Contentment | Exodus 20:17 | The Cure for a Restless Heart

Watch This Sermon: “Contentment”

In a world that constantly tells us we need more to be satisfied, God's Word calls us to something better: contentment. In this sermon on the Tenth Commandment, we explore the heart of coveting, the deep dissatisfaction that often takes root unnoticed, and the joy that comes from trusting in God's provision. Discover how contentment leads us to a life of holiness and reflects the heart of the God who satisfies every need.

📖 Click to Show the Transcript of this Sermon

We live in a world where we are marketed to, like, literally non stop. Right? There is always something being presented to us that is the next thing we have to have. We are, we are looking for, we are trained to always be wanting the next big thing.

There are signs that are selling us stuff literally everywhere. They're on the side of the road. Flip on the radio or use your favorite app to dial in music or a podcast and you'll hear about something that you need to have, something that you should buy, something that you gotta have because it's gonna make your life better, right? This will be what you finally need to be satisfied. This is what you're missing that will make your life feel like you've arrived.

Well then, you can also pop open that glowing rectangle you're carrying around in your pocket. You open up an ad and there the algorithm has sent to you that thing that you've been thinking about. Those algorithms are pesky things. They can figure out what we have been thinking about, what we've been shopping for, and there it is! You may have not bought it, but you need it and you're reminded by everything around you that this is the next thing that you need.

So not only do we live in a world where we're subjected to marketing and advertising non stop, but we also have the ability to spend money on these items anywhere. Just a couple of generations ago, you never would have imagined that you could buy something while you're lying in bed. And I can tell by the way some people are looking at me and nodding, yep, probably did that this week. Right? We never would have imagined this constant ability to to be buying things or to thinking that we can get that even before we roll out of bed for the day.

So as we come to the tenth commandment today, we have to acknowledge just how pervasive this is in our culture, this this marketing, this this desire for the next big thing because we are always bombarded with this everywhere we turn. You don't hardly dare to buy a new phone or computer or a gaming console, or something like that in our modern world because you're scared that the next iteration of it that's bigger and better is going to be released as soon as you buy whatever it is that you are purchasing. This is the world we live in. Bigger, better, constantly updating. This is how we're trained.

But as we see in the tenth commandment that we're looking at this morning, the truth is this has always been the case, right? This has always been the reality of the desire of the human heart, and we can prove that this has always been an issue because what ultimately was the action that got us into this mess? It was desiring that fruit that was pleasing to the eyes. It was coveting that fruit, coveting to be like God. At its root, our coveting is at the root of all of what we're into, right? This sinfulness that we experience. Ever since that, things have gone downhill and substantially so to where we now covet these things, but it all started with coveting that desire to be like God.

So let's take a look at our commandment here, as we look at the final commandment, the last one on the second table. And as far as the second table of the law goes, this is the most worthy of all the commandments, isn't it? Let's let's take a look at what it has to say here. There are a lot of words here, and I went one too far. There we go! So, as we see here, it says: You shall not covet your neighbor's house, you shall not covet your neighbor's wife, or his male servant, or his female servant, or his ox, or his donkey, or anything that is your neighbor's. So there's a lot of words compared to some of the other commandments on the second table, but we get the full scope of this. We get the gist of everything that could be an issue here by this description here. But we know what this command is. We can shorten it very easily to those four words, you shall not covet.

Now as I consider the tenth commandment, I often have the same thought. I know what covet means. I get it. I've heard it my whole life. I don't know that I've ever used that word outside of a religious context. Maybe you haven't either. I've used it in the positive and the negative, but only in a religious context. You shall not covet. We know that one. But you also hear people say, I covet your prayers. It seems like this word is only used for religious things, I guess. But I decided, you know, I know what this means, but it isn't a common word. We don't really use this word very much. And so, I started thinking about it and I kind of eventually got to what I opened up talking about. This idea of this continual desire for something, this desire for the next big thing, the thing that will ultimately satisfy, this thing that then I will be content.

But I wanted to sort of think about what this actually meant. Now, my my first thought was we need to define this, and normally what I do when I think we need to define this word in in something other than a religious context, normally, I would move my hand from the keyboard to the mouse and go to dictionary.com. That's my default. But I had a Bible commentary open in my Bible software, and before I averted my eyes to find the mouse, I saw a definition of covet in the commentary that I had open by Philip Graham Reichen. So I'm gonna give him credit. I I did double check eventually dictionary.com, and and and it's it's a good definition, but I thought what he had to say here was what was best. And I like I like this definition that he gave a lot. To covet is to crave, to yearn for, to hanker after something that belongs to someone else. We covet whenever we set our hearts on anything that is not rightfully ours.

I thought that was a fantastic way to understand what this is. I think it helps us to distinguish something important that's inherent in this commandment. It's about more than just a consuming desire to have something. Another part of the idea of coveting is the idea that we're going after something that belongs to someone else. We're desiring something from someone else. It involves in looking over and seeing what our neighbor has, what our friends have, and to be consumed and to allow ourselves to be consumed with the desire for that. Now what convinced me more than anything, honestly, that I should show you this definition instead of dictionary.com, it had the word hanker in it. I like that word. We know what it is to have a hanker in for something, and we know when what it is to hanker after something that belongs to someone else. We get that idea. That is a down to earth understanding of what this is. It quickly and quite easily shows us just how consuming all of this can be, how controlling it can be for us.

Now, before we look at what the commandment has to say about the extent of this, I want to point out that violating this command is not something that we physically do, right? This is a sin of the heart. This is a sin of our minds. This this comes down to our desires. And this this makes this commandment a little more difficult for us to feel good about. Right? Like I talked about with all the other stuff on the second table of law, with those commandments, when it came down to it, the actual act of doing most of those things, we felt pretty good about ourselves. We haven't murdered. We haven't committed adultery. We haven't stolen. Now with lying, it gets a little bit different. But we have to with lying, we have to do something physical. Right? We have to physically move our mouth in such a way to bear false witness, to speak that way, or to type it out, or whatever, we have to do something physical to lie. Coveting is entirely immaterial. There's nothing there's nothing physical to coveting. There's no breaking the ice of speaking something or doing something with coveting.

And that makes it not only difficult for us to, you know, sort of think that we're doing okay with this one, but it also helps us to understand just how much this starts as something small. And there isn't any point in which we have to jump over to maybe coveting more or to doing something, and so it can stew in us for a long time. It becomes something with, I like that! And we might not even realize that over time, as we think about these things, as we covet these things, just how consuming it becomes because we never have to do anything, we never really have to speak anything to make this be a sinful thing. It can stew in us for a long time.

And so, as we think about this with the 10 commandments, we have this idea of the hankering that we get for something and it stays with us. It stays in our hearts, it stays in our minds and as I said these desires build up in us and they grow either at a fast pace or even more dangerously, it stews slowly. And when it happens slowly, there's a chance that we might not even realize just how consuming these desires become for us. If I start thinking about something new, and I realize it's my consuming it's consuming my thoughts out of virtually nowhere, I I can probably do something about it. If it's if I see it for the first time and then it's there, I know that I'm doing it. But if it grows slowly, it changes how I think, it changes how I feel. It can become so much more. When it becomes like a seed and slowly grows and buds and grows incrementally, As I mentioned, I might not even realize how much this consumes me.

And when we get to our application in regards to this commandment, we're going to consider how this commandment shows us how much we need to desire the things of God instead of the things of this world, but we'll get to that as we not only consider the application for this commandment, but but are really, really the entire 10 commandments kind of come down to this. We're going to take a look at that in a little bit. And so with the internal nature of this commandment spelled out for us here, let's get back to Exodus 20 and let's consider the words that are beyond you shall not covet here.

You shall covet your neighbor's house. Now, as I take a look at that, I kind of get a kick out of that, and maybe you do too. Does anyone else find it interesting that that they're told not to covet their neighbor's house? These are people leaving Egypt, their nomads, on their way to the promised land. Their house is a tent, and yet God is telling them not to covet their neighbor's house. Why? Because people are gonna have more things, things are gonna be nicer. This isn't just, you know, you and I looking over at our neighbor's house and go, man, it would be nice to have an extra thousand square feet for all our kids to move around in. This isn't Man, it'd be nice to have a third garage stall so so my kids car could be out of the elements. This is the ancient world where they don't have the nice things that we do. This is different! They were nomadic people moving about, living in tents and yet God acknowledged that they could covet their neighbor's house.

And even when they get to the promised land, even when maybe they do have a a house that's more fixed, it's not gonna be too stellar. Right? But yet it's still a reality that they can covet those things. Why? Because this is an issue of the heart. It's an issue of not being satisfied. It's an issue of wanting what other people have. And so even though it seems a little bit silly for us to be coveting your neighbor's tent, We understand it because we know the nature of the human heart. We know how we desire things that aren't ours.

And so this commandment here with everything listed shows itself to be quite comprehensive, doesn't it? The commandment talks about how someone could desire the spouse of another person or desire to have their servants. And you and I read this commandment, and the first two defining elements of the prohibitions in this command definitely ring true. We understand that you're not going to you shouldn't covet your neighbor's house or your neighbor's neighbor's wife, but then we might get off track because we don't have servants, we don't have donkeys, we don't have well, some of us may have an ox, but you get you get the point. It seems dated, it doesn't seem relevant, but I'm guessing if you were to stop and think about it, how much do these things that are being talked about here translate for us? Because I think all of us have probably desired to have better work equipment. I think many of us have maybe desired to have a faster donkey I mean car. You get the point. These are things, if we translate it forward, better work better, better work equipment, better transportation, these are things regardless if you're living in the twenty first century or whether you're leaving Egypt for the promised land, we get it.

And if it doesn't ring true with us, with the Servants, the Ox, or the Donkey, God finishes this off very well with this command and helping us to see how comprehensive it is with those last words. Anything that is your neighbors. If we didn't get what's being driven at to us here with the stuff in the list, with this commandment, it goes all encompassing with the final statement. And just as I spoke about when we looked at the prohibition on stealing a few weeks ago, the big issue at the heart of this commandment is about being content and trusting that God sovereignly provides for us all that we need.

Now, as we think about the scope of this, I think the Westminster Shorter Catechism helps us out here. So, I want us to take a look at what it has to say when it asks, What does the tenth commandment forbid? And it answers, The tenth commandment forbids any dissatisfaction with what belongs to us: envy or grief at the success of others, and all improper desire for anything that belongs to someone else. Now, if you weren't feeling much conviction about what we've talked about so far, this explanation might have gotten you. Because, if you were feeling a little bit convicted about the tenth commandment, this explanation I think twists the knife pretty hard.

Maybe you aren't a person who desires the next big thing, maybe stuff isn't your thing, maybe you're relatively content with your material possessions. But interjecting the truth that this commandment includes having envy or grief at the success of others, that might be what you struggle with. Maybe that's a struggle for you. And regardless of what it looks like for you personally, the word in here that helps us to understand the scope of this commandment is that word dissatisfaction. Are we satisfied? Are we content with what we have? Are we pleased with what God has given us? Are we pleased to praise God for what He has blessed us with instead of desiring more and more? Contentment is hard! We live in a world that is generally discontent with pretty much everything, don't we?

It's easy to go along with the flow of desiring the possessions of others or envying the success of others, but we trust in a God who's sovereign and we believe that we are called to trust in his provision for his people. So let's consider our application of this commandment this morning as we think about this thing. And now, we're going to dwell today on the second and third uses of the law as we close-up the 10 commandments today.

So for the second use of the law, I think that the majority of what I've said, or what we read in the Westminster Shorter Catechism there, has already done the good work of the Second Use of the Law. It's easy to see why we should be convicted of our sin in this area. The Word of God has done a good work in us, it's convicting to think about this commandment. And the application for us is to stop and consider where we struggle in regards to this command. Like I mentioned previously, this is so pervasive in our culture we might not even really be aware of how discontent we are. We might not even realize it. The world is so discontent about around us, we are marketed to so much we might not even realize how we covet.

Our covetedness might even be something that we've justified in our minds. We tell ourselves that the possessions that someone else has would be ours if the world was fair! If the world was truly fair, then then we'd have this stuff, so there's nothing wrong with us desiring it. If we really got the recognition that we deserve in our job, or if we really got the recognition that we deserve for what we do, then that stuff would be ours. We deserve it. It's not covetousness. It's what we should have. We often believe that there's some unfair obstacle in our way of getting the promotion or the job that we know that we really deserved. We might even blame our heritage and be envious of someone because if we were born into better estate, then we would have the stuff of someone else. Or maybe we would have been in charge of a business, or we would have had that opportunity that they inherited.

Chances are each of us is discontent in some way, and if we're going to be content, we actually need to be aware of what keeps us from feeling satisfied. And so may we be blessed by God to actually have a conviction of all those things that might be causing us to be discontent with what God has provided for us. And so once again, an awareness of our sin, this mirror of the second use of the law, causes us to realize the need that you and I have for a Savior. We have seen that it's not the case that we have broken a commandment or two, and we hope to squeak into heaven with a B average because God's going to grade on a curve. We've seen that's not the case. In fact, we aren't even batting 300 on the 10 Commandments. At every turn we see that we have not loved the Lord our God with all our heart, with all our mind, with our soul, with all our strength. We've not loved our neighbor as ourselves.

Just as Moses shattered both tablets of the law when he saw the people worshiping the golden calf, you and I have shattered the first table and the second table of the law as well. We need forgiveness for our dissatisfaction with what God has given us. And the good news, the great news, the best news there's ever been is that God in Christ has satisfied the wrath of God for all of our sins, for every command that we have broken. God has satisfied it! Even our sin of dissatisfaction, Christ satisfied the wrath that we deserve for our sin at the cross. And not only was our sin atoned for, but he gave us a gift that will always satisfy, his perfect righteousness. We are not only forgiven of our dissatisfaction, but we are seen as righteous in God's sight.

And knowing this truth, we then desire to keep God's law and to follow his map for holy living that we might bring glory to his most holy name. And so our application is to desire the things that do not fade and the things that God has provided for us. That's the map that is shown to us in the third use of the law for this Tenth Commandment. When we consider that we have the gift of salvation that satisfies, and we know that that will satisfy us ultimately, even into eternity, This is going to shape our desires. When we understand this, this will form us instead of desiring the things that are temporary and the things that rust and moth destroy. We are called to desire the things of God.

If we are desiring Him, the things of life are going to be pale in comparison, aren't they? If I'm seeking God, my neighbor's house doesn't seem all that important because I have a reward in heaven. If I'm seeking God, I'm satisfied with the earthly relationships that He has given me and the truth that I am reconciled to God through the work of Christ for me. If my desires are for the things of God, then I'm not going to be desiring the fleeting things of this life. But this is hard, and this is why we need to be continually seeking God through His Word and desiring to know it more. He has spoken to us through His Word and He gives us the gift of the Holy Spirit, and this satisfies us far far more than the things of earth can ever do.

And when we're content with the provision that God has given us, and we're desiring the things of God, we find then that we can actually work backward through the 10 commandments, and we can see the map in our contentment with what God has given us. We can see this map on how we can live a holy life. So let's work through the 10 Commandments backward very quickly. If I'm content in God, then my desire is going to be for Him, and I can learn to covet the things of heaven and not the stuff of this world. If I'm content in God, I will be satisfied in His truth and not desire to make my own truth by lying. If I am content with God's provision of earthly goods, I will not desire to steal what is not mine. If I'm content with God's provision, I won't seek satisfaction outside the boundaries that God has placed for us in marriage. If I'm content with God's provision, I will know that I can be patient with my neighbor and not angry regardless of what happens because I trust that God is the ultimate judge and not me. And if I'm content with God's provision, I will understand that God has put people in positions of authority over me, and I will honor and respect those that God has put in those positions. If I'm content with the provisions of God, I will understand that He has given me plenty of time to work in the six days that He has blessed me with, and I'll trust His gift of a day of rest and believe that it's truly good for me. If I trust the provision that God has spoken to me in His Word, I will not speak untruth about who God is and I won't speak His name incorrectly because I will understand what a great gift His name is to me as His child. If I'm trusting God's provision of how he has told me to worship, I will be content to hear the name of God and not desire to worship a false image. If I'm content with the provisions of God, I will desire to know him because I intimately desire to know the only one who can truly satisfy all my desires, the one true God.

So may we desire the things of God, and may we see how this contentment helps us on this path of holy living through all the 10 commandments. May you and I desire the things of God and not the things of this world. For as we read from the Apostle Paul, there is great contentment in godliness. So may we be content in the truth that God has spoken to us in his law. And may we trust that it will do its good work in us to not only convict us of our sins and to drive us to Christ, but may we also be reminded that we can live a life of holiness reflecting the nature of God. This God who gives us everything. This God who gives us the ultimate contentment in his Son.

Amen. Let us pray. Gracious God, we thank you for the gift of your Word and for the gift of your law. May we desire the contentment that you give us. May the things of earth grow dim, and may we seek the things of heaven, that we might be a people that follows your law and glorifies your name in all the earth. May all glory be to Christ alone for who he is and for what he has done. Amen.

Looking for more sermons exploring God's commands for His people?

Visit the full God Spoke series page to watch, listen, and dig deeper into the Ten Commandments: Explore the Series