Alright, a lot on my heart here tonight as we begin, and a lot to be thankful for, a lot to consume our time tonight as we consider the law of the Creator, this law that he has given to communicate to us what he is like, what it is that he must have from us in order for him to accept us, what it is to stand in his presence to be accepted to him, acceptable by him and accepted by him. We're going to look at I guess you would call a multitude or a plethora of passages tonight as we look at the idea of contentment, which is the positive outflow of the 10th commandment found in Exodus chapter 20 and verse 17. We haven't done this in the last few weeks, but I would like to read them from the beginning. We'll start in verse 1 of chapter 20 and read through 17 and capture all of these elements in the way that he gave them. He did not give these in installments through weeks of time like you and I are taking to go through these. It was two months ago in June that we dealt with the Sixth Commandment. And here we are at the Tenth Commandment two months later. In the moment, in that situation, at the foot of Mount Sinai, these people are hearing the very voice of God come from this cloud and this is what he is delivering to them. This had never happened in history. It has never happened since. This was a moment of moments in the history of man. This was a moment of moments in the history of God's redemptive plan. They receive all of this at one time. This is an overwhelming, display of the holiness of God. It is an overwhelming display of the grace and magnanimity of God as we will see later. No one that is hearing this for the first time and no one who has ever heard it since deserves to hear this. No one deserves the opportunity to know what God is like. We are all born dead in transgression and sin. We are all natural born sinners. The one thing you don't have to teach your children is how to sin. You have to teach them how to swing a baseball bat properly. You have to teach them how to tie their shoes. You have to teach them how to run a tire machine. You have to teach them things like that. But you do not have to teach them how to do what is wrong. And because we are all born that way, we deserve nothing at all ever at any time that is good by God's definition from God. It is not that there are some that deserve more, some that deserve less. There is none that deserves anything good from Him. And for Him to have met with this group of people, to try and find a way to explain and to express why God would have felt it in his heart to tell these people these things, to move upon them and to look at their beleaguered state prior to this in Egypt. And he felt bad for the woe be gone, and he felt bad for those that had been enslaved, and he decided in his pity to move and provide for these people. These were not the only enslaved people in the world. Not then, not now. God chose from the depths of the unmeritable love and provision that is immeasurably bound in His heart. He decided to lavish these people with a gracious provision that we call the law of God. They didn't deserve it. They would never deserve it. They would never live up to it. But they would have never had any concept or idea how to rightly react and how to rightly relate with the creator had he not taken it upon himself to reveal this to them. He has just saved them out of Egypt, the most advanced society that the world had ever known. Both militarily, or including militarily and culturally, medically, and religiously. They were the most advanced. They were almost like the city of Corinth that Paul recounts to us, the city of Athens, I'm sorry, where he goes around and he sees idols of every shape and size and denomination that you can name. And just in case they missed one, they had an idol to the unknown God, an altar there where you could worship the unknown God so that everybody would be included. That was on full display in Egypt. That's why we see these 10 judgments before the nation of Egypt as God is separating himself from all of their individual ideas of God. And that was the best that men could do. And they couldn't even get close. So without God stepping in and unilaterally choosing to reveal himself to this group of people, who was only different from every other group of people because God singled them out to be special, not because they were. A thousand or so years later, he is going to tell them through the prophet Ezekiel, your father was an idol worshiper and your mother was a Hittite. Godless, demonic people, yet I chose you. is not because of you, O Israel, it is because of my great name that I am about to act." That was true in Ezekiel, that was true in Exodus chapter 20. He speaks to them out of the magnanimity of His being. Because if it were not for God's decisive personal action to reveal himself, we would still be without God and without hope in the world. Because in God's purposes, he has chosen not to allow man to reach God on man's terms through man's intellect. It is through the revelation of God and the empowerment of His Holy Spirit to reveal the truth that is contained in His book to lead people to Him. We need this book. We need this day at Mount Sinai. We all do as they did. And as we come to this passage, I want us to hold it in that light. Now let's capture the drama of the moment once again, beginning in verse one of Exodus chapter 20. Then God spoke all these words, saying, I am Yahweh your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself an idol, any likeness of what is in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the water under the earth you shall not worship them or serve them for I Yahweh your God am a jealous God visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children on the third and fourth generations of those who hate me but showing loving kindness to thousands, to those who love me and keep my commandments. You shall not take the name of Yahweh your God in vain. For Yahweh will not leave him unpunished who takes his name in vain. Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work. But the seventh day is a Sabbath of Yahweh your God. In it you shall not do any work, you or your son or your daughter, your male or your female slave, or your cattle, or your sojourner who is within your gates. For in six days Yahweh made the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore Yahweh blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy. Honor your father and your mother that your days may be prolonged in the land which Yahweh your God gives you. You shall not murder. You shall not commit adultery. You shall not steal. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. You shall not covet your neighbor's house. You shall not covet your neighbor's wife, or his male slave, or his female slave, or his ox, or his donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor. This is a cohesive unit of expression of God's expectation of those that would claim to be His. I am Yahweh, your God, therefore you are the people of Yahweh. And if you belong to me, this is what will and must need characterize your life. There are prohibitions that are at the very same time connected to positive demands. There are positive demands that are inextricably connected to negative prohibitions. You shall honor your father and mother. You shall not rebel against authority. You will remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. You shall not defile the Sabbath day. You shall not take the name of Yahweh, your God, in vain. You shall take His name and live in a way that honors Him and not misuse and mistreat His name because He will not leave the one unpunished that takes and uses His name in vain. He begins with, you will have no other gods before me and ends with, you will not covet your neighbor's anything. You will be satisfied in me. and you will have me as your God. There is no listing of the ten that can be viewed as being from the most, listed from the most important to the least important. They are all important. The first four have to do with our relationship to God in heaven and this vertical relationship between ourselves and Him and between Him and ourselves and the following six have to do with our relationship in this world beginning at home with our father and mother and then outside to whoever could possibly be described as your neighbor. How we get along with one another, how we deal with one another, how we honor the Lord in our relationships with one another. This command to not covet is the negative prohibition that brings the positive command of contentment. Contentment is a word that defies definition in our current culture, this age in which we live. People are never content. They're not content with anything. People jump from relationship to relationship, from job to job, from church to church. from town to town, always in search of something more, something more satisfactory, something more that they would like to have. We have the opportunity to do that in this culture like never before. There have never been more options for pursuit of satisfaction in any society that begins to compare to what there are available today. You in a bad mood? There are 150 channels on your television that you can turn on to find something to get your mind off of it. There was a time when people would go to the movie theater on the weekend to go and watch a motion picture that would take them from the mundanity of their life and bring them into the life of these movie stars. Back when there were good movies to watch and not these computer generated things that flash from one image to the next. There was dialogue and you were captured in the drama of the moment and you would see yourself in those situations and it would take you out of whatever the current mood or circumstances were of your life. Problem is at some point you're going to come back to reality. And now you have to deal with reality and have to try to find contentment in that reality. People have always turned to alcohol, drugs, any expression of sin that gets me out of whatever the normalcy of life is and into this extra experience that appeals to the flesh and causes some level of excitement and entertainment. But contentment is elusive. In fact, in this life, contentment is impossible to find on our own. If you think that is not true, just look at the life of your favorite celebrity, the celebrated people in this world. There's not a single one of them that is content. Sure, they get out of a car at a movie premiere, and they stand and pose in front of a wall, and people take pictures of them smiling, and they look to have it all together. They've had the best of plastic surgery, they had the best of clothing designer, they had the best makeup and hair people, and everything looks great on the outside, but not a single one of them has been content one moment of their life. Riding down the road the other day, flipping through the radio and a song came on by a man that made this song when I was in high school, back in the 1900s. And I told one of my daughters who knows the name of the daughter of the man that was singing, and I said, this is the song that ruined that young woman's life. This is the song that ruined her life. And he said, this song was made before she was born. But that song made her dad a household name and his household name got her into music and movie stardom and her life was an absolute disaster. And the song wasn't even good. The young woman in question is Miley Cyrus. Her dad had one hit song and we were listening to it and I'm wondering, How did this ever become popular enough to have ruined that girl's life? Because it wasn't good when I was in high school. But we heard Achy Breaky Hard about every 17 seconds on the radio when I was in high school. This girl had everything she ever wanted, and she is never, ever, ever satisfied. She can't be. There is no satisfaction to be found in this world. If it were, Hollywood would be filled with contented people. but instead it is filled with people that are constantly looking for the next high, the next satisfaction, the next distraction. You have bills to pay, you have a hard time making ends meet, you can thank the Lord for that because if you didn't, you'd be trying to find something else to entertain yourself with and there are as many ways to entertain yourself outside of something righteous in the Savior as there are dollar bills to be spent. Contentment. Not coveting is an elusive thing. We began to look at the definition of contentment here, the definition of not coveting, the definition of true satisfaction. And the ultimate definition of it is the word desire. It comes from the word that means desire, to take pleasure in something, to desire it. The idea of a desire that focuses on the internal mental activity behind an act. The act of coveting your neighbor's house. Let's face it. I don't know who has, who lives in the nicest house in this room. It doesn't really matter. But people drive through their neighborhood and you hear the old expression, they're trying to keep up with the Joneses. I've never met the Joneses, but there are a lot of people that are envious of them because they're trying to keep up with the Joneses. The neighbor gets something new. I have to have something new. I know families where one brother gets something the other brother has to get the same and a little bit better and then it causes the other brother to have to get the same and a little bit better and it just becomes this ridiculous contest. I'm glad they had the money to spend on that I suppose but that becomes a very fruitless way to live life. You shall not covet your neighbor's wife. Now there are several reasons why you might covet a neighbor's wife. Immediately what do you think? Because of how she looks? Could be just because of how she acts. Maybe your neighbor is actually married to the Proverbs 31 woman. An excellent wife, who can find? Not many, but my neighbor has one and I wish I did. Now, if you want to be honest about this, this isn't just a command to a husband. You're not supposed to covet your neighbor's husband either. Let's face it, ladies, you may fight with that more than we do. Because everybody in this room Every wife in this room could point out some reason why she's married to a deadbeat husband, and man, somebody else's husband just looks like he's got it all together. And I've told my wife, I said, if you ever think that, go and find out. I won't mind, go ahead, you'll be back. Some days, and this is in jest, but go find out how good you have it here, go ahead. People see my wife and say, you have eight kids? I said, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Now, what I'm about to say to you is what I say to them, and I say it to them for one reason. I want them to know that my wife doesn't have eight kids for nine different men. She's got eight kids with me. And the last time I said this, it got a really strong reaction. She said, baby, you have eight kids? You don't look like you had eight kids. I said, but wait, she didn't tell you. She had eight kids from me. And when it dawned on her what I said, her reaction was really great. Go and see what it's like with somebody else. Now, I really would be bluffing if I ever really meant that to her, because I don't want her to find out how much better it can be, because it probably isn't that hard to be better than being married to me. But there's only one me. You didn't have to be so quick, brother. Somebody asked me this morning how my mama is doing. I hadn't seen my mama in a while. I said, she's got me for a son. Life is good. I said that to Wedna. It took Wedna a few minutes this morning. She was not, 93 years old takes a minute sometimes, but I got swatted when she figured out what I said. Now we could go down the line of taking the neighbor's house, the neighbor's wife, and really try to bring them out of the immediate context in the moment in which it was spoken and what the original hearers would have heard and really take a deep dive into the context of that and apply it once we understand that to what is its corresponding reality in this life. We would find it pretty hard once we get to the next thing he told him not to cover, the male and female slaves. I don't know how we would really bring that into this current context and cultural context in which we live. The ox and the donkey, we could pretty easy. It's their mode of transportation or their lawnmower or the implements that they use to make their garden, whatever it would be. But he goes down the list of things that others would like to have. What makes a person successful? A man with a wonderful wife, a man with a wonderful home, a man that actually has slaves and not is a slave, a man that has an ox and a donkey. He just comes out and says, or anything that belongs to your neighbor. Jesus was asked, In Matthew 23, what is the great commandment? And Jesus said the great commandment is to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. And the second is like an intuit that you love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments hang the law and prophets. Well, if you look at this with a clear eye, you see that the first commandment is that you will love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. You will have no other gods before me. That is the umbrella statement. and that you will love your neighbor as yourself is that you don't covet anything about your neighbor. You are thrilled that your neighbor has what he has, and you want the best for your neighbor rather than desiring to have what your neighbor has in some resentful way, and that becomes the carriage on which the rest of these commandments ride, and the capstone is that you will love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. no other gods before me and you don't covet anything that belongs to your neighbor. You're not going to think of anything that another person owns that you would covet and want for yourself rather than for them to have it that is not included in this. His house, his possessions, the people in his home, his children, We're praying for a family right now that is dealing with the reality of a child that will never be healthy again. And in the same prayer meeting, we're praying for families who are about to welcome in healthy children into their home. It would be very easy from a human perspective, as you all know it would be, to look at the current situation of one in comparison to the other and say, I would rather have their situation than mine. The problem comes down to a desire that is not an honorable one. and inordinate desire. This word komod in the Septuagint is translated into the Greek by the word epithumia. It is the word that we understand in English most well expressed in the idea of lust, a yearning, a longing, an uncontrollable desire. Epithumia. Do not desire what others have. How do I do that? You learn to be content with what you do have. Well how do I become content with what I have when it all seems to be so unfair? That is how communism has found such a strong and almost immediate foothold in the world. Because the communist comes and says it's not fair for those people to have that and you to not have that. Communism doesn't go to the wealthy and say, you need to give to them. It goes to the poor and say, if you join me, I'll make them give you what they have. I'll make everyone equal. But what they don't tell you is that they don't bring anyone up. They only bring those at the top down. And then the communist begins to worship the government and the government takes everything and distributes what you need by our definition. It is a problem. It is the same idea as theft. But it plays on the discontented, covetous heart of men that look around and say, things just aren't fair. Well, if things in the world are not fair, whose fault is that? Whose fault is it? Or asked another way, if things are not fair now, who is going to be able to fix that? Well, the communists would have you to think that the government can fix it. That idea has crept into American society in such a wholesale way that we don't even realize that we're almost communists now. compared to what some of our older generations represented in here experienced when they were young. When a man who could work still would. But let's be honest, let's be realistic. Not atheistic, let's be realistic. If there is one that is in control of all things, that holds all things together by the power of his word. And he can make happen anything that he wants to and he can thwart anything that he wants to. He has the heart of the king in his hand and he controls it like rivers of water flowing any direction that he wants it to go. Who is to blame if you do not have what you want to have? It is not the fault of your neighbor that has more than you do. It is not the fault of their family. We looked at the Pharisees and Sadducees this morning. One of the things that escaped my notice in the notes this morning is that the majority of those that were in this aristocratic religious hierarchy and the chief priests and the Sadducees, these were families of people that continued to hold that power in the family. When you read of Annas and Caiaphas in the gospel record in the night of Jesus' betrayal, Annas was the father-in-law of Caiaphas. Caiaphas took Annas' place when he stepped down from high priest, but they kept it in the family. That's how it worked. You kept that power. It's not a matter of your neighbor has more than you because their family has this aristocratic hold on wealth and privilege, and I don't. Friends, there's nothing that you have, there's nothing that anybody that you know has that was not given to them by God. The man that pulls himself up by his own bootstraps is a myth. You can do certain things that really minimize your opportunity, let's be honest, but at the end of the day, it's not a matter of They did something to me and I'm the victim of whatever they did or somebody before them did and we just start to push the responsibility back on previous generations as to why they have and I do not. The reality is you have or do not have according to the sovereign distribution of the creator who holds all things in the palm of his hand. And just because it doesn't satisfy you does not mean that it is not right. And the fact that you are not satisfied with what you have and have this idea that things are not fair, you and I, the fact that we still have these mental and emotional and spiritual battles with that's not fair, this is not fair, because we are not satisfied with what God has done and what God does. We want it our way. We want it according to our purposes and our plans. Our desire is for more than what we have, and therefore we put the blame on someone else for why we don't have what we think we should have. And we begin to allow covetousness, this inordinate desire for that which Is not ours that does belong to another That creeps into the life and it becomes so commonplace. It is acceptable and then it becomes a cultural Rot as we've seen You remember the summer of love When we watched roving bands of people in cities like Minneapolis and Seattle and Baltimore. Burn those cities to the ground. And the head of our US government said, we have to let them express themselves. They've been under, they've been underprivileged for too long. We have to allow them to express themselves. And they go and interview one lady on the street who is some leader in whatever this organized rioting, pillaging of downtown Minneapolis is going on. And she says, if they loot a Gucci store, if they loot a Nike store, and that means that they have food to put on their table tonight, that is reparations. That's what came out of her mouth. All of that idea is rooted in this idea that I'm not content with what I have because someone else did something to me and I've been victimized by it. Therefore, the covetous nature of my heart being in some way coddled or fulfilled by stealing from another person, coveting what they have and taking it for myself is completely okay. In fact, it is encouraged. Go and do it. You need to express yourself. Friends, that is the fallen heart of man demanding to have its own way. And God knew the heart of man from the very beginning. Remember what he said back in Genesis chapter six? After Cain and Abel and they've spread out My eyes usually fall right to what I'm trying to find and I do not see it here. It is in verse 10. The earth was corrupt before God and the earth was filled with violence. And God saw the earth and behold, it was corrupt for all flesh had corrupted their way upon the earth. God saw that man's heart was continually evil and never wanted to do what was right. It says that he regretted making man back in verse seven. That has not changed. Men have not gotten better. If man's heart was filled with violence and The thoughts of his heart were only evil continually. Then, with the opportunity and ability that man has to express his fallenness now, it has not gotten better. And God puts this command not to covet, this command to be content right in the top 10, the only 10 that he spoke from his mouth. It is the idea of desire. It is also the idea of delight in defining this command not to covet. Delight or contentment. Content in what? Content in the providence of their God. How did he begin this statement to them? I am Yahweh, your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt. You were in a land that you shouldn't have been in. You were in a foreign land. Out of the house of slavery. Your existence was that of a slave. You were born one. You lived as one. You procreated more of them. The house of slavery was your existence. And I rescued you from that. I brought you out, in fact. You didn't even really participate. I lifted you out of it and brought you here. If you remember, they come to the well, to the water at Mara, and they said, oh, did God bring us out here to die? They understood that God brought them out. They begin to try to manipulate God and really overstep their bounds. They immediately break the 10th commandment. It's about the first thing they did when they crossed the Red Sea. Oh, did he bring it? Were there no graves in Egypt that you brought us here to die? Rather than look at what all that he had done up to that point and say, no, he couldn't have brought us out here to die. He has something for us. Moses, ask him what would he have us to do? Do you do that in your life as a believer? You come across a circumstance that's more than you can handle? Yeah, sometimes we get irritated with God. God, why are you doing this to me? They're not having this problem, but I am. And then something goes off in your mind. The Holy Spirit brings a conviction and says, do you think that I can't handle this? You think this is something that's outside of my purview. I didn't see this coming. Oops, I'm sorry Vince, I let that slip by. I won't happen again. I won't let that happen again. I'll fix it. No. Delight in what? It's delight in the providence of their God, what God has provided for them. Ultimately, it's what God has provided from them that has come from his heart to them. It is a satisfaction in him. Regardless of what he gives, he's given himself to these people. His provision is extended from him. In the New Testament, Paul is really thinking about this idea in 1 Timothy chapter 6. He's speaking of men who teach differently than the healthy words of the gospel, the healthy words of the Scripture. They think that godliness is a means of great gain, We looked at the Pharisees this morning, the idea in religious circles of there being great gain as a spiritual leader. That is true. It's not always monetary, but it is gain. It gains them prestige and position and possessions and money. It does all of that. But Paul says, Godliness actually is a means of great gain when accompanied with contentment. Walking with the Lord, having this showering of the grace of God and the peace that transcends understanding and growing in the grace and knowledge of the Lord is a means of great gain when accompanied by contentment. That does not mean that it fills your bank account. Any more than it means that the false leaders were necessarily looking for a fuller bank account. They were looking for a fuller life by their design. But Paul said there is a fuller life by God's design when you mix godliness with contentment. For we have brought nothing into the world. What do you have that you were born with? A mole? A birthmark? A disability? What were you born with? What do you have that you brought into the world? We brought nothing into the world, so we cannot take anything out of it either. And if we have food and covering, with these we shall be content. Man, you are talking, this is not something an American wants to hear, content. With just something to eat and clothes on my back? No, no, no, no. Have you been to the mall lately? I don't know, I don't know if the malls are still open, Those who want to get rich fall into temptation and a snare and many foolish and harmful desires which plunge men into ruin and destruction. Do I need to go back to Miley Cyrus? Want to get rich? You ever know somebody that wants to climb the ladder and doesn't matter who they step on on the way up because they don't plan to come back down because they're on the way to their plan to be independently wealthy? Now, I don't have necessarily a problem with people finding a place in life where they are independently wealthy. That is not the issue. Having money is not the issue. Loving money is the issue. It is the love of money that is the root of all sorts of evil. Not having money. You've got to have money. Abraham was a wealthy, wealthy man. Solomon was a wealthy, wealthy man by the providence of God. God blessed them with that. Barnabas was a wealthy man in the New Testament. There were wealthy men and their wives that funded the operation of the Messiah as he walked this planet. It's not having money, it is being ruled by it. And it brings, it plunges men into ruin and destruction. Verse 10 of 1 Timothy 6. He says, for the love of money is the root of all sorts of evil, and some, by aspiring to it, have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pangs. They've pierced themselves with many wounds. They've wounded themselves over and over and over again. Then he exhorts Timothy, but you, O man of God, flee from these things and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, perseverance, and gentleness. Fight the good fight of faith. Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called. Pursue the things of God. Be satisfied in Him. Find your satisfaction in Him and flee those things. God said that long ago back in Exodus chapter 20. Men had been around long enough to see what happens when there is an insatiable desire in a person of wealth. They got to see that the most clearly and discernibly in the life of Pharaoh. What more could Pharaoh have wanted? What more could he have asked for in life? He owned the world, he had two million slaves, probably far more than that. He had two million of the Israeli slaves. This is supposed to be in my notes and I don't think it is. You remember this chick in the Bible named, Everybody likes to name their dog after her. Her name was Jezebel. Remember Jezebel? She had a husband, you remember his name? Name was Ahab. Hm. Ahab was the king of Israel. He had a ruthless woman for a wife. I think the only worst wife in the scripture or comparable wife would have been Job's wife. John Calvin called her the diabolos matrix, the devil woman. Ahab looks out of the palace. You know what that means? It means he was in the palace. It means he was in the mansion of mansions in the town. He looks out of his palace and he sees a vineyard out of his window that belonged to a guy named Naboth. And he said, I want that vineyard. You know how many vineyards the king would have had? You know what kings did to show their opulence? It tells us about the wealth of Solomon and all of the things that he had and all of the possessions that he had and all of the gifts that were given to him in tribute from other countries and all that were coming to him every year in the form of taxation. But then it tells us how many people ate at his table every day, thousands of people. He personally fed thousands of people. And it goes down the list of how many oxen they killed, how many sheep, how many tons of grain were used every day to feed all the people that ate at Solomon's table. Kings showed their opulence. If you're going to use vats of wine every day for people to drink, how many vineyards do you have to have? He looks out of his window and he says, I want that one. And he goes to Naboth and he says, I want your vineyard. Naboth says, but King, this is the allotment of land that Yahweh designated for my family, for my ancestry and their posterity. This is my family's land. I don't wanna sell my vineyard. And he pressed him and he said, I don't care how much money you give me, I don't wanna sell it. This is where eminent domain started. He goes back and he's pouting. Poor Ahab. Along comes Jezebel, loving, tender, viper of a woman. And says, why the long face, King? Nabath has a vineyard that I don't have. And she says, well, go take it from him. Well, I can't. He won't sell it to me. I don't say buy it. I said, take it. So they put together a kangaroo court and they accused him of something that they claimed to be a capital offense and they killed him. And then he got to take his vineyard. Just because you and I have never done that does not mean that that is not alive and well in our heart. Given the right circumstances, right opportunities, right dullness of spiritual sensitivity, there's no telling how far you would delve. You don't imagine the crimes and the sins that believers are guilty of because we're still human. But Naboth suffered at the hand of this insatiable king and his wicked false priestess of a wife who said, you don't ever have to be dissatisfied. You're the king. You go and take it. I think Gerald decided to get even with me by speeding the clock up. Let's finish the design here, the definition. We're going to get to the design of it and we're going to look a little bit more at the design of this command is to protect Yahweh's allotments to his people. We're going to look in Deuteronomy and Numbers and even Leviticus and at the Jubilee year in Leviticus and how God wants to hold the posterity for the posterity of these people, the allotments that he's giving them. Remember, he's taking them out of Egypt. He's bringing them to the promised land to give them a place. And what he is setting them up for is, what I'm giving to you is what I have chosen. What I'm giving to them is what I have chosen. They have from me what I have chosen, but what you have, you have from me what I have chosen to give to you. Do you have a keepsake in your house that people come over and see that you have this on your mantel and wonder why you have something that ugly or that silly on your mantel, stuck to your refrigerator? Maybe something that your little child wrote. It doesn't look like a famous artist wrote it. It looks like a chicken had a crayon tied to their foot and scratched all over the top of that paper. But your child said, Mommy, I made this for you. Is it the gift that matters or is it the giver that matters? Did your grandmother ever give you something? She didn't have a whole lot, but she wanted to give you a gift, and she gave you something, and you treasure that? My grandfather gave me some things from when he was in the Marine Corps. I don't wear them. Some of them are tie clips and different. I don't wear them, but you couldn't give me a million dollars for them. There's nothing special about them. You would see that in your junk drawer, and you'd dump it all in the trash can, just to start over with the junk drawer. Because we all have one, and we have to, but it's stuff that this would be in anybody else's junk drawer, but it matters to me because of who gave it to me. And what this command is really aiming at in the definition of being content is being content with what He has given to you and not be constantly looking at what He's given to others and had this yearning desire for what they have, because you're really not dissatisfied with what you have, you're dissatisfied with the one that gave it to you, because they could have given me so much more. Could have given what they gave to them. The definition of contentment, this opposite of covetousness, First is desire, then delight or contentment, delighting in what you have, and ultimately it is the idea of fulfillment, fulfillment in life. To put it in another word, satisfaction. You're all familiar with that song. It's a British guy, I doubt he wrote it because I don't think British people say, I can't get no satisfaction. But Mick Jagger's saying it. The whole world knows it. I can't find any satisfaction. That is the reality of the heart of man. You know, when people come to you and say, hey man, how's things going? No, I can't complain. You ever say that to somebody? I don't ever say that. I say, can't complain, don't help anyway. Anybody listening? I think the psalmist captures this idea of fulfillment in life that is portrayed in the 10th commandment. I think he captures it well in Psalm 23. Yahweh is my shepherd. If he has a shepherd, what does he see himself as being? A sheep? A shepherd and sheep. vision is all through the scripture. It comes into the church as we looked at this morning. Yahweh is my shepherd. What do you think the next thing coming out of his mouth will be? Yahweh is my shepherd. Could have been a lot of things. He says, because Yahweh is my shepherd, I shall not want. You know what that means? I'll never be destitute because he is my shepherd. I find my satisfaction in him. Not Yahweh is my shepherd. I shall always be living in the lap of luxury. He doesn't say that. I shall never be outside of his best provision for me. I shall not be in want. Then he begins to look at from the idea of a sheep and what contents a sheep and how little it takes to content the sheep when he is with the shepherd, and he applies it to himself. He says, he, Yahweh, makes me lie down in green pastures, a contented sheep in a green pasture. Things are, things are content because I am with him, and he is with me, and he's caused me to lie down in this green pasture, not lie down at the feed trough, with delectable morsels, whatever it is that a sheep likes to eat. I have no idea. I know they eat soybeans and drink water. It's very detrimental. Popped like a balloon. Makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside quiet waters. He restores my soul. He guides me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake. Where's the focus here? The focus is on the shepherd. I'm content in Him, everything that He is doing for me is the very best, it's perfect. Then he says this, doesn't say if, doesn't say maybe, doesn't speak in indefinite terms, it is definite. When it does happen, even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, that sounds like a place you would avoid at all costs. Sounds like your GPS would say rerouting. Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil because I have my weapons with me, because I have my defenses up. Is that what it says? I fear no evil for you are with me. Your rod and your staff, they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You have anointed my head with oil. My cup overflows. What does he describe that would fill a cup? Speaking of, I'm lavished with your presence. I'm satisfied in my shepherd. Surely goodness and loving kindness will pursue me all the days of my life and I will dwell in the house of Yahweh forever. Goodness and mercy following me in this life and follow me into the kingdom into the next life where I will sit in the house of the Lord forever. What does this world have to offer that compares to that? I think that is the heart of contentment set to music in the heart of David the psalmist. Aurelius Augustine wrote in the fourth century as though he were speaking to God himself and says, It is for you that we have been created, and we are restless until we find ourselves in you. God knew that. Augustine discovered that. God declared that to be the necessary pursuit of your life and mine when he gave the 10th commandment in Exodus chapter 20. Next time we will look at the design to protect God's allotments, to promote Yahweh's sufficiency, to profess Yahweh's generosity, and then what duties that holds for you and I. We serve a great God, and He is the only reason that anyone can ever be content, and He is the reason that we, as professing believers, should be content. And he is the reason that our Lord Jesus Christ was always content. He never owned anything. And he was completely satisfied in his Father and he set the tone for the lives of his people that God declared to be the necessary goal for each of us all the way back in Exodus chapter 20. Father, we stand in awe of the great God that you are, the doting Father that you are. And Lord, we confess that we are seldom content with anything. We read the words of the psalmist that he found his full contentment and satisfaction and delight, fulfillment in you. not in what you were giving to him and providing for him, but in you. Apart from what he had or didn't have in this world, he had you. And I pray that you will cause us to meditate on those truths, Lord, as we contemplate the idea of being content and fighting off the covetousness that plagues every person in our society. Lord, we live in a world that refuses to be content. May we be those that find our satisfaction in You, and may it cause us to stand out amongst all the peoples of the earth as those that find their satisfaction in the Savior. We might honor Your name to the utmost. Bless Your people for having been here tonight. Protect them as they travel home. Be honored by our time. We pray in the Savior's name. Amen.