The commandment has been used to describe a number of sins and faults and I would like to describe it this morning as the sin that comes at the end of a process – and not something that is sometimes spontaneous like murder or lying or even adultery. There is something about covetousness that reflects intentionality and meditation. In fact, as we’ll see when we look at Micah that is exactly how God describes it.

But first let’s look at two things that are often described as coveting – but are not. Neither of these involve other people, really. They are personal and self-focused and do not necessarily include neighbors at all.

First, is hoarding. James talks about people who hoard. “Now listen, you rich people, weep and wail because of the misery that is coming upon you. Your wealth has rotted, and moths have eaten your clothes. Your gold and silver are corroded. Their corrosion will testify against you and eat your flesh like fire. You have hoarded wealth in the last days.” That’s a perfect description of those who hoard. You’ve probably watched the show “Hoarders” on A&E. At the time of its premiere, Hoarders was the most-watched series premiere in A&E network history among adults aged 18–49 and tied for the most ever in the adults aged 25–54 demographic. We are fascinated by people like this who, for some reason, cannot break their attachment to inanimate objects that are often rotted, moth-eaten and corroded. We don’t know why they do it but researchers at Mayo Clinic think they are people who struggle with anxiety and have experienced a traumatic event that makes them accumulate and become incapable of discarding anything.

But hoarding is not the same as coveting.

Second, is greed. The Bible has quite a lot to say about greed and the dangerous desire to accumulate more and more. Probably the most well known is the Parable of the Rich Fool in Luke 12. He tore down his barns to build bigger ones and said to himself, “You have plenty of good things laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry.” But his greed cost him his life. Or we can read about the greed of the fictional character Pahom in Leo Tolstoy’s short story, “How Much Land Does A Man Require?” In it, the peasant Pahom becomes obsessed with acquiring just a little more land. Finally, after buying and selling a lot of fertile and good land, he is introduced to the Bashkirs, and is told that they are simple-minded people who own a huge amount of land. Pahom goes to them to take as much of their land for as low a price as he can negotiate. Their offer is very unusual: for a sum of one thousand rubles, Pahom can walk around as large an area as he wants, starting at daybreak, marking his route with a spade along the way. If he reaches his starting point by sunset that day, the entire area of land his route encloses will be his, but if he does not reach his starting point he will lose his money and receive no land. He is delighted as he believes that he can cover a great distance and has chanced upon the bargain of a lifetime. He stays out as late as possible, marking out land until just before the sun sets. Toward the end, he realizes he is far from the starting point and runs back as fast as he can to the waiting Bashkirs. He finally arrives at the starting point just as the sun sets. The Bashkirs cheer his good fortune, but exhausted from the run, Pahom drops dead. His servant buries him in an ordinary grave only six feet long, thus ironically answering the question posed in the title of the story.

That is greed. But it is not quite covetousness. You can be greedy and not really affect the life of your neighbor.

Then there is envy and with this we are on our way because you can only envy something someone else has and it always begins with comparison of ours to theirs. The Bible is full of stories of envy. Sara envied Hagar because she had a child. Rachel envied Leah for the same reason. Cain envied Abel. The Pharisees envied Jesus. It always begins with the feeling of inadequacy or jealousy. We are all subject to it. We envy the success of other people or their accomplishments. We envy their homes, their cars, their perfect children and their standing in the community and we, unfortunately, begin to resent it. Left unchecked it becomes a cancer in our lives that, as James says, eats our flesh. Proverbs says it rots the bones.

But it is not covetousness.

Then there is stealing. Again, Scripture is full of stories of stealing in all sorts of ways. Achan stole treasure from Ai and when he confessed he and his whole family were destroyed. Rachel stole her father’s household idols when she left with Jacob. Absalom stole the hearts of the people away from David. The rich steal from the poor and the poor from the rich. Stealing is taking something that does not belong to you. It is what happens when envy grows up inside you and takes over. As James says, it comes from wanting something you cannot have so you steal.

But it is not covetousness. Covetousness takes another step and, as will see, ultimately destroys a person.

Covetousness is specific. There is something belonging to someone else that you desire. It is not simply greed which only wants more. It has an object and that object has an owner. It is not just lying on the ground or misplaced. It is personal.

Covetousness wants to take something away from someone and intentionally diminish them. It could be a house, a wife, a possession but part of the motivation is to take something specific that is important to another person. It is not stealing an ashtray from their house. It is desiring their house. It begins with “I desire what is yours. I want to have what is yours because it is yours.” Greed is simply I want more. Covetousness is I desire what is yours to be mine. Covetousness is about a relationship. It is a picture of Satan’s relationship with God. Satan desires us in order to hurt God. He desires to have what is rightfully God’s. Remember what God says to Cain in Genesis? Satan is crouching and desires to have you. That is the characteristic of covetousness.

In my work I have many conversations with people raising money and there are several kinds but two that stand out. The first is the person who is raising money for a cause. The second is the person who desires to have your money and the cause is almost irrelevant. It feels like they are literally hungry for your money.

It is a form of conquering the other person. A show of power over them and a way of diminishing them by the loss. It is what Absalom did to his father, David, when he stole the hearts of the people and created a rebellion. “So they pitched a tent for Absalom on the roof, and he lay with his father’s concubines in the sight of all Israel.” Covetousness destroys relationships. It can destroy whole nations when someone or some institution desires to have what belongs rightfully to someone else. Legitimate taxation is one thing. Redistribution of wealth is organized covetousness. Look at the story of Rhodesia when it became Zimbabwe. Robert Mugabe and his cronies under the guise of “accelerated land reform” could not borrow enough money from other countries to buy the land from the colonials so they made it theirs legally. They had the power to do it. They wanted to punish the owners as much as they wanted the land. They destroyed the country as a result. “Before 2000 land-owning farmers had large tracts of land and used economies of scale to raise capital, borrow money when necessary, and purchase modern mechanised farm equipment to increase productivity on their land. As the primary beneficiaries of the land reform were members of the Government and their families, despite the fact that most had no experience in running a farm, the drop in total farm output has been tremendous and has even produced starvation and famine, according to aid agencies. Export crops have suffered tremendously in this period. Whereas Zimbabwe was the world’s 6th largest producer of tobacco in 2001,in 2005 it produced less than 1/3 the amount produced in 2000, which is the lowest amount in 50 years. Zimbabwe was once so rich in agricultural produce that it was dubbed the “bread basket” of Southern Africa, while it is now struggling to feed its own population. About 45 percent of the population is now considered malnourished.”

Covetousness is deliberate and not spontaneous. Micah 2:1-2 reads: “Woe to those who plan iniquity, to those who plot evil on their beds! At morning light they carry it out because it is their power to do it. They covet fields and seize them, and houses, and take them. They defraud a man of his home, a fellowman of his inheritance.” S. Lewis Johnson put it this way, “Well, these individuals, Micah says, instead of devising thoughts concerning the Lord God, devise evil. And they work that evil upon their beds. They carefully plan the things that they’re going to be doing toward those that they are oppressing. And when the morning dawns, he says, they perform it. They’re not sluggards, these people. They are individuals who are very busy, very excited about the evil that they are performing. They are not lazy at all. They are workers. And furthermore, he says they have the power to achieve their evil ends for he says, “Because it is in the power of their hand.”

Covetousness has a pattern. Look at these two stories – Ahab and Naboth’s vineyard and David and Uriah. Look at the similarities. Let’s focus on the story of Ahab and Naboth.

They are both caught up in the increasingly irrational desire to have what belongs to another. Ahab desires Naboth’s vineyard because it would make a good vegetable garden for his palace. He completely overlooks the fact that Naboth cannot sell the land. It is not his to sell. It belongs to his family and, according to the Law, it ultimately belongs to God and is only Naboth’s for a time. Both Ahab and David desire something to the extent that they cannot imagine being without it. In their minds it is theirs. When we visited Kenya we learned that the Masia believe that God entrusted all the world’s cattle to them for safe-keeping and therefore any cattle they see in their wandering is legitimately theirs. They are not taking. They are simply restoring the cattle to their rightful owners. The mind caught up in covetousness behaves in similar ways.

They both devise a plan to get what they want. Jezebel’s plan is to completely discredit Naboth in the eyes of his peers and to make him appear not only disloyal but treasonous and worthy of death.

They both seize what they desperately want. That is a strong word and it means to tear something away from someone else violently and without their permission.

In both stories the result is the death of innocent people. Naboth, Uriah and the child of David and Bathsheba.

In other words, when covetousness goes unchecked it destroys. It is lethal and fatal.

That is why I am so struck by Paul’s use of it in Romans 7:7: “For I would have not known what it was to covet if the law had not said, “Do not covet.” But sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, produced in me every kind of covetous desire.” It’s hard to imagine Paul as struggling with what covetousness really is but he did. We don’t know what he means by “all kinds of covetous desires” but his life at some point was controlled by the desire to own what rightfully belonged to others. Of course, that is also the source of his immense deliverance by grace – by something that could never be had except in one way. As a gift. It wasn’t lying or stealing or adultery that came to his mind first. It was his release from covetousness.

And that is why it is so important to see how he resolved that inclination in his life. How he overcame it is instructive for us as well. What does he say?

Philippians 4:11: “…I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want.”

1 Timothy 6:6: “…but godliness with contentment is great gain.”

There is something about contentment that is the antidote for covetousness. But contentment is not simply convincing yourself you have enough. It is not the elimination of ambition or desire. Rather, it is the management and redirecting of them. It is not wrong to desire. In fact, Scripture tells us that God says to Solomon, “Ask for whatever you want me to give you.” Solomon chose discernment not just that he might be a wise person for himself but that he might govern well. Paul says it is a good thing to set your heart on being an overseer. In 2 Thessalonians he uses the word ambition to describe something good and honorable. Contentment is not the absence of ambition but the presence of purpose.

We do not eliminate desire but we have a purpose for it. Trying to eliminate desire altogether will make you a Buddhist or a legalist. It will tempt you to define your life by what you do not do instead of what Paul says to Timothy. “Command those who are rich in this present world not to be arrogant nor to put their hope in wealth, which is so uncertain, but to put their hope in God, who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment. Command them to be rich in good deeds, and to be generous and willing to share. In this way they will lay up treasures for themselves as a firm foundation for the coming age, so that they may take hold of life that is truly life.”

In other words, contentment has a purpose and is not defined by simply having enough and not desiring more.

Skip back to Philippians and read the end of verse 11. The secret of contentment is “I can do everything through him who gives me strength.” The secret of contentment is not learning to live on a little or in eliminating as much as possible from your life. The secret of contentment is knowing that God has given us each what we need for a purpose and to accomplish something. Contentment is having the right amount to do something. Contentment is not passive or a never ending attempt to eliminate desire or ambition. It is using what God has given us for His purposes. Defining contentment merely by what we have will only lead to discontentment.

Finally, Paul actually instructs the church to have a particular kind of desire as an antidote to covetousness. It is not a description of what to reduce in our lives but to add.

First, make it our ambition to lead a quiet but productive life.

Second, a life marked by gratitude and thanksgiving will be free from covetousness. After a list of what we don’t want in our lives he says “rather thanksgiving and always giving thanks to God.” Gratitude drives out envy, greed and covetousness as light drives out darkness.

Third, Paul says to the Corinthians “desire spiritual gifts, especially the gift of prophecy.” What is the gift of prophecy? It is not telling the future. It is “speaking to people for their strengthening, encouragement and comfort…and he who prophesies edifies the church.” To daily spend our energy on those three things – making someone stronger, giving someone encouragement and providing someone comfort – are the keys to our fight against covetousness, envy, greed and hoarding. That is the way to have a life of gratitude, thanksgiving and contentment.