The Ten Commandments | 10th Commandment

The Tenth Commandment - "More Than Enough"

Sermon Transcript

“More Than Enough”

Rev. Dustin A. Largent

Exodus 20:17

November 16, 2025

Introduction: A Lesson from Freaky Friday

Today we’re finishing up this series we've been doing on the Ten Commandments, and I want to finish it all up, wrap it up, put a little bow on it here today.

How many of you ever seen the movie Freaky Friday? You see that movie? Now there's a bunch of them. I don't know if you knew that there's not just one Freaky Friday. There was the original Freaky Friday that came out in, I think I wrote it down. It came out in 1976. And that had Barbara Harris and Jody Foster was the kid in it. And so that's before a lot of folks was born here. But then in 1995 there was another one. And Shelly Long, remember Shelly Long? She was in Cheers. She was the mom. And then there was this girl Gabby that was in it. But then the one a lot of people know today, like us, know it's Jamie Lee Curtis and Lindsay Lohan was in it. And then they made another kind of thing off of it. There was a Disney movie and nobody knows who they were. And then they just came out with another Freaky Friday movie. It's like a sequel. Freakier. Freaky.

And apparently, I just found this out. There was a horror movie that came out called Freaky Friday. And I don't even want to know what that was about. But the whole premise of the movie was this. The whole premise of the movie is this, that you got this mom and this daughter and they just kind of lived together. And mom, mom is just doing everything that moms do. She's working. She's trying to take care of her daughter. She's trying to, she's putting rules on her daughter, all this kind of, and the daughter doesn't like it. The daughter thinks that she should have all this freedom. The daughter thinks that she should be able to do whatever she wants.

She looks at her mom's life and she says, “I wish I had your life.” Because nobody's telling you when to go to bed. Nobody's telling you when you can stay out. Nobody's telling you who you can date. Nobody's telling you any of that stuff. I wish that I was grown up and I wish that I was the parent and that you were the kid because you don't understand what it's like to be a kid. You don't understand what it's like to be a teenager. You don't understand how, and the mom is looking at this.

And the mom's in the same boat. She goes, man, if I could just go back to being a kid, if I go back to high school. And so each of the movies has a little bit different premises to how they get Freaky Friday swapped. But they wake up and the next morning they wake up and the mom is in the daughter's body, which for a lot of moms are like, yeah, I got a pre-birth body. And then the other way it goes, the daughter is grown up and so they figure out, well, you got to go to school even though you're a grown up, you got to go to school for me. And they swap. The whole point is this, that they're each looking at the other person's life and saying, I want yours.

I want what you have. I want your life. I want that because I'm not happy with the way things are in my life now. And that's what the 10th commandment is about. Now, if you're Catholic, you get this one double time because you kind of got rid of the second commandment about the Graven Images. And so now you have two commandments about coveting. You've divided it in two and you've got one about not coveting your neighbor's wife. And I think another one about not coveting something else. I'm not sure, but they've got two of them there. We're going to take a look at what the Bible says. If you've got a Bible, I'll throw it on the screen, but if you've got a Bible, open it up and look at it in your own Bible.

The Tenth Commandment

So you can make sure that I'm not making stuff up. Because I know I might do that. So it says in Exodus chapter 20 verse 17, this is the last of the commandments.

It says, you shall not covet your neighbor's house. You shall not covet your neighbor's wife or his male or female servant, his ox or donkey or anything that belongs to your neighbor. Exodus 20:17 (NIV)

So, it gets real specific there, doesn't it? It starts out by saying you shall not covet your neighbor's house. So, I don't know how many of you live in a house that, or some of you live in an apartment, but you're in a house and you're like, you go over to your friend's house, and you go over there and you go, man, they got a pool. Man, my friend's bedroom is like way bigger than my bedroom and they get to decorate it with whatever posters they want. And their house is 3600 square foot house and it's got two car garage and our house is just kind of dumpy. And theirs is all groomed up and looking nice and then you go over to their house and you hang out and you're like, man, I wish I had their house. And then you're kind of wandering back and forth and they get to park in a nice garage and your car's getting blown with snow every time the plow goes by and you can't even go to work because your car's buried under 10 feet of snow. And you're like, this is ridiculous. And you wish that you had somebody else's house.

And it's very specific. You go to their house and it's not that you just want a better house. You want their house. . I wish I had their house. I wish they had my house and I wish I had their house. . Because their house is better than mine. I'm not satisfied with the house that I have. . I'm just not happy with it. I was until I saw your house. And now how's come you get a house like that? How's come you get to live like that? I'm just as good as you. .

Why is that? Or you shall not cover your neighbor's wife. Uh oh, guys. Looking over and all of a sudden you look over and you see like your neighbor's wife and you go, really? The neighbor's wife's kind of hot. . Boy, she's all . . It looked like she's got a gym membership and she actually used it. . . Her husband. She's got to him. She's always praising her husband. She's always talking about how much she loves her husband and how great her husband is. She's doing that. We go over to her house and she keeps the house nice. I go to my house and I'm stepping over crap everywhere trying to get from one room to the other. She keeps it nice. There's no dishes piled up super duper high. She's passionate about the Lord. My wife's always nagging at me. Boy, she, she's, she's all . , I wonder what my life would be like if that was my wife.

Man, I look, I look at her and I'm thinking she's had kids. She doesn't look like she's had kids. There's a whole lot of stuff that's going on here and I'm thinking to myself, I wish that I could trade places with him because, because his wife would be better than what I've got. That's coveting your neighbor's wife.God didn't give you that wife, but now all of a sudden that you saw that other person's wife, you're like, well, I'm not really satisfied with my own wife. I'd rather have that one.

Now wives, you're sitting there thinking, well, it's a good thing it says not coveting another husband. No, you don't get off the hook. It's the same problem here. Husbands, you look and you say, man, her husband, he's got, such a good job. Man, look at the job he's got, , and then he treats his wife really, really good. And my husband hardly ever even looks at me, doesn't praise me, doesn't tell me that I'm beautiful. He's always saying that kind of stuff. He's always finding ways.

He makes priority to always make sure that he gets home so they can spend time with the kids. And then I love that. But my husband, he's gone all the time. I haven't seen him forever. I don't know where he's at. My husband, when he does come home, he just sits around. He just sits around, he watches football. All he does, he watches football or he watches some other stuff that I don't even want to watch. I mean, I wish my husband showed me that kind of attention. I wish that my husband could fix things. I wish that my husband, I wish that my husband, I wish that my husband. And you look at that other guy and you say, well, I wish, I wish, I wish. And then you say, if I could trade places, I would. And I'm not really satisfied with the husband that God gave me. I want, I want that one. I want that one.

But there's more. Yes. He goes on and says, anything, you can't covet anything that belongs to your neighbor. So, you look at the neighbor's kids and they like get good grades and they don't talk back to you. They don't talk back and you're like, my kid's a brat. That kid's good. I wish I had those kids because they're not freak shows. Or, you're a kid and you're like, well, I like that person's phone. I wish I had that phone. ? I wish I had what that person has.

They go on vacations all the time. And I wish I had the money to go on a vacation. I wish that I had the ability to do this. I wish that I had the talent that that person had. And so I'm not satisfied with who God made me to be. And so, I covet from somebody else. I'm wanting something that God didn't give me. And I'm saying I want it.

A Different Commandment

And so, this commandment, you can see this commandment's a little different than the other commandments. Because, the other commandments, they start out with what you're doing. They're starting with what you're doing. So, you commit adultery. That's an act. And if you do that, somebody could see it and then you're guilty. Now Jesus takes it to the next level and says, no, it's internal. It starts internal. But you can fake it. You can fake it. You can say, well, nobody saw this one. How are you going to know if somebody covets? How are you going to know? It's all about desire. Now, does that mean that we can't desire stuff?

Does that mean I can't desire? Like, there are things that I might want. There are things that I might need. There are things in the Bible that are good that we want. God wants us to desire him. God wants us to desire the blessings of God. There are things that God wants us, like if I didn't have any desire to eat, I'd look better. Yeah? If I didn't have all this desire to eat, if I didn't have the desire to see the church grow. Then I wouldn't, I wouldn't work. I wouldn't care. If you didn't have the desire to feed your family, you might not go to work every day.

Desire isn’t Necessarily Bad

So, desire is not necessarily bad. What's bad is when you're desiring something that God didn't give you and that's not intended for you that belongs to somebody else. God gave that to somebody else. He gave it to a different person. And so, it's not the desire is bad. If you want a religion that says that desire is bad, you need to go to Buddhism. Buddhism says that desire is bad. The reason why you are unhappy and uncontent is because you desire something and you don't get it. And so, the answer in Buddhism is this. Eliminate the desire. You need to get to a place of Nirvana where you no longer have desires. You don't desire anymore and now you don't have angst of not getting that desire. That's what Buddhism is. That's not what God teaches.

God teaches that we are to order our desires and that there are some things that are more important desires than others. We seek first His kingdom and all these other things come after. So, we desire the things of God first. And so, coveting is desiring something that doesn't belong to you. So, there's two sides to this coin of coveting. And I know I'm kind of whipping through this a little bit, but hopefully you're picking up what I'm laying down here.

Two Sides of the 10th Commandment Coin

There are two sides. The first side of this is desiring what God hasn't given you. That's the first side of the coin of coveting. I am desiring what God hasn't given me. Well, God didn't give it to me. Well, I'm not satisfied because God has not provided this for me. He's provided it to other people. He hasn’t given it to me. So, therefore, I am unsatisfied and therefore, I'm desiring that thing. The second side of it, though, if you flip the coin over on the other side of that coin, is contentment. Contentment.

Am I content with what God has given me? The position he's put me in, the place he's put me in, the wife he's given me, the house he's given me, the things he's given me, the car he's provided for me. Am I happy? Not necessarily do I have no other desires for anything more, but am I content with what God has given me, what God has provided for me? Because if you're not content, you run around always wanting something else and you're never happy. You met that person? that person.

You probably know some people who have been in church like that where never happy. They're never content. It doesn't matter what it was. It doesn't matter who it is.

They're never happy. Everything is about something. All of their happiness is based on something that's going to happen in the future for them. I will be happy when I go on this trip. I'll be happy when I get this vacation. I'll be happy when I have this raise. I'll be happy when we have this insurance. I'll be happy when all of a sudden I don't have to deal with this person at work. I'll be happy when I don't have... I'm not content with the situation I'm in. And so therefore I will be happy later. I'll be content later. But I am living now not in contentment at all. And that's what this commandment is talking about. We can't live not coveting if we're not content. It's when you're not content that you start wanting all these other things. And the problem is once you get that other thing, you're still not happy. Because your contentment is based where? Your contentment, your happiness, what you were searching for cannot be fulfilled in the stuff that you were trying to become content in. Our contentment can only be found in God alone.

Paul’s Struggle with Coveting

Do you understand what I'm saying? So if we go to... If we were to go to Romans chapter 7, Paul, and I'm not going to explain this to you a little bit, Paul was a Pharisee before he was a Christian, before he turned to God. He was persecuting Christians. He was a bad dude. And he was one of the most self-righteous people you ever met. You ever met that person? The person that thinks they're better than everybody? And they think that their crap doesn't stink? That everything that they do is righteous and good and perfect. And you're like, dude, I wish this person wasn't around. That guy? That was Paul. Paul says as he goes through his list of all his accolades, I was a Pharisee among Pharisees. I was, according to the law, flawless. Who says that? Have you obeyed the commands? Yes, flawlessly.

Who says that? You got to be some kind of arrogant to say that. And that's Paul, the guy who wrote most of the New Testament. Watch what he says here in the second part of verse 7 in 8 says,

“Yet if it had not been for the law, he's talking about the commandments, I would not have known sin. So he's saying, listen, I didn't know I was a sinner. And I would have never known I was a sinner if it wasn't for the commandments. For I would not have known what it is to covet.”

Now there's a whole list of commandments before this. And there's a whole nine that we covered. Problem with the nine is you can fake yourself into believing that you've obeyed all those commandments because you didn't sleep with the neighbor's wife, because you didn't murder the guy that was mean to you. So, you can make yourself think that somehow you obeyed all these rules. Jesus had to kind of lay the law down on the religious leaders and say, listen, if you've lusted after a person, you've committed adultery. If you've been angry, you've committed murder. But Paul is looking at this and he's thinking that he's righteous. And so it says, “for I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said you shall not covet. but sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment produced in me all kinds of covetedness. For apart from the law, sin lies dead."

And so, what happens is the sin that made Paul recognize, I'm a sinner, was he got to that tenth commandment. He went from one, oh I'm fine here, I went to number two, I'm in good shape, number three. I'm clicking them all off, I'm checking all the boxes, I've got it, but it gets to covet. Now most of you are looking and you're saying, well covet, that's an easy one. That's got to be the easiest of all the commandments. It's not.

Covet is the hardest, because covet leads to so many of the others. Covetousness, this desire, what you desire, what's internal. Oh, this is a harsh one. And so Paul, being honest with himself, says, seizing an opportunity through the commandment produced in me all kinds of covetedness.

Coveting as Idolatry

I realized all this longing for stuff that I didn't have, people that I didn't have, all this, I recognized that myself and I realized I was a lawbreaker. That's the commandment. So, he goes on, if you skip over to Colossians chapter 3:5, he's going to define for us what covetedness really is, what it is to covet. What that is in general. He says,

“put to death therefore what is earthly in you, sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, watch what it says, which is idolatry.”

Covetousness, coveting something is idolatry. Why is that? It's idolatry, because when you're looking at something and saying I want that, I'm not content with what I have, I want that thing, that will make me happy. I'm saying, God, you're not enough. I am going to make this thing the thing that will make me happy. I'm not happy in God. I'm going to seek after other gods, whether it's money or whether it's vacations or whether it's cars or whether it's people. I'm going to seek after all these other things to fulfill me and save me and make me happy. That is idolatry. And so covetousness, basically watch what Moses does here, watch what God does with the Ten Commandments. He starts with, you shall have no other God before me.

Then he gives you all these other commandments that all deal directly or indirectly with not having any other God before him. And how does he finish the commandments? With the same commandment, just word it a little bit different. You shall have no other God before me, and that means you shall not desire anything else that is going to make you or try to please you because you are unsatisfied with me. You are unsatisfied with what I've provided for you. You're unsatisfied. And so Jesus ends up meeting this cat. Jesus would walk around and he's preaching and this rich guy shows up.

The Rich Young Ruler

Now some versions say he's a rich young ruler. Some just say he's a rich young man. But it's in Luke 18:18-30. Now I'm going to walk through this, and I want you to follow me along because this is the kind of guy that is just like everybody else. Kind of like Paul. He looks at Paul and he says, what, I've obeyed all the commands. Watch this. It says, “a certain ruler asked him, good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?”

Now for most people, if I was to ask them, what do you have to do to inherit eternal life? They'd say I have to be good. I have to obey the commands, and that's what this kid thinks. I got to obey the rules. “Excuse me. Why do you call me good? Jesus answered.” Now that's a weird thing to say, isn't it? Why do you call me good? Jesus answered. No one is good except God alone. So, what Jesus is already doing is establishing with this guy that only God is good. There are no good people. Only God is good. He's establishing that off the bat. Therefore, this man asking the question, if he's not God, he must not be good.

But he thinks he's good. He thinks he's good, and he thinks that he can have eternal life, but he's obviously asking questions. He's asking the questions. But he thinks he's kept all God's rules. So look at this, verse 20. Remember, there were two sets of commandments. There's the commandments, the first four. They are more vertical commandments. And then there are the, they are the Lord your God with all your heart and all your soul. And then the second half of the commandments, the first four, they are more vertical commandments.

There's one more with love your neighbor as yourself. What did he do? He just listed all of the love your neighbor as your self commandments, except for one. Let's look and see which of them that he didn't show. “You shall not commit adultery. You shall not murder. You shall not steal. You shall not give false testimony. Honor your father and mother”

A little out of order. False testimony should have been there, but... These are the love your neighbor as yourself. But he's listed five. Which one is missing? You shall not covet. He didn't say that one. He didn't bring that one up to this cat. And so, he says in verse 21, all these I have kept since I was a boy. He said, when Jesus heard this, he said to him, you still lack one thing.

What one thing? You're missing a commandment. You're missing a commandment, kid. You think you're righteous because you've obeyed all of them. But I didn't tell you the last one. Sell everything you have and give to the poor. And you will have treasure in heaven. Then come follow me. When he heard this, he became very sad because he was very wealthy. Why is he so sad? He's sad. Because it shows that he finds his happiness and his satisfaction in things that he can buy with money. He's rich. That's where his contentment is. And he's always wanting more. That's why he wants to have this money so that he can buy more to make him content. And so, he is always coveting. And he realizes that he's coveting. And he doesn't want to give up all that because he doesn't understand that he'd be more than a little bit more satisfied with Jesus than chasing after stuff. So, Jesus looks at him in verse 24. He says, “Jesus looked at him and said, How hard it is for rich the rich to enter the kingdom of God.

Indeed, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.”

Now, you've probably heard that there was this place over in the Middle East where there was this hole in the wall and it was... Camels would go through it. And they called it the eye of a needle. Just forget that. Just forget that. It’s harder for a camel, a big, huge animal to go through the eye of a needle. Like a needle that you sew with. It's hard when somebody is rich and has material things to say, I don't find my contentment in these things. And because I'm finding my contentment in all the stuff I've got, I want more. And because I look over and I see Bobby's happy with what he's got, I want that same happiness too. So I'm going to chase after that and I'm going to chase after this.

You see, this is the point. He thought he was saved by his own righteous acts. He thought he was good enough, but he didn't understand that coveting and clinging to things of this world as your first love means that God's not your first love. That's what that means. If you're clinging after stuff and always chasing stuff then God's not your first love. You might say, well, everybody desires things more than God at some point.

So, look at verse 26. It says, “those who heard this asked, who then can be saved?” Because the disciples were there and there were people that were here and they'd heard this interaction with this rich young ruler who now is sad and has walked away because he doesn't want to give up his stuff, doesn't want to give up his riches because he's coveting. Why is he supposed to give up his riches? Is it because God doesn't want people to have riches? No, it's because this guy is a coveter and this guy is not satisfied with God and he just wants stuff. That's where his happiness and contentment is found. And God is, Jesus is saying, I got to take that away so that you find your contentment and your faith in me.

Otherwise, you're not going to have any contentment. And so it says in verse 26, “those who heard this asked, who then can be saved?” We are all because we're all breakers of this commandment. “Jesus replied, what is impossible with God, with man is possible with God.” It's impossible for you to be saved by living righteously because back in verse 19, what did it say back in verse 19 t said, he is, “no one is good except God alone”

So, watch this, watch this. “Peter said to him, we have left all that we had to follow you.” You see what Peter's doing? He's saying, listen, we're not holding on to our house. We're not holding on to our family. We're not holding on to vacations. We're not holding on to this as what's going to make us happy. We left all of that in order to grab on to you because we know you are where our fulfillment and contentment will go. And watch how Jesus responds.

“Truly I tell you Jesus said to them, no one who has left home or wife or brother or sister or parents or children for the sake of the kingdom of God will fail to receive many times as much in this age and in the age to come eternal life.” So what's the opposite of coveting?

If you're struggling with coveting the opposite of coveting what other people have is to be content with what God has given you. Because God wants you to be satisfied in him.

That's what he wants. I'm going to go back to marriage here for a minute. And I'm going to finish up with this.

God loves you and wants you to be happy and get your happiness and your contentment and to be provided by him. So, you husbands listen to me. You husbands your wife comes home and she says, “You don't really provide for us and I don't feel safe with you. I feel safe over with Bill but I don't feel safe around you. And Bill is providing for his family and you don't provide for us. You don't measure up to what we need. I'm not happy in this relationship because I'm seeing somebody that can do a better job of providing for me and providing for the kids than you.”

And how does that make you feel? It makes you feel like crap. Because you're like, wait a second. I'm your husband. I'm the one who should be providing for you. I'm the one who comes home and should be the person that you want to put your arms around and hug. And say, “man, I've missed you all day. I'm never as happy as I am when I'm with you.”

That's what I want. That's what the relationship is supposed to be. But no, she goes off and she finds other people to do that with. Because she's not content with you. That's exactly what's going on with God. That's exactly what's going on with God. The difference is this. That when your wife says, I'm not content with you, she might be right! You might not be the provider. You might not be good at that. You might be neglecting your family. You might be never around. You might be a jerk. You might be a schmuck. That's not the case with God.

When God says you should find your fulfillment and your happiness and your contentment in me, it's because he knows that there was no one and no thing in the universe that can satisfy you like He can.

There is nothing. And so every time you run off to be satisfied, because you're not content and you're coveting this and coveting that, you're running after something worse than God. You're running after something worse than Him. You're running away from where your true happiness and contentment is. And so God says this. He says the answer is don't covet.

Find peace with me. Find contentment with me. And what I've given you, what I provide for you is exactly what you need. It might not be all this, but maybe I know you better than yourself and that's not what you need. What would happen if God made me rich? I don't know. I don't know how I'd handle being rich. Because I've never been rich. How would I handle that? I don't know. God knows.

Maybe the reason I'm not rich is God knows I wouldn't be as good with being rich. I look at the pastor that started Saddleback out there. He's basically given all of his salary away. He wrote this book, “The Purpose Driven Church”. All of his salary, he gave it all back to his church because he made so much money on this. And he lives on like a little bit all the rest of it he just gives away. God knew that.

Probably why his book is so popular. Probably why mine only sold two. No, I'm just kidding. Let's just be content in who God is. That's what this is about. Be content in who God's made us to be.

Closing Prayer

God, I thank you so much for that you've made it clear to us that our contentment, our happiness, our joy, our provision, we don't want to cheat on you and go running everywhere looking for something better. Because there is nothing better than you.

God, you're more than enough for us. You're more than enough. God, we find our peace and our joy and our satisfaction in the Lord. And God, there's some of us that are in here and probably a great number of us who are saying, God, I struggle with this because I don't feel completely content in you. God, if I'm honest, if I'm honest, if I'm honest, I want other things too. God, I need you to work on my heart. I need you to work in my soul. God, I need you to show me who you are. God and I will stop coveting the best of my ability. I'm going to stop chasing after it. And when I see things that are that I'm thinking, oh, that would make me happy or I want what that person has, I'm going to stop that at the beginning. I'm going to stop it. I'm going to say, God, no. I am completely content with what you've given me. As Paul says, I'm content in any in every situation because I know that you've provided the situation for me. God, we pray this in Jesus' name.