Week 4: Working Preacher’s Narrative Commentary for Sunday, 6 July 2014

Week 4: Working Preacher’s Narrative Commentary for Sunday, 6 July 2014
Preaching text: Exodus 20: 17 “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.”
Accompanying text: Matthew 22: 34 But the Pharisees, when they heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, gathered themselves together. 35 One of them, a lawyer, asked him a question, testing him. 36 “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the law?”
37 Jesus said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’[Matthew 22:37 Deuteronomy 6:5] 38 This is the first and great commandment. 39 A second likewise is this, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’[Matthew 22:39 Leviticus 19:18] 40 The whole law and the prophets depend on these two commandments.”
The Desires of the Heart -- Do Not Covet
We end this sermon series on the Ten Commandments with an entire week devoted to the coveting commandment.
The importance of the coveting commandment is signaled by the fact that it is the only one of the Ten Commandments that is repeated. “You shall not covet your neighbor’s house. You shall not covet your neighbor’s spouse.”
While I think that the most accurate way to number and divide the Ten Commandments is probably to count these two coveting commandments as a single command, as the Reformed tradition does, there is at least a spiritually significant point made by those traditions that count “You shall not covet your neighbor’s house” and “You shall not covet your neighbor’s spouse” as separate commandments. And this point is a matter of emphasizing that many (perhaps most) big sins start when we set our gaze on something that belongs to another.
Two biblical examples.
First, King David. He was hanging out on the roof, his eyes fell upon Uriah’s wife Bathsheba, and boom! He wanted her. So he took her. As the king, he was already married and had plenty of access to women in the palace. But he wanted Bathsheba, too. Se he took her. And then, when she turned up pregnant, he arranged for Uriah -- and the entire military company he was leading into war! -- to be abandoned in the midst of the battle. They all were killed. And it all started with a little coveting (See 2 Samuel 11-12).
Second, King Ahab and Queen Jezebel. This royal pair liked to garden. Or, at least, they liked to have a garden that their servants could work for them. Right near their palace, a faithful fellow named Naboth owned a vineyard. The king offered to buy the vineyard or swap the land for a better stretch of land. Naboth refused. So Jezebel arranged for false charges brought against Naboth and brought in two paid liars to testify falsely against Naboth. In the end, Ahab and Jezebel got what they wanted. Naboth dead and the vineyard a royal property. And it all started with a little coveting (See 1 Kings 21).
A friend of mine jokes about his own coveting heart, “If they make it, I want it.” I quoted that sentence one time while teaching about the coveting commandment at a church on a Sunday morning. One forgiven-sinner said, “Only one?”
The desires of our hearts will lead us astray. We are to love God. We are to love neighbor. We are not to desire our neighbor’s spouse or house.
And we cannot do it. Yes, we can develop all sorts of spiritual discipline and practices -- prayer, meditation, service, fasting, accountability groups, and so on. These practices can help us curb the worst effects of our fallen nature. But we cannot do it.
So, in the end, two things. First, be aware of the incredible power of the heart’s desires. When you feel yourself desiring the wrong thing, pray. Call a friend and ask for help. Go see your pastor.
Second, remember, as it says in Romans, “All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God; they are now justified by his grace as a gift. ... For we hold that a person is justified by faith apart from works”(Romans 3:23-28).
Thanks be to God.
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John Wesley’s Notes-Commentary:
Exodus 20:17
Verse 17
[17] Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbour's.
Thou shalt not covet — The foregoing commands implicitly forbid all desire of doing that which will be an injury to our neighbour, this forbids all inordinate desire of having that which will be a gratification to ourselves. O that such a man's house were mine! such a man's wife mine! such a man's estate mine! This is certainly the language of discontent at our own lot, and envy at our neighbour's, and these are the sins principally forbidden here. God give us all to see our face in the glass of this law, and to lay our hearts under the government of it!
Matthew 22:34-40
Verse 34
[34] But when the Pharisees had heard that he had put the Sadducees to silence, they were gathered together.
Mark 12:28; Luke 10:25.
Verse 35
[35] Then one of them, which was a lawyer, asked him a question, tempting him, and saying,
A scribe asking him a question, trying him — Not, as it seems, with any ill design: but barely to make a farther trial of that wisdom, which he had shown in silencing the Sadducees.
Verse 37
[37] Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.
Deuteronomy 6:5.
Verse 39
[39] And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.
Leviticus 19:18.
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