, He loves us and accepts us on the basis of what Jesus did for us on the cross.
We receive salvation by faith, by trusting in and believing the good news of Christ’s identity as the Son of God who lived a sinless life and died in the place of sinners as our substitute. He kept the law perfectly where we did not, indeed even now we cannot. But that doesn’t keep us from striving to live according to our Father’s commands.
We don’t obey the commandments in order to earn God’s forgiveness, but now that we have received the forgiveness of sins by faith, we strive to obey His commands out of gratitude.
Question 115: Why then does God so strictly enjoin upon us the Ten Commandments, since in this life no one can keep them?
Answer: First, so that the longer we live the more we may come to know our sinfulness and the more eagerly look to Christ for forgiveness of sins and righteousness. Second, so that, while praying to God for the grace of the Holy Spirit, we may never stop striving to be renewed more and more after God’s image, until after this life we reach our goal: perfection.
As we grow in our relationship with God through Christ two things happen, we will come to know and see and repent of our sin more and more, and we will strive to become more and more conformed to the image of Christ. This is the goal of our redemption. To live everyday, growing in the freedom that Christ has purchased for us and to become more and more like Jesus.
That is why these commandments still matter. They guide us to see that our greatest enemy in this life is our own sinful heart and they guide us to appreciate that the greatest gift we have is Jesus and what He accomplished for us on the cross. They guide us to see that God’s way is best and by the Spirit’s work in us, we learn to walk in this world on that narrow path that leads to life.
Thank you for joining me today to learn about the ninth commandment. Next week, our focus will shift to prayer and we will discuss what it is, how to do it and why we should. I hope you will join me for that discussion as we look at Lord’s Day 45 and question 116-119.
Conclusion…
If you want to learn more about Cornerstone Baptist church, you can find us online at Cornerstonewylie.org. You can follow us on Twitter or Instagram @cbcwylie. You can find us on Facebook at facebook.com/cornerstonewylie. You can also subscribe to this podcast on iTunes or google play to stay up to date on all the new content.
Thanks for listening.
[1] Thomas Watson The Ten Commandments (Pg. 174)
[2] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/shanzeh-khurram/is-the-american-dream-bec_b_2702164.html
