He looked. He looked. He looked. He wanted. He wanted. He wanted.

Transcription

1 I am not a monster. 1 P a g e Picture slide Those were the words of Ariel Castro to the judge as he was being sentenced this week for the abduction and 11 year imprisonment and abuse of 3 women in Cleveland. He looked. He looked. He looked. He wanted. He wanted. He wanted. He took. He took. He took. Is there a monster inside him? I say, there is. And, there is maybe a little of that monster inside of us all. The 10 th Commandment is meant to deal with it. We are talking about the 10 Commandments and we are up to #10. In the 10 th Commandment God says, Deuteronomy 5:21 You shall not covet your neighbor s wife. You shall not set your desire on your neighbor s house or land, his male or female servant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor. You shall not covet. Covet is not a word people use much today. It means to want or to desire something strongly. To set our desire on it. And, it implies that you want it enough to want to take it. You look. You want. You take. A powerful picture of coveting comes from the Lord of the Rings. Picture slide Who is this? Gollum is a character in the Lord of the Rings who is obsessed with a ring a ring of power. His obsession destroys him. He says things like: We wants it, we neeeeds it. Must have the precious. (His name for the ring.) They stole it from us. Sneaky little hobbitses. J.R.R. Tolkien, the author of the LOTR books was a Christian. And Gollum is meant to be a symbol of the coveting of man. Gollum is the epitome of what it means to covet something. He sees the precious. He wants the precious. He takes the precious.

2 Title slide In the Bible we find the 10 Commandments listed twice. 2 P a g e Once in the book of Exodus ch 20. This is when God gives Moses the commandments on stone tablets. Then they repeat in the book of Deuteronomy ch 5. Deuteronomy means second law. Moses repeats the laws of God for the people. He reminds them of the commandments God gave them. And he tells them to learn them and live them. One of the interesting things we find when we compare the two versions, is that Moses changes one of the words in the 10th commandment. In Exodus 20:17 God told Moses to tell the people: Exodus 20:17 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. But when Moses preaches these and retells the people these, he says: Deuteronomy 5:21 You shall not covet your neighbor s wife. You shall not set your desire on your neighbor s house or land, his male or female servant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor. The Hebrew word that is translated as covet is chamad (khä-mad) But when Moses is teaching the commandments to the people in Deut., he changes one of the chamads to ava (ä-väˊ) The English translators mark that change by using the expression set your desire on. From other places that ava is used in the Old Testament, we can know that ava means: to desire, covet, be greedy, crave, long for, or lust after. It seems as though Moses wants to make clear or intensify what God is saying. He adds a new word to explain. He wants the people and us to understand what God means. God does not want us to covet other people s relationships or possessions. He want us to not desire them. To not crave them. To not lust after them. To not long for them. Why? Does God want to ruin our fun? Does he want to take away the good things in life? No!

3 3 P a g e God makes these commandments because he loves us & cares for us. He only wants us to live in the way that will bring us all the most happiness and success and the least pain. Black slide God knows we have this engine inside to get things: things to eat, to love, to look at, to live in, to possess, to control. It is part of our will to live. It is necessary for survival. But, uncontrolled, it can become a... monster. This desire engine within causes wars. I want your land. I want your gold. I want your ships. And men covet and kill and take. This desire engine within destroys families. I want your wife. I want a better man. This desire engine within causes financial ruin. I want bigger. I want more. I want it now and I will pay later. And it causes an untold quantity of grief & unhappiness among us when we want, but we cannot have. But, because God loves us and cares for us, he addresses this desire problem inside us. He has already said in commandment 8, you shall not steal. But here because he loves us and he does not want us to be consumed by our desires and cravings, he says you should not even lustfully or greedily think about having them. Because if we don t, then we could be free from this monster. Jesus, in his retelling of the 10 Commandments in the Sermon on the Mount tells us not to worry about what we ll eat, drink, or wear. Pagans worry about these things, but we don t have to worry because God knows what we need and he will take care of us. Jesus also gives us the example of how he was tested by Satan in the wilderness. He was tempted with food, hunger, wealth, power, and glory. And Jesus was able to control his desires. But the best example of something positive about coveting that we can focus on as followers of Christ comes from the NT letter to the Philippians from the apostle Paul. Where he says...

4 4 P a g e Philippians 4:11-13 I am not saying this because I am in need, for I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. 12 I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. 13 I can do everything through Him who gives me strength. I submit that coveting and contentment are polar opposites. They are both about inner desire. But they are on opposite ends of the spectrum It may be that the cure or prevention for coveting... is contentment. So, in order to help us obey and live the commandment to not covet, I would like to encourage and exhort us toward contentment today with this passage from Paul in the New Testament. There are at least 3 things we can say about contentment from what God s Word says here. We ll call them: Moving from Coveting to Contentment: 1. THERE IS A SECRET OF CONTENTMENT Paul says, Philippians 4:12 I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation. Not everyone knows how to be content. It is not our natural state. The original word for content here is autarkes. It is a compound Greek word auto which means? Self. arkes which means: strong. It means: sufficient for one's self, strong enough or possessing enough to need no aid or support, independent of external circumstances. There is a kind of self-sufficiency that is sinful pride. Like, if I say, I don t need anybody. I choose to live my life on my own terms. But, that is not the kind of self-sufficiency that Paul is speaking of here. The idea in the Bible s word for content is that of a city that comes under siege and is cut off from all outside resources, yet has sufficient supplies within its walls to survive. Paul is saying that he had learned that he did not need any outside thing to make him happy.

5 5 P a g e He had found within himself an inexhaustible resource for every circumstance and situation. It is a secret. It is about finding strength within. It is about not depending or letting anything control you. Not drugs. Not alcohol. Not money. Not any person. Not food. Not sex. Not fear. Not the desire for anything. Knowing the secret of contentment is vitally important because the moment we become dependent upon the world and circumstances to give our life meaning, happiness, joy, and peace, we place ourselves in the hands of a fickle master Knowing the secret results in not relying upon one s substance. Knowing the secret causes one to become self-sufficient. Moving from Coveting to Contentment: 2. THE SECRET OF CONTENTMENT IS LEARNED Paul said, Philippians 4:11-12 I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances... I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation. What was Paul s teacher? His circumstances. His situations. His experiences. Contentment is not acquired by some holy zap. There is no shortcut to learning to be content. It is learned in the dust of the footsteps of our Savior. Follow Him. Obey Him. See Him provide. Find what really matters when you live for and trust Him. It is a holy habit. Paul said Philippians 4:11-12 I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. He said, I know how to have plenty... I know how to be full.

6 6 P a g e Most of us have no trouble with this part of the contentment curriculum. When everyone likes us and the money is coming in, we have little trouble being content. But God s curriculum for contentment isn t one-sided; it is well rounded. Paul also said, I know how to be in need and in want. One of these original words here implies, to make low, to humble, to humiliate. Most Christ followers aren t trampling over one another to sign up for lessons in humiliation, hunger, and suffering. But, if we would learn to experience true contentment, God says, these are helpful and may be necessary. John Bunyan, the author of Pilgrims Progress wrote: Be Content He that is down needs fear no fall, He that is low, no pride; He that is humble ever shall Have God to be his guide. I am content with what I have, Little be it or much; And, Lord, contentment still I crave, Because Thou savest such. Fullness to such a burden is That go on pilgrimage; Here little, and hereafter bliss, Is best from age to age. The world says we find contentment through increased possessions. God seeks to give us contentment through decreased desires. More accurately, God seeks to produce contentment in us by giving us a singular desire the desire for Him. That leads us to the last point Paul is making here. 3. THE SECRET OF CONTENTMENT IS CHRIST He says, Philippians 4:13 I can do everything through Him who gives me strength. The Amplified Bible translates this verse like this: Philippians 4:13 (Amplified) I have strength for all things in Christ Who empowers me I am ready for anything and equal to anything through Him Who infuses inner strength into me, [that is, I am self-sufficient in Christ s sufficiency].

7 7 P a g e I am self-sufficient in Christ s sufficiency is really the play-on-words idea Paul is trying to convey here. I am strong in myself, because Christ is strong in me. I am content, because Christ provides all I need. I can be content because I have faith that Christ can do everything He wants and I need in and through me. Paul had learned that when he had everything, it didn t add anything to him, because it paled in value when compared to Jesus. And when Paul had nothing, he learned that it didn t take anything from him, because Jesus was everything to him. How about you? How much does Jesus mean to you? Is He all you need? Is He your strength? Is He your sufficiency? Do you realize that He can be all you need? He can help you with the unsatisfiable wants. He can satisfy. He can help you with the longing heart. He can fill it. He can help you be self-strong and content whatever your circumstances or situation. It might be said that there are two kinds of Christians: those who are constantly wanting things from Christ and those who realize that they already possess all things in Christ. Once there was a wealthy man who owned a wonderful art collection worth millions of dollars. This man had one son that he loved very dearly and had hoped to leave his art collection to him upon his death. The son however, was killed during World War II. Since the man had no other living heir, he stipulated in his will that his art collection was to be auctioned off upon his death, but with the requirement that the portrait of his son be sold first. Eventually he died. On the day of the auction, people from around the world were there to bid on this priceless art collection. The man s lawyer stood and informed the people present of the stipulation put on the auction by his client. When the bidding was opened, no one bid on the portrait of the son, because they were waiting for the more valuable pieces to come on the auction block. However, there was a former friend of the owner in attendance, who had greatly loved the owner s son for many years.

8 8 P a g e He made the first and only bid on the portrait of the owner s son. Finally, the auctioneer said, Going, going, gone. Sold, to the man at the back of the room. The lawyer immediately stood up and said, Ladies and gentlemen, the auction is now closed. According to the terms of the will, whoever purchased the portrait of the owner s son is to receive the rest of the collection as well. Jesus is the secret of contentment. If you have the Son, you have it all. God has said, We shall not covet. Be content with your wife. Be content with your house and your land. Be content with your ox and your donkey today, I think that can mean either your car or your husband. Be content with the things you have Be content with what the Lord has given you. Be content in want. Be content in plenty. Be content in all circumstances and situations. Learn to be content. Make it a habit. Find the secret of inner strength. Be content because Christ is in you and You can do all things through Him who gives your strength. Let s pray. Pray for coveting problem. Pray for contentment problem. Pray for the 4 victims in Cleveland. Pray for all those held in slavery, especially those who live in the kind of hell that these women lived in. Pray for the monster.