IDEA: The Ten Commandments are given to people who have bodies.
TEXT: "You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, nor his male servant, nor his female servant, nor his ox, nor his donkey, nor anything that is your neighbor’s" (Exodus 20:17).
"You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife; and you shall not desire your neighbor’s house, his field, his male servant, his female servant, his ox, his donkey, or anything that is your neighbor’s" (Deuteronomy 5:21).
PURPOSE: To help listeners understand how the strong desires of our bodies keep us from being people who love God and love others.
Saint Francis of Assisi once referred to his body as "brother donkey." Why do you think he would say that?
Has it ever occurred to you that we might be better off if we were disembodied spirits?
At least as disembodied spirits, we would be incapable of breaking many of the commandments.
I. We are mortals with flesh and blood. While we probably prefer it that way, our bodies can sometimes get in the way of our holiness.
In 1 John 2:15-17, it says, "Do not love the world, or the things in the world; if anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world--the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life--is not of the Father, but is of the world. And the world is passing away, and the lust of it; but he who does the will of God abides forever."
What this verse is saying is that the society around us keeps appealing to the desires of the body, to the desires of the eye (which is greed or the desire to have more things), and to the pride of life (basically one-upmanship).
It is our bodies that experience what they see, and our egos get in the way of our loving God.
II. Covetousness not only interferes with genuine love for God, but it also gets in the way of a genuine love for a neighbor.
When I’m consumed with satisfying my bodily desires, then I will use people rather than love them.
When I’m determined to get everything I see, then that keeps me from caring about the people around me.
When I’m concentrating on the pride of life, that is making a name for myself, in our culture that usually means acquiring the symbols of success.
III. John was basically telling us that covetousness comes out of the fact that we have bodies and the desires that bodies create. The only way we can march to the beat of a different drum is to cultivate a genuine love for God who can enable us to love other people.