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chapter 12, verses 13 through 21. Someone in the crowd said to him, teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me. But he said to him, man, who made me judge or arbiter over you? And he said to them, take care and be on your guard against all covetousness. For one's life does not consist in the abundance of one's possessions. And he told them a parable saying, the land of a rich man produced plentifully. And he thought to himself, what shall I do? For I have nowhere to store my crops. And he said, I will do this. I will tear down my barns and build larger ones, and I will store my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul, soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years. Relax, eat, drink, be merry. But God said to him, fool, this night your soul is required of you and the things you have prepared, whose will they be? So as the one who lays up treasure for himself, it is not rich towards God. Let's pray. Father, thank you for your word. And pray that you would open our hearts and minds in Jesus' name, amen. So we've come to the last commandment of the 10, which is you shall not covet your neighbor's house. You shall not covet your neighbor's wife, or his male servant, or his female servant, or his ox, or his donkey, or anything that is your neighbor's. You shall not covet anything that is your neighbor's. So what does it mean to covet? I think it's important to first understand what it isn't. Coveting isn't simply the desire for something legitimate. For instance, we see that we're not supposed to covet our neighbor's house, or his wife. Does that mean we're not supposed to desire a house, or even a nice house? Or when you go visit your neighbor, and they have a nice house, is it okay to say, boy, I'd really like to have a house like this? See, that's not coveting. What's coveting would be, I want this house. Or, suppose your neighbor has an excellent wife, or husband, whatever your definition of excellent might be. Is he or she honest, hardworking, kind, a good parent, physically attractive? Is it wrong for you to think, I would love to have a wife like Fred's? No. What's wrong is if you say, I want Fred's wife. Or, I would love to have a husband like Judy's husband. Is that wrong? No, it's wrong to say, I want Judy's husband. Wanting a wife is not coveting. In fact, the Scriptures tell us it's a good thing. Proverbs 18, 22 says, he who finds a wife finds a good thing, and obtains favor from the Lord. Proverbs 31 says, an excellent wife who can find. She is more precious than Jules. The heart of her husband trusts in her, and he will have no lack of gain. Another thing that coveting isn't, is it doesn't mean ambition. It's not wrong to desire to improve your lot in life. As long as you do so honestly, it's perfectly legitimate to desire to do your job well. Whatever it is, to do your job well, and to hope that you'll be rewarded for doing your job well. Paul said in Colossians 3, 23, 24, whatever you do, work hardily as to the Lord, and not for men, knowing that from the Lord, you'll receive the inheritance as your reward, you are serving the Lord Christ. In other words, you have a job, you wanna do it as best you can, or you're a student, and you want to study as best you can, and then, if you're rewarded, that's a good thing. But you will be rewarded by God for your hard work, whether you're rewarded by your employer or not. So coveting isn't simply the desire for good things that God has provided in this life. A home, a spouse, family, friends, a good job or career, or a good business. The Proverbs says, God, it is God who makes wealthy, and he adds no sorrow to it. So what does it mean to covet? Coveting means to have an inordinate desire for something that belongs to someone else. A house, a wife, anything that belongs to someone else. Moses says, your neighbor. So what does it mean? Well, the Apostle John wrote in his first epistle, in 1 John chapter two, do not love the things of the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. So what he's saying is, if you're putting something in the world first, the love of the Father isn't in you. He goes on to say, for all that is in the world, the desires of the flesh, the desires of the eyes, and pride and possessions is not from the Father, but is from the world. The world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever. That word desires is very interesting. It's epi-thumea. Epi means over. Thumea is desire. It's like when you hear about an earthquake, they say the epicenter, epicenter, means the part on the ground, on the surface of the earth that is directly over the center of the earthquake. So epi-thumea means over desire. It means a desire that is not legitimate. It means a desire, even if it's a good thing, it's a desire that controls you. It's a desire that causes you to lay aside other things. It becomes so much of a desire that you believe you have to have it. You see your neighbor's wife and you think, I cannot stand that she is with him. I have to try to get her for myself. Or you see your neighbor's house and you say, I want that house. I have to figure out how I can displace my neighbor so I can have their house. That is what coveting is. And if you don't get it, you will not be happy or satisfied or content. Now a lot of people, unfortunately, think that coveting is a less serious sin. I mean, after all, it's last, right? It's 10th. And it does seem like they, for a while anyway, they're going in order of seriousness. For instance, it's more serious to kill somebody than to have adultery, but it's more serious to have adultery than it is to steal. It's more serious to steal than it is to lie. So it makes sense then you would think that it's more serious to lie or all the other ones than it is to covet. But that's not the case. Listen to what Paul says in Colossians chapter three again. He says in verse five, put to death therefore what is earthly in you. And this is the list. Sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, that's that word epithelia, and covetousness. And then he adds, which is idolatry. See, if you're coveting something, if you want something, if you desire something, more than you desire God, that is idolatry. And that's what Paul is saying here. He says that again in Ephesians five, five, for you may be sure of this, that everyone who is sexually immoral or impure or who is covetous, that is an idolater, has no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God and God. Paul calls covetousness idolatry. And the one who covets is an idolater. And idolatry is a most serious sin. It's throughout the scriptures, it is considered the worst of sins. In fact, it is like coveting a sin of the heart. If you look at the commandments, basically all of them, except the first and the last, are things that you can see, things that you do, things that can be seen by other people or understood. If you lie, you can get found out that you lied. If you steal, somebody knows that something of theirs has been taken. Adultery, murder, all of these are things that can be seen are things that can be seen and things we're told not to do or to do like honor your father and mother. But coveting is in the heart and it can't be seen, it's hidden. The first commandment is like it as well. You shall have no other gods before me. Now we can say, of course I have no other gods. But you can say that and still have an idolatrous heart. The other thing to see is that coveting can lead to breaking all of the other commandments. Let me explain. What did the serpent tell Eve that she could be like God? She coveted the wisdom when she saw that the tree was desirous to make one wise and she had the desire to be like God, which the serpent told her, you will be like God knowing good and evil. So she coveted that which she didn't have, which was not legitimate, which she was tempted to take. Why did Israel make a golden calf? Or why does someone take God's name in vain? The desire to be your own God arises in your heart and you covet that which belongs to God. Why does somebody break the Sabbath? Why does somebody spend their time other than is sanctioned by God on the Lord's day? Why do they? Because they covet the time for themselves. They think, well, this time is mine. It's my life. This time is mine. It's my life. It's my time. I can do what I wish. Not honoring your parents. Murder. Today is right to life or sanctity of life Sunday. And some people pay attention to those sort of things and abortion is certainly begins with a sin of covetousness. I covet not being burdened with a child. I covet not being, if you're the woman, not being put through the rigors of childbirth. I covet not being found out that I got pregnant. One of the ministries that we support is Open Door Center. Open Door Center advises young women who are, have an unplanned pregnancy to have supportive counseling sessions so that they can determine what they should do. It's where they're told what the baby actually is, that the baby's a human being, that the baby has a life separate from them. And that hopefully they will see that and they will bring the baby to term and adoption can be arranged for. But certainly killing your baby before it's born is idolatry. Friend of mine years and years ago, this is while I was at Eastern Michigan University which is 40 years ago, really more than that. He said abortion is sacrificing innocent children on the altar of convenience. Which is what it is. Adultery is coveting somebody else's wife. Stealing is coveting something that belongs to somebody else. Bearing false witness is, begins with coveting a desired outcome. And it all comes from a desire to have something that doesn't belong to you. So you take it. But it begins in the heart. So you can fool other people that you're not covetous. You can even fool yourself. Paul at one time believed that he was righteous and even blameless as far as the law was concerned. But then in Romans seven we read that what shall we say is the law of sin by no means. Yet it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin, for I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said you shall not covet. But sin seizing an opportunity through the commandment produced in me all kinds of covetousness. For apart from the law, sin lies dead. I once was alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin came and I died. So Paul, when he's keeping all the other commandments, thought he was blameless until he understood what it meant to covet. And then he knew he was guilty and he knew that he couldn't fix it. Paul realized that though he had appeared righteous and blameless to others and to himself, his heart was full of coveting and he was an idolater. You see, if you put your hope in something other than God, when that thing or person or job or whatever it is, when it comes up short and it always will, you will be devastated. I remember seeing a story years ago about two young men who had been wrongly convicted of rape. There were witnesses, there was testimony, they were wrongly convicted. It just so happened that each of the men, each of the men had families that claimed to be Christian. And when the one young man was convicted, his mother came home, she saw her Bible on the table and she picked it up and she threw it against the wall and she never went back to church. Now, why did she do that? Because her son or her family's reputation or something else was more important to her than the Lord. But the other woman, the other mother, went to her knees and prayed all the more earnestly and she wept, of course. It's not that it didn't hurt, of course it hurt. But instead of throwing her Bible and refusing to attend church, she clung even more to the Savior, she prayed even more earnestly and she prayed with friends every chance she got. See, the trauma drove her further into the arms of God. Now, both sons were eventually exonerated by DNA evidence. But you need to know that the things we covet, even if we get them, they won't satisfy us ultimately. In the Gospel passage we read, the rich man thinks he has years to live and builds new barns for all his grain and goods. He says, soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years, relax, eat, drink, be merry. That's where that saying comes from, eat, drink, and be merry. But God said, fool, this night your soul's required of you and all the things you have prepared, whose will they be? So is the one who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich towards God. Now, Jesus was responding to the Pharisees and the teachers who were claiming that his followers were not following the dietary laws such as washing the cups and washing before they ate. And these other things, and he said to them, take care and be on guard against all covetousness, for one's life does not consist in the abundance of one's possessions. What does he mean, be on guard against coveting? What are we guarding? Well, Paul's letter to Timothy, the second one, very shortly before he died, said, follow the pattern of sound words that you've heard from me in the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus by the Holy Spirit who dwells within us. Guard the good deposit within you, entrusted to you. First Corinthians 16, beyond guard, stand firm in the faith. Be courageous, be strong, do everything in love. We are to guard our hearts, guard our souls, from what? From all kinds of covetousness, Jesus said, which is idolatry. So what do we do? If you look at the commandments, many of them, most of them are about behavior. Commandments two through nine are about what we are to do or not do. One and 10 are about the heart. I don't know if you've noticed this, but it's very difficult to change behavior, especially if it's become a habit. There are some people who through the force of their will can change their behavior and make changes in their life. People who've consumed alcohol out of their life can often with the help of others make the change and not consume it at all. But we cannot change our heart through commandments. You can't say to your heart, stop loving what you love and love God instead. You can give lip service to loving God. Jesus admonished the Pharisees and the teachers for doing the very same thing. This people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. In vain do they worship me. Teaching his doctrines the commandments of men. So how do we change? Richard Pratt, Old Testament scholar, wrote a book years and years ago while I was still in the seminary. He wrote a book and it was called He Gave Us Stories. Because human hearts are not changed by laws, they're not changed by rules. That's why it's so humorous that, well humorous isn't the right word, ironic, that whenever there's something going wrong in the culture, we decide we're gonna make more laws. I lived in Chicago for 11 years. Chicago has one of the highest murder rates in all of the US, especially a section of Chicago. They also have more stringent gun laws than anywhere else. And every round of shooting, they appeal for more gun laws. But having more gun laws doesn't stop the killing because it doesn't deal with the heart. Stories change the heart. And it's the story of the gospel of Jesus Christ that can change your heart. How? We look at it day and night. That's what we do with our worldly loves. I mean, if you think about the things that you love, you think about them all the time. There's an old song, When a Man Loves a Woman. I won't sing it. I could, but I won't. When a man loves a woman, can't keep his mind on nothing else. He trade the world for the good thing he's found. Can't keep his mind on nothing else. That's what an over-desire is. And when you wake up in the morning, that's what you're thinking about, the thing that is most important to you. It's your epithelia. When I was a kid, baseball was my epithelia, my over-desire. I thought about it day and night. Even during the winter, I had my baseball glove. I had this oil that you put on the glove, and I put a softball in the glove, and I tied it up so that it would have a good form and pocket in the spring when I took it out and started to play again. Sometimes I took it out anyway, and I would bounce a ball off the basement wall and drive my parents crazy. I just thought about it all the time. I had baseball cards, I read magazines, I had a book on hitting by Ted Williams. He was a good hitter, by the way, those of you who don't know. But that was my over-desire. Now, I was a kid, it seems fairly innocent. But you can have an over-desire as an adult that's not innocent. For some of you, it's work. For some of you, it's romance or the lack thereof. For some of you, it's family. For some of you, it's having well-behaved children. We've had six children. They're not all always well-behaved. Some are almost never well-behaved. But you see, if all my hope is in them, if all my desires, if they are my idols, then I can't go on. One minister talked about people dying and expressing their regrets. He said that nobody he's ever talked to who's on their deathbed has ever said this, I wish I would have spent more time at work. Or I wish I had made more money. What they do say are things like, I wish I spent more time with my family, but even family can fail you. Some say I wish I'd have been a better person. But there's an over-desire that can change you. And it's described in 1 Peter, chapter one, verse 10. Verse 10, concerning this salvation, the prophets who prophesied about the grace that was to be yours searched and inquired carefully. Inquiring what person or time the Spirit of Christ in them was indicating when he predicted the sufferings of Christ in the subsequent glories. It was revealed to them that they were serving not themselves, but you. And the things that you have now, have now been announced to you through those who preach the good news to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven, things into which angels long to look. That word long is epithelia. The angels epithelia desire long to look at the gospel. Rarely is the word used in a positive way, but it is here. Angels are thousands of years old and not fallen. And they're smarter than all of us. And they're not bored by the gospel. They're amazed by it. The word long is epithelia. It is the word translated usually desire or even lust. It is rarely used in a positive way, but here it is. So if you're a person and you say, you know, we need to get beyond the gospel. We need to hear something besides the gospel. The gospel is boring. That reminds me of a story about a rock star who was at the Louvre. That's the famous museum in Paris. And they had the occasion to look at the Mona Lisa. And he was looking at it and he said, huh, I don't see what the big deal is. And the curator who was giving them the tour said, sir, the value of this painting is long since been determined. What's on trial here is your taste. I can say the same thing about anybody who says, oh, the gospel is boring. We need to get beyond the gospel. Angels long to look. Angels epithelia to look at the gospel, to look at every facet of it. They're amazed by it. And that's how hearts are changed. By looking at the gospel, looking at Jesus, what he has done for us, living in our place. He never had any inordinate desires and being punished for our sins and raising again to new life. Look at him day and night. First thing in the morning, last thing at night. Look at him, read the gospels, look at Jesus. He will change your heart. Let's pray. Father, thank you. Thank you for the gospel. Thank you that Jesus will change our hearts. If we are wise enough to look at him. In his name we pray, amen. Please.