Discover The Word

IDEA: We are free when we can end something, not when we begin it.

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 realize how they can be more and more bound by covetousness.

As Americans, we value our freedom. When we talk about freedom, what do we mean?

I. Is there a difference between political freedom and personal freedom?

We usually think of political freedom. We may limit it by saying “as long as it doesn’t hurt anyone else,” I should be free.

Can you agree with that and also disagree with that?

You may have political freedom to begin something, but real personal freedom is not the freedom to begin something but to end something.

An American is free to take up the habit of smoking, but an individual may not be free to stop the habit.

A person may start drugs, but the drugs master them and they don’t have the freedom to stop.

II. We may feel that coveting is something that we can enter into with no consequences. But one consequence is that we become ensnared by it.

The whole of the Law has to do with God having set his people free from Egypt. By implication, the law sets us free and it is designed to help us live in freedom.

We often look at covetousness as a freedom, but there are consequences to covetousness which are not political but personal.

You can’t get free of some things any time you choose.

People are often enslaved and do not even know that the chains are there.

A man confessed that he had been financially ruined by a new sofa: “That sofa was the bad beginning. It was too fine for me. It made my old table and chairs look shabby by comparison. So I bought new ones. Then the curtains had to be replaced. Then the carpet. Then the other rooms had to be upgraded. Finally we needed a new house. So we bought one. It never came to an end! And now, here I am, bankrupt.”

Unless we recognize how covetousness binds us, we will never seek God’s power and grace to be free of it.