Thursday, July 16, 2009
How Much Do You Need? The Danger of Coveting, Part 27 of 60
TEXT: "You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, nor his male servant, nor his female servant, nor his ox, nor his donkey, nor anything that is your neighbor’s" (Exodus 20:17).
"You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, and you shall not desire your neighbor’s house, his field, his male servant, his female servant, his ox, his donkey, or anything that is your neighbor’s" (Deuteronomy 5:21).
IDEA: The Tenth Commandment opens us up to the need for the grace of God.
PURPOSE: to help listeners understand their sin and understand God’s grace.
Have you ever met anyone who, from all appearances, seemed to have no flaws in his or her life? You might have said, “Nobody’s perfect,” but you really have difficulty pointing out where that person falls short.
Paul appeared to be that kind of man.
I. In Philippians 3:3-7, the apostle Paul gives a testimony of what he was before he became a Christian:
“For we are the circumcision, who worship God in the Spirit, rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh, though I also might have confidence in the flesh. If anyone else thinks he may have confidence in the flesh, I more so: circumcised the eighth day, of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of the Hebrews; concerning the law, a Pharisee; concerning zeal, persecuting the church; concerning the righteousness which is in the law, blameless. But what things were gain to me, these I have counted loss for Christ.”
Paul would have been very hard to witness to, to convince him that he lacked anything as far as God was concerned.
When you think of testimonies that people give, what form do they often take? “I used to be so bad, then I met Jesus and he changed me...”
But here Paul says that before he became a Christian, he was an outstanding example of living a good religious life. In fact, he could say that “as far as the law is concerned, I was faultless.”
II. But in Romans 7:7-9, Paul gives another kind of testimony and points to the fatal flaw in his life:
“What shall we say then? Is the law sin? Certainly not! On the contrary, I would not have known sin except through the law. For I would not have known covetousness unless the law had said, ‘You shall not covet.’ But sin, taking opportunity by the commandment, produced in me all manner of evil desire. For apart from the law sin was dead. I was alive once without the law, but when the commandment came, sin revived and I died.”
The sin Paul singled out for special mention was covetousness.
He says that if it were not for the law, he would not have recognized covetousness as a sin.
Covetousness is so common and so much a part of our being that it seems as natural to us as breathing.
The law revealing covetousness produced in him even more covetousness, or at least it made him aware that it was ongoing in his life.
III. The law opened Paul to the need for God’s grace, Romans 7:24-25 -
“O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? I thank God–through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, with the mind I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh, the law of sin.”
Sometimes when you think about a commandment like this, you feel it’s ridiculous because it’s like saying “breathing is wrong.” Everyone covets. Everyone breathes.
It’s that very awareness that drives us to God’s grace. It did that for Paul. It will do that for us.
