All right, can everybody hear? Yep, looks like that's on. All right, good morning, folks. We're gonna go ahead and get started. So come on in, grab your coffee, donuts, Bibles, children, small objects, pets, whatever else we have. So go ahead and get started. Got a lot of exciting things today. And today we're going to finish up on the Ten Commandments part of the Shorter Catechism. So come on in, take your seats. We got everyone in place? All right. So let's do this. Greg, can you close those two doors? And I think we'll get started. Looks like we're having a convention in the foyer. All right, why don't we open up with prayer and we'll go ahead and get started, let's pray. Father in heaven, how thankful we are that you give us the opportunity to study your word and through the catechism, we have been learning how you speak to us about so many important things. We are especially thankful for this opportunity to look at the Ten Commandments and to be able to understand how you would have us live because it's not only a reflection of your character, But it's also the character into which you are molding us so that we might be able to live in such a way that truly expresses our humanity. We pray, Lord, that you give us wisdom as we look at this of the last commandments. And just pray, Lord, that it would be useful to us to better be able to glorify you in all that we do. And we ask this in Jesus' name. Amen. All right, folks, as before, we're going to do a number of scripture passages, and I'm going to ask you to look those up for the class. We're going to be reading 79 through 81. I'm now at that inflection point with these glasses. I'm just constantly...if I take them off, I can't...got to get too close, and if I put them on... I have to back up, and that's not good, but bear with me. So we're going to be looking at the Catechism. Again, you can find that either, of course, most of you, I understand, have it memorized. But for those who don't, you can make use of the Trinity Hymnal, page 870-ish, I'm told. If you look around there, questions 79 through 81, we'll take them all in order. And I'm gonna start writing, while you're looking those up, I'm gonna start writing some scripture passages, and we'll do like we've done before. I'm gonna ask some folks to look these up so that we can have them ready, and then we will jump right into the class. So let me just write these up here. Let's see, you can start picking which ones you think are your favorite. I'm gonna be doing Romans 7-7, James 1, 1, 14, 15. We don't have as many as we did last week, which they can go a little faster. Luke 12, 15. Philippians 4. I'm going to have to clean this dry erase board. Looks like it's not erasing as well as it's done in the past. Proverbs 10, almost there, almost there. Genesis 15, Ecclesiastes 3.11. Matthew 6, 19 through 21, is it? Yes, 21. And I don't know if we're going to get to this one, but I'll put it up there. Colossians 3, 1 through 3, is it? Yep. And last one. 25. Okay, those last two I'm not too sure about that we'll get to, but here we go. Let's get some volunteers if you don't mind. I'll put my glasses on so I can see your faces and know who's responding. We got Roman77, do I have a volunteer? Okay, Beth took that in the back. James1, 14 through 15. All right, Rob, thank you. Luke 12, 15. Takers, takers. Philip, thank you. Philippians 4, 11 through 12. Margaret Ann, thank you. Proverbs 10, 4. And that's like a CV line, you know, Proverbs 10, 4, good buddy. Okay, thank you, Vijay. Genesis 15, no, Romans, no. I did that, what am I saying? Genesis 15, 1. It's going to be the heart of today's passage. Any takers, anybody? Thank you, Jared. Ecclesiastes 3, 11. Matthew 6, 19 through 21, Tanya, and then the two that we might not get to, Colossians 3, 1 through 3, anyone? Anyone, anyone, anyone? Okay, Margaret, and I'm going to hold off on this one. This one's too long. I might read that. Okay, thank you all, guys. That will really be of great help. So for now, let's actually dive into the class. And as we've been saying as we go through the Ten Commandments, every one of these catechism questions, what it does for each of these commandments is it lays out the commandment Then it tells us two things. What is prohibited in the commandment, which is the very nature in which the commandment is written, right? So like, for example, do not murder. And you might say, well, it's a very short answer. Do not murder means do not murder, but it lays out all the different ways in which we're not to cause harm to others. But it also tells us what are the positive duties that are required by each commandment. So it's basically a commentary on each of those commandments. So we come now to the 10th commandment. It's going to have that same format. What are the duties required? What are the things that are forbidden or prohibited? But this is going to be a slightly different commandment. And let's see if you can pick up what makes it a bit different. So do I have somebody who might be willing to read questions? Okay, Tanya, 79 through 81. All right, that's wonderful. Thank you so much, Tanya. So, okay, one of the things that's interesting about this commandment, we talked about it when we looked at the first and second commandment. Does anybody here have a Roman background, Roman Catholic background? OK, so your VJ will already know that they one of the things that the Roman Church did it and you know we're not here to bash on them, but this is just necessary to point out there's some. There's such a disconnect on this that it's worth pointing out. They take this commandment, the 10th commandment, and they split it into two. It is the 9th commandment and the 10th and the way they do that is. They take you shall not covet. your neighbor's house, period. And then they move on and push the other things into, and they call that the ninth commandment, and then they push on and talk about the other things that one covets as the tenth commandment. So you essentially have two commandments about not coveting, although one talks about houses and the other one talks about people and animals. And you might say, well, why do they do that? Actually, very straightforward. It's because of the first and second commandment. The first commandment was what? You can say it. Yeah, have no other God before me. So, there's this idea of who is God. Now, you guys remember what the second commandment was? Yeah, the idea of images and what we said behind that was the real idea behind that is commandment one is who is God? Commandment two is how do we worship him? And the answer for that one is we saw back in the second commandment is however he dictates. He dictates his own worship. And that gets collapsed in the Roman church into the first commandment. And if you look at even at the Roman Catholic catechism, it basically does nothing to discuss the whole graven images, the whole idea of images. It just simply discusses the first part, you know, not having any other God. It kind of ignores the fact that they have statues of Mary and Jesus and, you know, everything else. Well, the Statue of Mary doesn't matter, other than the fact that the very idea of Mary actually violates the first commandment, but setting that aside, the images of Christ and so on would violate what we call the second commandment, what they call the second part of the first commandment. But it basically lets them absorb into that first commandment the idea of images, and then they just kind of don't really get around to it. But to still end up with 10, they've broken this up into two. Anyway, that's just a little sideline. If you've been in that background, want to be able to explain why this looks so different. But the 10th commandment is really everything that has to do with covenant. Now, as we jump into this commandment, did anything stand out to you as being a little different than any of the others that we looked at? Rod? But you've studied in school, so go ahead. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. That's exactly the right answer. So Rod is saying it deals more with the heart than with one's actions. When we go through all of the commandments, that format, which I was just reminding us of, that talks about what is the commandment, what are the duties required, what are the things that are forbidden. As each commandment laid, or rather, as the catechism questions laid out those duties and those prohibitions, we realized that God is much more interested in just the outward keeping. So, you know, when we talked about do not murder, it was that we were supposed to be doing all these different things to advance a person's life, for example, to protect their well-being. And it also had to do with our heart, as Jesus tells us in the Sermon on the Mount. Even that anger where you want to kill somebody in your heart, as it were, he was saying is a violation. So one thing we've been seeing all throughout the first nine commandments is that there is an outward component, yes, But there's also a very strong inward component to every one of these. That's what Jesus was getting at when he talked about in the Sermon on the Mount that if you even, you know, call your brother fool, you've already violated the commandment. On the seventh commandment on... on sexual immorality. He says, you know, even just lusting after a woman in your heart. What Jesus was doing in the Sermon on the Mount was he was showing just how much, much, much, much, much more difficult the Ten Commandments are to keep than had been taught in those days. The Pharisees were basically saying, you know, you just don't do these things, you know, you're going to be good. And, of course, they added on all sorts of extra man-made things. That's a separate thing. Just the idea that you can sit there and say, well, I've never taken a knife and plunged it into anybody or shot somebody, and I've never been with another woman other than my wife, and so therefore, I'm clean on those commandments, or blah, blah, blah, and so on. And Jesus was just showing us, using those two examples, just how absolutely difficult it is. He wants not only the outward behavior, he wants, as you said, Ron, your heart, the inner part of that. What stands out about this commandment is that whereas all the others are a combination, this one is only about the inward desire. That's going to have some very interesting implications. So, whoever's got Romans 7-7, will you please read that one nice and loud, please? All right, so here's a very interesting thing. Paul talks about how the law reveals our sinful nature, but he uses coveting as sort of a summary for the whole law. Remember, the Ten Commandments is, as we often refer to it, is a summary of the moral law of what God requires us to do. So he uses coveting as actually summarizing all that. He wasn't just using it as an example out of the Ten Commandments. There's a reason why he puts it out there. It's because it really hits on the very, very heart of that commandment. I didn't put it up here because I'm not going to read it in detail, but in Philippians chapter 3, Paul is talking about his life before he became a believer and how He had, as he puts it in Philippians 3, 6, he was blameless regarding the law. Now, he did not mean that he had never sinned, but he was saying externally he had never done those things that we were talking of before. You know, he had not committed adultery in the sense that he had been fornicating with a woman. He had never murdered someone. He had never grabbed something that belonged to somebody else and stole it, et cetera. But all of a sudden, this commandment comes, and it says that the inward desire is a problem. And he says, ooh, that's where it gets me. It's the inward desire. So that's what allowed him, he says in the Romans passage we just read, the law allowed him to see his sin just through the desire alone. And once we start putting that out there, then we start stepping on people's toes. Because we can all come to church, and we can all wear our masks of respectability. But if you've heard me say, there's not a single respectable person in this room, and that includes me. But we pretend, and we put on our masks, and we go around, and we say, well, I haven't done this, and I haven't done that. And we find out somebody did. You know, we clutch our pearls, and we're all shocked. But this just sets it all to bed and says the inward desire is really the problem. So it has been said by a number of theologians, I think they are right, that coveting is then ultimately the root of all the other sins because behind it is the desire to do something. Let's take a look at James 1, 14 through 15. I think it should make that point for us. Who's got James? Okay, if you would. All right, so there's James telling us that sin is not an outward activity. You know, as we've been going through the book of Ecclesiastes on Sunday mornings for worship, one of the things that, you know, has come up again and again is this idea that, you know, too many people look at sin as something that's external, something out there. something that we occasionally fall into. You know, I'm a good person. Occasionally I trip up. And scripture actually doesn't look at sins that way. I mean, there is a sense in which there is an external act. But long before you get to that external act is the desire that drove you to that act. And so you can have the desire not act on it and you still sinned, which is what Jesus is telling us about in the Sermon on the Mount. And here James shows us how that happens. He says before the actual physical act, external act occurs, that desire was what moved you in those directions. And so we've talked as we went through the catechism earlier and we talked about who we are as people and I told you that as free moral agents, you've never done anything that you don't want to do, and that you always act according to your nature, you always act according to your inclinations and desires, and we said that before we become believers, what's the idea? Everything that we desire is ultimately for our own glory, even if we do good things, externally good things, because we see people do externally good things. It's not like everybody's going around killing, murdering, and all that all the time. So we see folks doing externally good things, but their motivations are driven by their own nature, by their own character, and it's driven more for their own glory, not for the glory of God. When we become regenerate, when the Holy Spirit recreates in us, begins to restore that image in which we are made, our motivations begin to change. So the inward desire is absolutely essential to help us understand our sinful state and then as you mature as believers you begin to realize just how sinful we really are. Thankfully the Holy Spirit doesn't just open, doesn't reveal the blackness of our hearts to us all at once because we literally will go mad. But he does it slowly and as we do so we learn to trust more and more in Christ and turn to the cross more and so on. It does start with this point, and you know, you watch it with your kids. Your kids, when you are teaching them as they grow up, it's the external things that you first address, right? Because you've got to start with that. You know, don't hit your little brother, etc., that kind of thing. But after a while, you want to go beyond that. and get your child to sit there and say the reason you don't hit your little brother is because you love him, because you care for him, right? So we see the same thing with our kids. We have to continue growing in those areas as well. Everybody tracking so far? Oh, that's a thumbs up or was that a hand? It was a thumbs up. Okay. That's good. If you all nod, it makes me feel like, you know, we've done something here. All right. So, one of the interesting things is then if the desire is simply there, then have you committed the sin or does it have to be the external act? Absolutely. And while it's better to have had the desire and not have acted on it, right? It's still a sin. And once we begin to see that in our lives, we just realize how desperately we need Christ and we get away from the religious systems that are out there that basically just have you atone, make up for the external things, and usually the external things that you can remember, and that kind of thing. As opposed to, as we start becoming more mature, we realize that we're constantly desiring things. that from a wrong perspective, rather than desiring the glory of God, rather than desiring the good of mankind. Because, you know, Jesus summed up the Ten Commandments into the two great commandments, love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength, love your neighbor as yourself. And you can weigh just how often you don't do those things and you realize we're sinful all throughout, even as believers, even as... regenerate believers who are maturing, who are getting better. You know, Augustine, as he was growing in his own faith, he writes that book that's famously now known as the Confessions. And that's been criticized by some people because, you know, oh, he was just nitpicking little things. But what happened is he had reached a point of maturity in his own life where he can see all those things that other people would have said, well, that's not that big a deal. Or even, you didn't even act on that. But he, at that point of maturity in his life, he could just see just how fallen, just how broken, you know, he is. And we need to have that same attitude as we look at ourselves in that growth process. So, like I was saying, you know, we come to church and, you know, when I say we, I know I'm talking about everybody out there. I know you guys have matured to the point that I barely even need to say this. But, you know, for the sake of some people that maybe you might talk to out there, we come in with our masks and, you know, we pretend that everything's right. But the sooner we remove our masks and, you know, accept that we're all broken, that we're all hurting, and that we're all desperately in need of Christ, you know, the sooner we can turn to the remedy. And that's, you've heard me say before, the Jack Miller thing, right? Cheer up. You're much worse than you think. That's right. And you've got to get to that point because that's only when you really realize just how broken you are that you can then really grab a hold of, cheer up. God's grace is much greater than you can imagine. It can cover even somebody as bad as you, somebody as bad as me. And that's the beauty of it. So now that we understand that, let's go back to Genesis. We won't look it up, but you know, Genesis chapter 3, Adam and Eve in the garden, don't eat of the tree in the middle of the garden. At what point did Eve, you know, she's engaging with a serpent, at what point then did she sin? It says, you know, the serpent is telling her, oh, no, you will not surely die. You know, go ahead, grab a hold of it, do it, do it, do it, take it, you know. And it says that she saw the fruit and it looked pleasant to her and it was desirable. And she took it, and she ate, and she gave some to her husband who was with her. So at what point, if we want to, you know, try to kind of break it up, at what point does she sin? Is it when she grabs the fruit and eats it? from the moment that she desired it. Yeah, from that very moment. In fact, we can even go back further. She lies to Satan, or she misrepresents God when she says, no, God has says that we are not to eat, we're not even to touch it. Now, if you've got kids, you know that's what they do. They always exaggerate the limitations that you've given them, right? So God has said, don't eat it, and so all of a sudden it's, don't eat, don't even touch it. See how he takes away all my fun. At that point already, the desire was there, in this case, a desire of rebellion, a desire of, I don't want to do what he wants me to do. So, right from the very beginning, desire through the whole thing for a loop. Okay. Yeah, so that's a great, great question. All temptation does is it appeals to that desire. That temptation is just appealing to that desire to get you to act on it. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. I mean, so, you know, Satan is not the one that introduced the desire. The desire was in Eve, it's in us. And any temptation, we don't even need Satan, we can tempt one another, right? So, I could try to get you to do something, but what I'm appealing to is that desire. That desire flows out of, as James pointed out, it flows out of our nature, it flows out of who we are. And, you know, you've heard me use the examples, you know, cats. Don't chase after cars. Dogs chase after cars. Cats don't bury bones. Dogs bury bones. But cats do want to chase canaries, you know, they do want to go after, you know, canaries, and they do want to climb trees. That's in their nature. Dogs don't chase after canaries, and they don't want to climb trees. That's not in their nature. So, we always act according to our nature, and temptation is just appealing to somebody's desires that flow out from that nature. We don't really need temptation, we have plenty on our own, but it's kind of like a little kickstart, if that makes sense. One of the things that we were talking about when we looked at that section of what it means that we're free, we've always said that human beings always are free to choose good or to choose evil. That doesn't change whether you're a believer, has been regenerated with a new nature, or even when you were an unbeliever. You're always free. Now, the question is one of inclinations and what you are able to do. And we've already just said that, you know, as unbelievers, we're unable to choose good, truly good, because of our desires are always to act selfishly, right? Jesus, being sinless, still is a human being, and he has a human will. He is absolutely free to do evil. Now, he never chose to do so, but the temptation was, hey, you can do it. Go ahead. You know, for once, act in your own self-interest, Jesus. Come on, you know, let's, you know, get somebody here to bring you some bread. I mean, you're dying out here, man. Come on, you know, get something to eat. So he's appealing to his nature, but because his nature is absolutely pure and sinless, it bounces off. No, no. So that's a good point. If you watched the travesty of a film that came out in 1992, hopefully you didn't. It was called The Last Temptation of Christ by Martin Scorsese. He tried to humanize Jesus. And what he meant by that is he tried to show that he had all these inner desires, like, you know, he wanted Mary Magdalene and all this other stuff. There's nothing in scripture even close to talking about that, but he tried to put that all in there. And if you've seen those interviews back then, you know, he was just, he said, oh, I wasn't trying to be blasphemous. I just wanted to show that he was just some guy like the rest of us that, you know, he had those desires, but he was willing to do the hard thing. He was willing to give up those desires for the greater good. And he's like, you know, all that. Jesus, being completely pure, still had the choice. He could still sit there and say, I could lust after that woman. I could, but I'm not going to. You know, that kind of thing. But, yeah. to sit there, as some theologians have said, and say that Jesus externally didn't do anything wrong, but he had the desires like everybody else, isn't in and of itself blasphemous. All right, so let's just press on a little bit and then say, now that we've established that it's the desire that really is the cause of sin, why does the commandment go and talk about all these specific things, right? Your house, your spouse, your manservant, maidservant, your animals and all that. Why is that? And the reason is because ultimately, covenantness is expressed through a heart that is dissatisfied. It's really discontent that drives the idea of covening. Let's see, we've got Luke 12, 15. Who's got that? All right, so take care. And specifically, Jesus says, be on guard against what? Against covetousness because true life, the purpose of life does not exist in just all the stuff that you own. But in our culture, in our setting, everything is constantly, you know, you're not satisfied until you have all these things. And the funny thing is, what happens when you have all these things? Still not satisfied. You want more things. In ministry, as I've dealt with people at different socioeconomic levels, if they've not learned the art of contentment, then what happens? They're dissatisfied. There are folks, you know, that have private choppers and all this other stuff. And, you know, they have people who, you know, pick the blue M&Ms out of the jar because they don't like blue. They're still dissatisfied with life. So, it begins then, if you want to be able to really fulfill this commandment, it begins with learning how to be content and to recognize that there's a lie being perpetuated in our society, which is that the good life is to have everything. So the question then is, what do we have to have in order to have the good life according to scripture? What do we have to have in order to truly be content? So let me have somebody look up the Philippians 4, 11 through 12 passage. Whoever's got that, if you'll go ahead and read that. All right, so there's Paul saying, I have learned the secret of contentment. It doesn't matter whether I have much or whether I have little, I have learned to be content. And notice he's not saying because I'm striking the middle path. I don't have too much, I don't have too little, and that's why I'm happy. He's saying, I can have a whole lot, and I'm content. I can have nothing, and I'm content. And presumably somewhere in the middle, he can be content. It doesn't matter where you are in the spectrum. And so we begin in order to really fulfill this commandment, it begins with being content with whatever it is that God has given us. One of the things that I often, maybe not constantly, but often have to say in counseling is when somebody comes and they're wrestling with things is the problem here is that you're seeking contentment in your circumstances. And that really is where a lot of people in the world are. They seek their contentment in what they have, what they don't have, and so on. And what the scripture is making clear here is that we ought not to be looking for that. Now, let me just do a little aside. Our time is... I've got a few minutes, so let me just do a little aside. This does not mean that you can't improve your situation, that if you find yourself with less, not only, we talked actually about this a little bit in the last sermon either. I'm already two weeks ahead, so I can't remember whether it was this last Sunday or the one before that, but in fact, let me have somebody read the Proverbs 10, four passage, because it speaks right to that, then I'll go on from there. All right, I think one of the things I was saying hopefully in that sermon is it's not only that it's okay to have stuff and to have wealth, but God actually expects us to do that. And we don't have an opportunity here to unpack all of that, but God gives us abilities. And he gives us opportunities, two different things. He gives you abilities and he expects you to use those abilities. The Matthew passage 25, which we won't get into right here, is the parable of the talents, right? You're given so much. And so some people are given one talent, people like me, other people get two talents. Some of you who are very talented get five talents. And then God expects you to use that. And I want to hold on to that. I'll get back to it in just a moment. But he gives us differing abilities, differing giftedness, and so on. And then he also gives us opportunities. And he expects us to use our talents and to avail ourselves of the opportunities. Some people have giftedness, have talents, resources, and they don't act on it. They let the opportunities go by. And God calls us to exercise that. And we are, in fact, you know, one of the things that came out of the Reformation was a recapturing of the idea of, you know, well, what came to be known as the Protestant work ethic. And again, I can go on and do a whole class on that, but this idea that you work to improve your condition, not just for the sake of greed, because every time that's discussed in scripture or any time that's taught, you see theologians writing about it or so on, they always take us back to Ephesians chapter 4 that tasks us. I think it's Ephesians 4.27. I'm not 100% sure. I didn't put that in my notes, but it's the passage that says that you do that not just for yourself, the gaining of money, but also so you can help with the needs of others. So you meet your own needs, the needs of yourself and your family and so on, but also those around us. If we did all that, All the socialists who are constantly complaining about greedy capitalism, that would go away if we really did what the full Ten Commandments tells us to do, which is not only to provide for ourselves and our loved ones, but to love others would mean taking care of them. But anyway, the point is, The scripture in talking about contentment does not mean that you have to stop, you know, okay, so I've got a beat up junker car that's 25 years old and it's rusting and all that. Well, I can be content, thank you God that you gave me this car and gets me to work. But it doesn't mean that you can't go and work hard and save up your shekels and then buy yourself something better, right? It's all about, like Paul said, being content with whatever those circumstances are. Improving it, not a problem. God gives us those, opportunities and gives us those abilities. The issue with contentment is learning that all of us are limited in our abilities. All of us are limited in our opportunities and we're always going to find somebody who seems to have an ability or an opportunity that we did not have. And coveting begins when you sit there and you begin to say, oh, I wish I had that. And that you're not satisfied with the fact that God put a limit on that. Does that make sense? And that's when we begin to sit there and say, you know, he's got a nicer house, she's got this, you know, and that kind of thing. That's when you really start getting into trouble because you recognize, yes, I have certain things, but I wish I had those other things, those other opportunities, those other abilities, the things that have come of it. Okay, questions on that before we move to the last thing? We're going to talk about the antidote to coveting and how we can truly be content in every circumstance. But questions so far? No, this is all perfect sense. I'm so absolutely clear that there are no questions. Wow, I'm amazing. Okay, this commandment, like I said, this is the one that begins to step on toes. Because if you've gotten up to now, you might have been able to get away with saying, yeah, I've never done that. You know, I'm pretty good, I got all that covered. Now you get to this commandment, and it clips you at the knees, and basically it just tells you, yeah, you're pretty bad. And that's where we're all at. So how do we overcome that? How do we then truly be content? What's the one thing that we need? And the answer to that is very simple. Let's take a look at Genesis 15.1. Who's got that for us? Okay, it says, read that last part again. You're what? Huh, okay, I may have, I needed to double check that. Is that the ESV translation? Ooh, that's not good. I should have checked that. Anybody have anything other than the ESV? What does it say in that last line on the reward part? Yes, Genesis 15.1. Yeah, I think that's better. And that was NIV, you said? So NIV, King James, New American Standard. So I should have checked. I don't like the way the ESV put it. God is actually saying, I am your great reward, not great will be your reward. I am your shield, and I am your great reward. You've heard me talk about when we do the Lord's Supper, and I'll on occasion say that it's not, you know, when we look at Christ, it's not what Christ gives us. that, you know, oh, he gives us this, he gives us that, he provides for us, he protects us, he cares for us. And he does all those things, and for those things, we're thankful. But ultimately, what matters is that Jesus himself, as you've heard me say, is what? By that point, I've lost you. I know that's about an hour into the service. He himself is the prize, right? He himself is the reward. And that's what we're seeing here in Genesis 15. The way that you are satisfied with your circumstances is that you begin to realize, not begin to, you realize that God is your reward. Jesus, as God come in the flesh, makes himself available to us. Jesus is the prize and Jesus is the reward. So if somebody gives you a bazillion, gazillion, trillion dollars, right? And somebody else says, but there's a dime over there. You're like, I don't need the dime. I've got, you know, the bazillion, gazillion, jillion, trillion dollars, right? I don't need the dime. When you have God as your reward, when Christ is the central, most absorbing interest in your life, the thing that drives you, that which fills your horizon. then everything else you begin to see are not really the treasures that they seem to be at first. Having that career, having that status, having the approval, right? Having those experiences, those pleasures, having those possessions, whatever those things are. And we've been seeing that all throughout the book of Ecclesiastes too, right? Ecclesiastes just basically goes You know, you're relying on status, boop, that doesn't work. You're relying on your wealth, boop, that doesn't work. You want your possessions, boop. And it just goes right through and shows that every one of those ultimately can give no true satisfaction. This is not to say that you can't enjoy a good meal, right? Can't enjoy, for guys, I'm sorry, I'm talking like a guy does, you know, a good car. I don't know what, ladies, you'll have to help me out there. What should I say there that would be about the same? Not to say that ladies don't enjoy cars, but I think, you know, men, you all do what I do, right? You all get like an email a day with the car of the day, right? Classic car, right? Yeah, I mean, because then we just look and say, oh, yeah, look at that 1971, you know, and so on. It gives us satisfaction. But ultimately, that's not going to be ultimately satisfying. It's going to not last forever. The only place you'll find full, complete, and utter satisfaction is in Christ, only when He fills every aspect of who you are, and then everything falls into place. And then it actually enables you to enjoy all the other things in life because you can see them in perspective. When you put ultimate significance on all the things that we covet for, whether it be a possession, whether it be a position or a status, whether it's the applause of others that we seek, whether it's experiences and pleasure or so on, whatever, once you... understand that those things are not in themselves going to take you all the way to the finish line. You can enjoy them in their proper perspective, right? Does that make sense? And you can be content. So that's what we're seeing right here. Let's take a look at, what's the next one? Yes, Ecclesiastes 3.11, who's got that? All right, thank you. So we've looked at that passage several times in our study on Ecclesiastes in the morning, and I've always done it from the more negative side, that it's because God has made us put eternity in our hearts. He's made us as more than just physical beings. It's this idea that we can see, and the author of Ecclesiastes, the preacher, goes on and talks about that we know that there's more to life. We know it goes beyond these physical things. and so on, and yet it says, not so that you can know the beginning from the end. In the end, we're finite, we're not God, we're not infinite, we can't grasp the whole of God's plan, we can't grasp the entirety of who he is and what he's doing, but we can see enough, we can grab a hold of enough to know there's more to it. And I've used that more than a negative sign to sit there and say, you're not going to be able to grasp everything. You're not going to be able to grab hold of God's plan entirely. You're going to have to have a level of trust. We know there's something more. We know we're not supposed to be satisfied with what just is here. But let's flip it now and just look at it a little bit more from the positive end, which is because He has put eternity in your hearts and you know there's something more, then you begin to realize that all these physical, earthly things, are not the treasures that our culture constantly puts them up as. They're not ultimate. They do have those limitations, so. Let's see, did I... Yes, Matthew 6, 19. That'll be the next one, and I think we're almost about done. Who's got Matthew 6, 19 through 21? All right, so there's that classic line, where your treasure is, which is a way of saying what you value, that's where your heart is. If I want to know who you are, I ask questions that will show me what you treasure, what you value, what you like, what you pursue, what again is that central thing in your heart that drives you. And very often when I hear this passage presented, it's this idea of, well, don't invest in earthly things. Invest in heavenly things. And perhaps you've heard the same thing. And these are not bad things, by the way, what I'm about to say, but you'll hear this often as an appeal to give money to missionaries, right? Let's support missionaries. Let's get guys on the field who are going to preach the gospel to people that don't have, and is that investing in the kingdom? Is that investing in heavenly things? Yeah, I mean, you know, so, or, you know, even giving here in the church. But it seems to often be put in terms that are still somewhat, you know, money-oriented or, you know, in terms of spend time in your Bibles and so on. And all that is true, but I think it still misses the point. If Jesus is the prize, what's he really calling us to? When he tells us, your reward is in heaven, your treasure is in heaven, who's the treasure? It's Christ, yeah, it's Christ. So once we have that and we see that it's not just giving money to missionaries, because again, you can then begin to take a little bit of pride. Oh, I give so much. You know, this person only gives this much, but I give that much, right? Once you have Jesus become that central, most absorbing interest in your life, what will you also want to do? You'll want other people to know about him, so you're going to give to the missionary anyway. But you see how it flows out from that. And as I wrap this up, you've heard me say this in other settings, but maybe we can use it here. You've heard me sometimes talk about how when we prioritize things in life, you'll hear people say like, what's the most important thing? God, right? What's the second most important thing? What would you guys say? Family, right, right? I mean, you know the answers. Then what's number three? I'm gonna put church up here and all that. I'll even put, what do we normally say? Something like, just, you know, in general terms, not saying that friends aren't important or anything like that. But, you know, we tend to do something like this, right? And that's not a bad priority. I mean, God is more important than your family and your country, and your family should be more important than your country and that kind of thing. So we tend to do that. Now, the problem with that thinking, if you parcel it out and you start really thinking of how that works, is that then you can set up a diagram, a pie chart. And in the pie chart, you can sit there and say, because you all have little pieces of your lives, right? You have your work life, your family life, your recreation life, your life as a citizen, your civic life, and so on and so on and so on. So then I can sit there and say, what will we all say? Well, we say, oh, recreation life, that probably has to be the smallest part, right? My recreation life is 59% of my pie chart, and God's like 20%. You're like, oh, that's messed up. That's not the way things should be. So God should get a really big part, right? God. And then, you know, here's family. Oh, look at that. This guy's got his priorities right. Here's the U.S. of A, right? All that. The problem with that is, first of all, if I'm increasing my God part, what does it do to the other parts of the chart? Decreases. That doesn't seem to make sense. If I'm growing more godly, that means it takes away more from my family? No, shouldn't it kind of be going together? I think this whole model just doesn't work. I'm just trying to expose. I mean, I appreciate that folks are sitting there and saying God's more important than these other things. But I think we have to have a paradigm shift in how we look at the whole model. And rather than thinking of it in this way, let's imagine it like a ring, and this ring, is Jesus, is Christ. Oops. Thing is moving, that's why I can't do it. And so you take all these strands, like you get a ring and you pass these strands through them, these threads through them, string through them. Every one of those strands represents one of these things. It might be your family. It might be your work and your vocation. It might be your recreational life. It might be your civic life. With all these different things, and they all have to pass through the strand of Jesus. my work life, my personal life, my family life. And what it shows is that then nothing is outside the orbit of Jesus having influence, control, and lordship over those things. Every one of those aspects of my life is Christ-controlled and flows out from my relationship with Christ. Does that make sense? And when that happens, that's where contentment begins to fall into place. Because now I can see every one of those different things in relationship to He who is my great reward. They take on proper perspective. They take on, in some cases, we realize it's got a light of fire under our butts and we've got to start doing something that we haven't been doing. In other cases, we realize I've got to throttle back on some of these things. I've been putting way too much attention, time, money, and whatever into those things. But everything gets informed because it's under that umbrella, under that, you know, passes through the ring of Christ. Make sense? All right, one last thing and then we'll stop. In the parable of the talents, if you remember, when the guy who's given five talents, right, he's the most gifted, all that stuff, he uses it wisely. And in the parable, Jesus says that when he comes, when the master comes to see how they did, master's very pleased with what the servant did. What does he say to him then? You guys remember? Well done, good and faithful servant, right? Okay, so good. I mean, that's the reward we're all hoping in terms of what we're going to hear from Christ. Well done, good and faithful servant. Now, the guy with the two talents, less gifted, but he made use of the opportunities and the giftedness that was given to him, so he exercised his talents faithfully. What does Jesus tell him? Anyone? Same thing, well done, good and faithful servant. The guy with the one talent is the one that he rags on, but not because he had the one talent only, but because he did not faithfully use it the way the others did. The point is, it doesn't matter what your opportunities are. It doesn't matter what your abilities are. as long as you use them faithfully, as long as Christ is your great reward, as long as that is what drives you and motivates you. You don't have to be jealous of the person. You know, like, you've heard me say this, I recognize I'm a utility infielder when it comes to being a pastor. I preach, I do that, I think, you know, enough to hopefully not get fired. But, you know, there's Tim Keller, there's Sinclair Ferguson. I don't look at those guys and say, You know, why them? Why not me? How come I don't have, you know, that ability and, you know, have magnetic, you know, personality that attracts crowds and all that? That's fine. He gave that to them. In fact, the commandment tells us that we're to rejoice that those guys are being used of God. And if you know those guys, and actually I've had both of those men that I've mentioned as professors and men that I've been around for a long time, they don't go around saying, oh, look at me, look at all my gifts and, you know, whatever. They're just simply trying to exercise and use what they've got faithfully. You see how that goes? So, as long as you make use of whatever the Lord has you, you don't have to be covetous, you don't have to be dissatisfied with what you have and desiring of somebody else. Just make use of what you've got. And when the end game comes and Christ returns, you'll hear the exact same thing as that other person that is so much more gifted and so on. You see how that works? So, all right. Let's stop there. Any questions, comments? No? Wow, either of you guys are very sleepy. Okay, if not, then let's go ahead and we'll close with prayer and we'll get ready for worship. Father in heaven, when we come now to this 10th commandment, we are a bit uncomfortable because we begin to realize that Really, our inward desires are not what they ought to be, and that dissatisfaction is much more prevalent in our lives and our hearts than they ought to be. And we do pray that you would be gracious through your Holy Spirit to show us just how dissatisfied we are. And we ask this, Father, so that we would be drawn once again back to your Son, Jesus Christ, who is indeed our great reward, who is the prize. And help us, Father, to more and more set aside those things which are not really ultimately treasures, those things which pale in significance as we look to Him and as the author of Hebrews says, as we look to Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith. And even in that passage, it tells us not just to look casually but to fix our eyes. Help us, Father, to be able to do that. Help us to overcome. through your Spirit's enabling, that covetous heart that wants everything but Him, and help us find our true reward in Him and our true satisfaction. And we pray, Lord, that that will move us and motivate us then to do all the things that you call us to do in the other nine commandments, but to do it from a heart that longs to glorify you in all that we do. And we pray these things, Father, in the name of Jesus, because He alone makes them able. He alone makes them possible. We ask this in His name. Amen.