Tenth Commandment | Stone | CJ Ward

[00:00:02] Speaker A: Hey New Life Gillette Church, we are thrilled you decided to listen to our teaching on your favorite podcast app. If you made a decision to follow Christ today, would you let us know by visiting yes.newlife Gillette.com Here is this week's teaching. Well, I want to say good morning to everybody joining us online over at Church 307 and to our friends down at the prison, we are, we are genuinely so glad that you're part of the family and everybody who is camping this weekend, glad you're tuning in. We are finishing up our 10 Commandment series today. We've been in this for 10 weeks because there are 10 Commandments and this is the last one. So Exodus chapter 20 is where we're going to be in verse 17. But while you're turning there, some of you, I'm sure, have heard that our Wednesday night services have come to an end to make room for our youth ministry. We we launched our youth ministry in the West Win in the fall and they almost immediately outgrew that space. And we say if you've ever been to the 5 and 5 wall or scrolled our website, then you've heard that we prioritize the next generation. There are a lot of teens in Gillette that need to know Jesus loves them unconditionally and he died to give them new life. So we're expecting pretty soon this room to be full on Wednesday nights with teens because of that. Yeah, that should get an amen we should be excited about. You know, this is not part of my sermon or my notes or anything, but you know, Jesus was basically the first youth pastor and that's not just a joke. Scholars believe his disciples were probably teenagers, all except Peter. He was the only one old enough to get married. So if we want to faithfully follow Jesus, we got to take youth seriously. We have to do it. Otherwise we're just kind of skipping Jesus and his whole life. But because of that, we're going to be launching a third service later in the summer. Now the details are going to be coming out soon. We are working hard on figuring out when the best time is going to be for that. But we're going to be launching another third service because right now we got a lot of people watching online from camping and stuff, which is great. When the fall gets here, we're going to be out of seats. And we are expecting Jesus to keep sending people who don't know Jesus here. We're expecting us to keep sharing the gospel with people who don't know Jesus. So that means we got to have more seats. So we're going to be launching a third service. Here's what I need from you. We're going to need more volunteers. It takes a lot of volunteers. I don't actually know off the top of my head how many, but a lot of volunteers to run a Sunday here, especially in our kids ministry. We're going to have to staff a whole new service with our kids ministry. So if you're. If this is your church, if you'd say, yeah, New Life is my family. This is where I go. This is my church, then we need you to volunteer. We're inviting you to be part of what God's doing, specifically in the kids ministry. In fact, what I would like for you to do right now, if you are not serving yet, on the seat back in front of you, there is a card. We have a card for everything here in New Life. We probably have a card so that you can get more cards, but we have. There's a Next Steps card, and on it you can sign up to volunteer. So I want you to grab that card, fill it out, sign up to volunteer specifically in the kids ministry and drop it in one of those offering boxes on your way out. Do that right now. We need more volunteers because kids, youth, adults need to hear that Jesus loves them unconditionally and died to give them new life. We gotta do it. It's what we're here for. So Exodus, chapter 20, verse 17. Here's what it says. You shall not covet your neighbor's house. You shall not covet your neighbor's wife or his male or female servant, or his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor. Let's pray. Jesus, you are good and you are faithful and you are kind and worthy of our praise and worship. I ask that you would speak to us this morning. We don't need my opinions. So if there are my opinions in this sermon, show them to us. Let us throw them away. But if there's anything that's consistent with your character and faithful to your word, let that be what lasts in our minds and hearts, because we are here for you, Jesus. Amen. Check out this video. [00:04:29] Speaker B: It's. It's. Do you Remember the Shire, Mr. Furle? It'll be spring soon. The orchards will be in blossom, and the birds will be nested in the hazel thicket that we sow in the summer. Barley in the lower fields had eaten the first of the strawberries with cream. Do you remember the taste of strawberries? No, Sam. I can't recall the taste of food nor the sound of water, touch of grass. I'm naked in the dark. There's nothing. No veil between me and the wheel of fire. I can see him with my waking eyes. Then let us be rid of it [00:06:48] Speaker A: once and for all. [00:06:51] Speaker B: Come on, Mr. Frodo. I can't carry it for you, but I can carry it. You. Come on. [00:07:24] Speaker A: No, I'm not crying. Why do you ask if you are a Lord of the Rings? By the way, did anybody know what that was? Did you actually know what that was from? Okay, some of y'. [00:07:31] Speaker B: All. [00:07:31] Speaker A: If you didn't, that was. Yes, it was. If you didn't, that's probably a weird three minutes or so. But if you're. If you're watching that scene and you're a Lord of the Rings fan and you're not crying, I don't know what's wrong with you. This is where we learn, right? Frodo was a punk all along. Sam is the real hero in Lord of the Rings. Anyway, have you ever. Have you ever been hungry late at night? You know, 11, 12 o', clock, something in your house? And maybe you went to the grocery store earlier that day. Pantry, stocked, fridge is full, and you cannot find one thing that you want to eat. You know what I'm talking about? Like, you're rifling through and there's no Oreos there. That's the only thing that always satisfies the crave. But you can't find anything, right? You go through the pantry, you go through the fridge, you go through the freezer. Everything you bought earlier today, just. You don't want to eat it, right? You do that for 20 minutes or so, and eventually you're like, I can't remember the taste of food, the sound of water. Nothing between me and the ring of fire, right? My British accent is not great, but I can do the whole scene. Here's an obvious point. This is obvious, but we need to pay attention to it. When we desire something we do not have, we become discontent with what we do have. One more time. When we desire what we don't have, what we can't have, we become discontent with the things we do have, right? You can have a full pantry, but you saw a Burger King commercial earlier today, and now that's all you want. That food doesn't look or taste nearly as good as it does in the commercial. And you know that, but it's in your mind. And because it's in your mind and you're fixated on it, this is why your Truck was great until your Buddy bought a 26 King Ranch. This is why your marriage is awesome. Until you see a friend posting stuff on Instagram and they don't post the fights, right? They just post the romantic pictures. This is why you feel like you've got enough money until your friend tells you about the vacation they went on, right? They tell you about the resort they stayed at. And they, once again, don't tell you about the fact their kids were screaming the whole time and there was no food there. Your kids wanted to eat and it was miserable. They just tell you about how awesome and beautiful the resort was. And now you start thinking, well, I thought I had enough money, but I can't afford that resort and those plane tickets, so I probably need a little bit more, right? When you start desiring things you don't have, looking beyond what you do have, you lose contentment with the things you actually have, the things that are actually around you. Now, this commandment has a word in it that's important to define, Covet. We don't use that word. It's kind of archaic. We don't use it in common English very often. So let's look at this word. The English word covet is the Hebrew word hamad. And the Hebrew word hamad literally is translated most often. Desire means desire just to desire something, to want something. Sometimes it's a positive word, sometimes it's a negative word. Sometimes it means you saw something pleasant, desirable, beautiful. And sometimes, as in this, it's desiring something you can't have. It's desire that's pointed in a direction that it shouldn't be pointed, but it just means desire. This command is different than all nine other commands. And when you read the scholarship on it, pretty much everybody points this out. This command is different because every other command is about something you do. Do not worship idols. Do not make a graven image. Do honor your father and mother. Do not steal. Do remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy. All the other commands are about actions. They're about things that you do or things that you should not do. This command is different because it's about something you feel. It's about a desire that you have. It's about something that honestly is hard to control, right? Sometimes you can't necessarily control what you desire. Sometimes desire is sparked by something you see, by something that you experience, by something that's shown to you. This command is about desire. Now, before we go any farther, there's something we should point out. It would be easy for us to Think that what God is doing in this command is he's trying to prevent the breaking of the other commandments that he's saying, don't desire your neighbor's wife. Because if you don't desire your neighbor's wife, you won't commit adultery. Don't desire your neighbor's things. Because if you don't desire your neighbor's things, then you won't steal them. Right? And that would be an easy way for us to interpret this command. But there's something important to pay attention to. The Bible doesn't call something sin because. Because it might become sin later. The Bible doesn't do that, all right? God doesn't go around saying this thing isn't bad, but because it might become something bad, I don't want you to do it. If God calls something sin or evil, it is in and of itself sin. Otherwise we wouldn't be able to do anything. Right? Because you'd be driving home and you might have somebody cut you off in your car and you might flip them off, right? You might see something you shouldn't on the Internet and it might cause you to want more of it. So you shouldn't use computers, right? If God is prohibiting things that might become wrong later, then he would have to prohibit just about everything. He calls something evil if it's evil. Right? So when God says our desires, do not desire, do not covet, don't desire what is your neighbor's. He's pointing to something that's true beyond our actions. He's pointing to something that's true in our hearts. This is why in the New Testament, the Apostle Paul would tell us that the law is helpless to make you righteous because you cannot do the bad thing, but still desire it. And that desire is still drawing us away from what God wants. That desire is still causing harm. The law can keep you from doing a bad thing, but the law won't make you a righteous person, because righteousness starts inside. It starts with our hearts. It doesn't start with our actions. That's why the rest of the commands, the Ten Commandments, actually point to this. Paul wasn't introducing some new idea in the New Testament. The Ten Commandments tell us that you can follow all nine of them perfectly and still have desires that are drawing you away, still have desires that you're facilitating. Desire in and of itself is not a bad thing. But when desire is pointed in the wrong direction, it leads to destruction. Have you ever played fetch with a dog and got bored playing fetch and then decided to trick him [00:14:31] Speaker B: Right? [00:14:31] Speaker A: You got the tennis ball and you're like, you know, you tuck it behind your back and the ball, the dog runs off and then he can't find the ball and then he comes back to you and it's like, what the heck, man? And then you do it again and the dog does it again, right? You can do that like 10 or 12 times. I've got labs that are incredibly dumb and you can, you can get away with that quite a few times with them. That's desire. That's desire pointed in the wrong direction, right? We go to desire and it says, yeah, you need more money. And then we go get it and there was no fulfillment there. So we just run back to desire. What the heck, man? And then it says, well, you know, you know that thing that you've been really wanting to try your whole life, that experience, that pleasure that you. If you could just, if you could just have that fulfilled, if you could just get that thing. I know you're not supposed to, but if you could just get that thing, if you could go get that, well, then you'd be happy, then you'd be content. And we run out after it, but it's not there. And then we run back to desire again. Oh, well, if you just had their life, if you just had their job, if you just had their marriage, if your life was just like theirs. And then we run after desire and we don't find any fulfillment, and then we run back to it and it tricks us over and over and over again. There's a reason for that, and it's what this commandment is pointing to. This commandment, really, the commandment that points to the heart of all of the ten Commandments is telling us something really important about what it means to be human. It's telling it by a negative. So it's telling you not to do something, but in what it's telling you not to do, it's pointing to something that's true. And the thing that it's pointing to is that you were created for a relationship with an eternal, omnipotent, all powerful being. You were created for a relationship with God. That probably doesn't surprise you. You're probably not shocked to hear that today you were created for a relationship with an omnipotent, all powerful being. And no finite desire, no finite thing can fulfill your desire to be with an omnipotent, all powerful God. You were created to be with the Creator. Nothing inside of creation will fulfill the desire that captivates your heart. But we go back to it. And we think, oh, the money will, the sex will, the drugs will. If I just drink enough to forget, then I will. But then I've got to go drink more to forget the things I did when I was drinking. It consumes us. I want to say something really, really cheesy. We're in Mordor. Lord of the Rings. Desire is like a fire. It consumes you, right? This is why people get addicted to pornography. Everybody thinks they're gonna go look at porn and they're gonna do it once and it's gonna fulfill their desire. And then, you know, maybe six months later, I'll go back. Nobody does that. It's addicting because desire is consuming. Because desire is meant to be fulfilled by something eternal. And if it's not fulfilled by something eternal, you have to have more and more and more and more and more to try to chase the fulfillment of that desire. That's how it works. It's consuming. And we live in a world where the thing we were longing for, it's been consumed all around us. It is a burned up landscape where we are just consuming and consuming and consuming. Do you want to know why marriages, even when you watch marriages on tv, try to think of one that's good, that you've seen presented. Try to think of a family presented on TV that you would want to be like. It's consumption. It's consuming. It's burning up all around us. This is why. Did you know after Tom Brady won the fifth, his fifth super bowl, they did an interview with him? Do you know what he said in the interview? He said, is this it? Is this it? This is what it was all about. No one has accomplished more in the world of football than him. That guy's got more money than I can even I could even imagine. I don't think I could spend it all if you gave me six years and he's still not fulfilled. Because he was created for an eternal being. And only something eternal will fulfill the desire. Otherwise, the desire is just consumption. It's just consuming us. Genesis, chapter one. You were made in the image of God. [00:19:15] Speaker B: Why? [00:19:16] Speaker A: Because you were made for relationship with God. That's why your relationship with your dog is different than your relationship with your friends. They're not like you. The dog is great. I love my dog. The dog isn't like me, so we can't have the same relationship. God made us in his image, in his likeness, for a relationship with him. And then In Genesis chapter 2, God walks with humans. He walks in the garden, in the cool of the day. God is hanging out. It's relationship, it's going on a walk. Can you imagine just hanging out like throwing darts with God. That's what we were created for, to spend time, to be in a relationship with him, to be like Abraham was called a friend of God. To be in a genuine, meaningful relationship with him. But then sin entered the world. Sin entered the world and broke the story. It broke our relationship with God. We were made to be friends with him, to be family with him. But sin broke the relationship. Do you remember what tree they weren't supposed to eat of? That was the sin. It was the tree of the knowledge of. Yeah, it was the tree of I get to decide what I want. It was the tree of nobody can tell me whether I get what I desire or not. It was the tree of wanting to be God instead of be with God. The serpent said, no, you won't die, you will become like God. It was the tree of wanting to be him and not need him. I'm wanting to have his power instead of being friends with him. It was the tree of no one can tell me my desires are wrong. No one can tell me I can't get what I want. And our relationship was broken. And ever since then we have been in a world on fire, my friends. You want to know what the next 11 chapters of Genesis are? They're the world catching on fire. They're families turning into tribes that fight, that compete for things that consume one another literally until it culminates with a flood. And then they try to build an empire at babble. And that doesn't work either. And God scatters it. Why? To keep us from eating each other like rats. Because the desire is consuming. It's Mordor is what I'm saying. And we were created for a relationship with God. But we can't remember what food tastes like. We can't remember the sound of water. We're created for something, but we can't find the thing we desire. We're looking for it everywhere else, but we don't remember what it was actually like to be with God. So we look for it in sex and we look for it in money and we, we look for it in a bigger boat. And we look for it in retirement and we look for it in the perfect job. And we look for it everywhere else. We look for it in a political leader that will finally make things right. And then we look forward in a different political leader that will finally make everything right. We look forward everywhere else because we can't Remember what it was like to be with God. But what I'm trying to tell you is you were created for a relationship with God. And nothing else will satisfy until you have that. There's nothing else that will satisfy until you have that. The rest of the story of Scripture, the rest of the story, Genesis 3 tells us sin enters the story, separates us from God. The rest of the library of Scripture is God saying, I'm going to get closer, and I'm going to get closer and I'm going to get closer and I'm going to get closer. Until finally Jesus takes the full weight and measure of sin upon himself in the temple. When God got as close as possible, before sin was dealt with, there was a big old curtain, a big, thick, heavy curtain between the holy of holies, which is where the presence of God dwelt in the temple and where people could go. Do you know what happened when Jesus died on the cross? The curtain of the temple was torn. Why? Because there's nothing separating us anymore. There's nothing separating us anymore. You can actually have a relationship with God. You can have that relationship with God. And look, there are probably people here today. Statistically speaking, there are people here today who do not have a relationship with God. You have tried everything else and none of it's worked. You've tried everything else. And maybe the reason why you're at church today is because nothing else has worked in life, so you figured you'd try this. Or maybe you're here in church today because someone bugged you into going and you think all of this is dumb and you're going to try to keep trying the stuff you've been trying. And I want to tell you God is patient and kind and merciful, and he will let you run all the way to rock bottom if you want, but you don't have to. You can quit chasing an eternal desire with a finite thing. You can quit trying to medicate it or drink it away or buy it away, and instead let Christ forgive your sins and reconcile you to Him. [00:23:48] Speaker B: Him. [00:23:49] Speaker A: There are also Christians here today. I can guarantee you there are Christians here today that we have settled for knowing about God. We treat life like we're playing Monopoly. Like God gets us on the board, keeps us out of hell. We got this get out of hell free card, and now we just spend the rest of time trying to get whatever we want and be as happy as we can until we die someday. And then we go to heaven [00:24:15] Speaker B: and [00:24:15] Speaker A: we wind up like Job at the end of the Book of Job. God reveals himself. And what does Job say? He says, I was talking about things I didn't know. And there are a lot of us. We're talking about things we don't know. We're showing up at church and going through the motions and saying, oh, yeah, yeah, I'm a Christian. I'm a Christian. Yeah, that's. Yeah, you know, I believe I'm a believer. But you're talking about God the way you would talk about the moon, like it's a factoid. But you were made for a relationship with him. The person. You were made for a relationship with him. The theologian St. Augustine said it like this. You have made us for yourself, O Lord. And our hearts are restless until they rest in you. Our hearts are restless until they rest in you. There is nothing that will satisfy. You know, I heard a pastor say at one time that as a believer, one of my goals should be to be as unsurprised as possible when I get to heaven. To have known God as close as possible on this earth, so that when I go into eternity, it feels familiar. Look, if you're here and you're a believer, get to know him. Quit settling for knowing about him. Jesus died to give us new life now and for eternity. And it starts now. Listen, if all Jesus cared about was us going to heaven later, then you would. You would pray the prayer and disappear, okay? That's what would happen. You'd pray the prayer and you'd be gone. This is not about fire insurance, okay? That's a different belief system. [00:26:27] Speaker B: Him. [00:26:27] Speaker A: It's not about fire insurance. It's about knowing him. Knowing him, you were made to be in a relationship with God. And nothing will satisfy until you genuinely are, until you know him. And look, there are some believers here today that, like if you died on the way home. I did two funerals in the last 10 days. I'm not trying to scare you. I'm just saying anything's possible. That becomes more and more real to me every time I get a call. Don't. Don't live for fire insurance. Live so that when you get there, you know what he's like, man. Live so that. So that when you walk into the gates of eternity, you can pick him out of the crowd instead of having to ask somebody else, which one's Jesus? Because you actually know Him. If you're here today and you're not a follower of Jesus, I want you to know he took the full weight and measure. God. Philippians, chapter two, says Jesus Christ, who, being in very nature, God did not Consider God being God, something to be grasped, but rather lowered himself, Became obedient, became a man. Not just a man, a servant. Became obedient to death. But not just death, but to death on the cross. Because of that Christ had. The Lord has raised him up and glorified his name so that in his name, at the name of Jesus, every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that he is Lord on heaven and on earth and under the earth, to the glory of God the Father. Christ took the full weight and measure of your sin upon himself. Look, you can't miss this. He's God. He knew every dumb, sinful, selfish thing you and I would do. Every single one. He knew it. Everything you would do and everything I would do. Before he died, he knew every time we would give ourselves over to a desire that will never fulfill us. And then we go back again and again. He knew about the addiction. He knew about the affair. He knew about the pornography. He knew about the crime. He knew about every single thing. And instead of saying, you clean yourself up. Instead of saying, you be worthy and then I'll forgive you, he said, no, you're not worthy. I just love you. And he took the full weight and measure of our sin upon himself. And the veil was torn, the curtain was torn, so that anyone who is in Christ can be united with God again. You can have the. The thing that you desire. And there's a crazy thing that happens when you actually know God, when you start to become satisfied in Him. The cool thing is you can buy the truck if you want. It doesn't matter. And then you can wreck the truck and it doesn't kill you. It doesn't. Doesn't break your heart because the truck wasn't your identity, then you can love your wife or your husband. Not because you need them to make you happy, but because you just love them. Because you're satisfied. You're not using them to fulfill some sort of desire that you can't get anywhere else. You can love your kids and you don't have to be crushed at every bad decision they make because you just love them. You're not using them to scratch some sort of itch or feel some sort of desire. It's crazy what happens when you're satisfied. As we sing, as we close, there are cards on the seats all around you. If you're here today and you want to decide to follow Jesus, if you've tried everything and it hasn't worked, or if you're ready to just quit trying and not have to hit Rock bottom. I want you to fill out that card during this song. I want you to bring it up and put it in one of these baskets at the front of the stage. There are baskets in the balcony as well, on the tables near the. Near the stairs. If you hate the idea of walking up in front of people, you can pull out your phone and fill out this QR code. Look, nobody gets, like, a bonus or anything when people pray a prayer or come forward. We believe that we need each other, that we can grow together, that people can help us, that we can help one another learn what it means to know God and to set our desires on Him. So we just want to help you, and we want to be able to celebrate what God's doing. So I want to ask everybody in the room to stand. Everybody stand up. There is no magic words that save you. You are not saved by praying a prayer. You're not saved by saying the right words. You are saved by grace, through faith, not of works, so that no one can boast. But for a lot of us, it's helpful for us to have someone kind of help us figure out what it's like to start that relationship, to walk us through, through a prayer of declaring our faith in Jesus. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to pray a prayer that's just helping give you the words. The words aren't magic. The words don't save you. It's your intention, it's the declaration of your heart, your faith that saves you. But I want to ask everybody in this room to pray out loud together. Because no one makes an eternal decision alone. No one makes an eternal decision alone. Every single one of us is going to pray that prayer together. Let's pray. Jesus, I was made for you. I've looked for you in other places, none of it satisfied. I've been selfish. I've sinned. But you died for me to forgive my sins and give me new life. Thank you, Jesus. You are my Lord from now on. Amen. If you just prayed that prayer and you meant it in your heart, if that was your declaration of your faith in Christ, I want you to know right now, because of the miraculous work of Jesus, everything has changed. Your eternity has changed. You are now connected to the thing that you desire, to the one that you desire. You are with Christ. You are reconciled to God through his saving work.