Podcast: The Trouble with Looking Over Your Neighbor’s Fence

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“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.”
-Exodus 20:17

Well, this is it. The last one. We’ve been going through the Ten Commandments for a couple of months here, and we’ve reached number 10. We’ve been building to this particular one for a while, if you think about it. The first half of the commandments deal basically with our relationship with God, and the second half of the commandments deal with our relationship with others. In that latter half, the first few of those have told us not to sin against them in deed. That’s where we shouldn’t steal or murder or commit adultery. Then we looked at how we shouldn’t sin against them in word. Now God tells us not to sin against others in thought.

And you have to admit, this is a big one. We are always jealous over the stuff other people have. I remember as a kid once, a friend of mine and I were playing with our toys, and he had this one vehicle the characters could ride, and that thing made me so jealous. I couldn’t imagine anything cooler.

As adults, this jealousy comes out in different ways. Only today I overheard a conversation two men were having about another man’s car. When one family remodels their house, suddenly their friends are discontent with their own décor. Sometimes this jealousy is over a wife. Sometimes it is over a family. Someone from a broken home will be jealous over someone down the street with a solid family structure. It can be income, possessions, or an automatic sprinkler system.

Sometimes we disguise that covetousness under the guise of virtue. We think, “That family has so much money, but they never seem to be doing anything for the church or the poor! It would make it so much easier if they would just give a little more.” Which may be true, but God calls us to be generous from our own purse, not someone else’s. It’s very easy to volunteer someone else’s money, but it’s not very holy.

This jealousy can so easily turn to resentment. It can so easily turn to discontentment. There will always be someone with more stuff than me. If I start comparing myself to those people, I will never be content with what I have. We start talking bad about our neighbors behind their backs. We start getting angry at God because we’re only just making it. It is this sin that leads to so many others.

But what this commandment tells us is this – to love our neighbors as ourselves. To care for them, whatever they have or whoever they are. No matter what they do, respond in love. And you know what? If you follow this commandment, you’re not going to have trouble with the ones that come immediately before it. You won’t steal, kill, bear false witness, or commit adultery. Because you can’t do those things against those you love.

But this is also the biggest challenge. I can, by sheer force of will, keep myself from killing and stealing and the like. But can I force myself from sinning in thought? Not likely. Not completely.

We are sinners by nature. We can mold our actions with time, but our hearts are much harder to tame. We are filled with lust, greed, ambition, pride, and selfishness. We covet everything.

But that is why Jesus died. Instead of coveting the stuff of others, He gave up everything, even His life, out of love for us. He came to earth and died, and in that death He took the price we should have paid for our sin. If we repent and believe in Him, we will be saved. But more than that, we will be given the Holy Spirit to guide and train our hearts, making it possible for us to love our neighbors without getting jealous of that awesome surround sound system they have.