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[0:00] We are in the book of Exodus. We've been going through the Ten Commandments here for, I don't know how long it's been, a couple months, maybe two and a half months. And we are on the last of the Ten Commandments.

[0:14] Now unless some creativity or some creative or imaginative thing hits me this week, this is planned to be the last message in the Ten Commandments since this is number 10.

[0:27] But we're going to be looking today at You Shall Not Covet. I want to provide, just like we have every other week, a perspective on how we view the Ten Commandments.

[0:41] And you might be thinking, oh, is he going to go over this again? Yes, we are going to go over it again because I think it's important. And repetition is one of those things that helps make things stick.

[0:51] We talked about this in the beginning of our series. But what is our relationship to the law? Why are we studying the Ten Commandments? Why should we spend any time on it? What about the rest of the law of Moses?

[1:02] And their perspective is this. There's two things. One is, as Christians, we are not under the law. We're not under the law of Moses by any means.

[1:13] But what does that mean? What does it mean to not be under the law but to be under grace instead? It means that the law does not have any power over us.

[1:25] It doesn't mean that we should ignore the law. It doesn't mean that it does not define right and wrong in certain things. But it means that it does not have the authority to condemn us.

[1:40] It doesn't have the power of what Paul calls in Romans the power of sin and death. That power that says, the man who sins, he shall die.

[1:50] That's what the law says. When you break the law, it leads to death. On the flip side, it also does not have the power to make you righteous. The law comes with blessings and curses.

[2:05] When you break the law, come the curses, including death. But the law also promises that if you keep the law, you will have life and you will have blessing.

[2:18] But what many have found out and what we read in the Bible is that that didn't work out so well for the Jewish people. The law does not have the power to condemn us.

[2:30] It doesn't have the power to make us righteous. But the other perspective is that the law is good. Paul says the law is holy and righteous and good.

[2:42] If it's used lawfully. If it's used lawfully. And the law can teach us right from wrong. Paul says, hey, the law has instructions in righteousness.

[2:53] How we ought to live. So we can look to the law and it can show us the difference between right and wrong. In certain things. It sets boundaries for our lives.

[3:04] And the lives of others. Lives of those around us. That can help us to avoid sin. Which leads to pain and suffering. So we shouldn't diminish the law.

[3:15] We shouldn't ignore it. But we need to understand our relationship to the law. How we should use it and how we should not use it. And by the way, all of that applies to this 10th commandment.

[3:29] We're in Exodus chapter 20. That's where at least one place where the 10 commandments is. There's another section in Deuteronomy where the law is repeated. But we're in Exodus chapter 20 and verse 17.

[3:40] Just one verse. It's a little longer than the last few. But here's how it goes. Exodus 20, 17. This is a commandment that's actually quite different from the nine preceding commands.

[4:06] You know, all the rest of the nine commandments address how we behave. What we ought to do in our day-to-day life.

[4:18] But this one addresses not something that we do, but something that is in our heart. What we desire. What we think in our minds.

[4:29] What we dwell on in our hearts. And when you look at all 613 commandments that are in the law of Moses, there are almost none that address something like this.

[4:46] That simply address the heart. All of them address your behavior, what you do. And so this is not just unique among the 10 commandments. It's actually unique among the whole law of Moses.

[5:00] And I think it's probably a good place for God to kind of land or end the 10 commandments on something that is unique in this way that addresses the heart.

[5:11] There's a saying you may have heard that goes like this. The heart of the matter is the matter of the heart. Because really the heart, the human heart, is central to this whole thing.

[5:27] To right and wrong, good and evil. It's the human heart that is the centerpiece of everything. And that's what this commandment gets at. Let's start off by looking at the word covet.

[5:38] What does the word covet even mean? The word covet is not something that I think we use on a daily basis. In the English language. And so let's look a little bit at some of the original language.

[5:52] In the word, excuse me, in the Hebrew, the word is chamad. And all it means is a desire. A desire. And it can be a desire for bad things.

[6:06] Or it could be a desire for good things. The word itself doesn't indicate whether it's a bad desire or a good desire. It's just kind of morally neutral.

[6:18] So for example, in Psalm, Psalm 19, verse 9. You don't need to turn there. But it says this. The fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever. The judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.

[6:31] More to be desired are they than gold. Yea, than much fine gold. And sweeter also than honey and honeycomb. That word is the same word, chamad.

[6:42] And so that's talking about a positive use of desire. We ought to desire God's word, his good judgments. They are, in fact, to be desired even more than we would desire gold.

[6:56] Now, when we see the same word in the Greek. So there are places in the New Testament that it was written in Greek that actually quotes the Tenth Commandment. And the word used there, we won't get into what that word actually is.

[7:10] But it just means the same thing. It's just a desire. Whether good or evil. In fact, Jesus uses that of himself. He talks about a desire he had. When he was having his last supper with his disciples, he said this in Luke 22, 15.

[7:25] He said to them, With fervent desire, I have desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer. It's quite a positive use of desire. There are good desires and there are bad desires.

[7:39] You know, even with our English word, covet. Have any of you ever heard when somebody might say something like, Oh, something's going on in my life and I covet your prayers.

[7:50] Anybody ever heard that? That's a positive use of the word covet. Usually we think of covetousness, you know, the word covet in a negative sense. But by itself alone, it isn't actually negative of its own.

[8:04] So really, you could read this command starting out as, You shall not desire. You shall not desire. But is it true that, does it just stop right there?

[8:19] Is it true that we should, as human beings, we should not have any desires? Well, no, that's not where it ends. It says this, You shall not covet or desire your neighbor's house.

[8:32] So there are certain things that it's not good, that it's not right to desire. And he continues to list some of your neighbor's things. His house, his wife, his servants, his ox, his donkey.

[8:46] And then it ends with this. You shouldn't desire anything that belongs to your neighbor. Just in case you thought that this was a non-exhaustive list.

[8:57] And that there was other things that it's okay for you to covet that belong to your neighbor. So there's no problem at all with desiring good things.

[9:08] But we ought not to desire things that are not ours. But even more specifically than that is we should not desire things that we cannot lawfully have.

[9:23] That we cannot lawfully have. So the sin of coveting is this. It's desiring what is unlawful for us to have. And there are things that are lawful that are good for us to have.

[9:37] And there are things that are not lawful because they are not good for us to have. The next thing that I want to talk about is what this sin of covetousness, this sin of coveting is not.

[9:51] Because you can really get yourself into trouble if you get this wrong. The first thing I would like to look at is just what we've already been talking about.

[10:02] It's not desire in general. God's not saying that you should not desire anything in life. God created us as creatures of desire, of passion, to want things.

[10:18] In fact, he created a world for us to enjoy. Full of good things that he created for us to enjoy. In fact, in the very beginning, I'm going to be quoting Genesis 2.9 here.

[10:34] But he talks about all the things that he created. And one thing in particular was the trees. Full of fruit. Full of good things. That, by the way, were watered on kind of an auto-sprinkler system.

[10:46] So that there wasn't, you know, too much work to do. There was still some. But not the kind of toil in the ground that came later after the curse. But it says this, Genesis 2.9.

[10:57] And out of the ground the Lord God made every tree grow that is pleasant or desirable. That's that same exact word, chamad.

[11:09] That is desirable to the sight and good for food. So God created these trees from the ground and he made them desirable because of the fruit that was on them.

[11:20] Just a few other examples of some good desires that we see in the scriptures. Proverbs 13.4 says this, The soul of a lazy man desires.

[11:32] So, you know, a soul desires good things. But the lazy man, it says he has nothing. Because he's not willing to work for it. But the soul of the diligent shall be made rich.

[11:45] Those, that wealth, that prosperity that the lazy man is desiring, he won't get. But the man of diligence will receive those things that he desires. In 1 Timothy chapter 3, Paul is speaking of the need for leaders.

[12:02] And he tells Timothy, you know, So if there's a man among you that desires the office of a bishop or an elder, how does it finish?

[12:13] It says he desires a good thing. That's a good desire. A position of leadership to lead people. Also in 1 Corinthians chapter 12, Paul is speaking of these spiritual gifts.

[12:27] These gifts that were in operation to help the church in different ways. And he says this, But earnestly desire the best gifts.

[12:39] It's that same word. Earnestly desire the best of those gifts. And so, desire, passion for wanting good things in life, is something that God put into us.

[12:54] In fact, really, desiring good things is not just acceptable. It's actually a noble thing. It's part of how God created us to be.

[13:06] Do you want a nice house for your family to live in? That's a great desire. Do you want to find a sweet and beautiful woman to marry?

[13:19] Or a big, strong man to marry? Those are good things to desire. Do you desire to build a successful business?

[13:29] Or to build a successful career? Those are good things. Do you desire to have a position of leadership or authority? Whether it's in a church setting, or maybe in a governmental setting, or in some kind of community setting.

[13:46] You want to be able to lead people toward good things. Those are good desires. And so, we should not think that desire in and of itself is bad.

[13:57] But I'll tell you that there are thought systems, both in other religions and other philosophies, and you even find it creeping into Christianity, that says that desire in and of itself is bad.

[14:10] In Buddhism, there is this concept of trying to extinguish all desire in your life. And that if you can do that, you'll reach, you know, some place where you ought to be, this nirvana.

[14:27] In old Greek philosophy, they include, Psoicism was one of them. There's this idea that fleshly desire is inherently evil.

[14:40] Anything that you desire that has to do with physical things is inherently evil. And that's very much different from Christianity. But even among Christians, you find this.

[14:52] I think about in the past with monasticism, with the monasteries and the monks and the nuns. A lot of times, the monks, they will eat the most plain food they can find, only rice and beans, because they don't want to enjoy food.

[15:10] They sleep on the floor because they don't want to enjoy rest. And they're just trying to avoid all worldly pleasures and desires because they think that there is some kind of value to it.

[15:26] And you know what? There is not any value to it. Scripture never condemns desire in and of itself. But I'll tell you what it does do.

[15:38] Turn to Galatians 2 if you've got your Bible. What the Bible does do, what Paul specifically does, is he condemns the rejection of our God-given desires for good things.

[15:56] Galatians 2 and verse 20 says this, These things, indeed, they have an appearance of wisdom, in self-imposed religion, false humility, and neglect of the body, but they are of no value against the indulgence of the flesh.

[16:42] Colossians 2, 20 through 23 there. That kind of asceticism, where we just reject worldly pleasure, we reject the natural desires that God has put into us, they have no value, no use, towards the indulgence or going beyond what God intended.

[17:04] So that's not one of the ways that we can avoid worldly or sinful pleasures is just by avoiding all pleasures altogether. It won't work. It's not useful. It's not valuable.

[17:15] Also, in 1 Timothy 4, 1, Paul talks about a similar thing. And he talks about those who forbid certain foods and also they even forbid marriage.

[17:31] Hello, Catholic Church, by the way. And does forbidding marriage help people with their lusts? No. We've seen that over and over again in our own culture that that doesn't help with worldly lusts.

[17:50] Later on in Timothy, Paul mentions, he says, you know what, God has richly given us all things to enjoy. And so there are good things in life that God meant for us to enjoy and we should enjoy them.

[18:02] So desire by itself is very good. But it doesn't end there. It's wrong to desire something that you cannot or you should not have.

[18:19] I'll try to drive this home with an illustration here. Imagine you have a friend and he rolls up to your house in his brand new Porsche convertible with the top down and the winds blowing through his hair.

[18:42] He's got his sunglasses on. And this is quite the sweet ride. And you see it and you really like his car.

[18:54] Is that coveting? No, that's not coveting. You really like his car. Well, then you really want one of these for yourself.

[19:05] Is that coveting? No. Well, what if you go out and you buy one yourself just like his? Is that coveting?

[19:17] No. Well, what if you want his car? Houston, we have a problem. Now we're getting into, whoa, hold on a second.

[19:33] That's his car, not your car. Now, truth be told, you could say, hey, would you be willing to part with that for some cold, hard cash? And he might be willing. In that case, it would be okay.

[19:44] But what the sin of covetousness about is wanting something that you cannot have. He's not willing to give that to you. And so for you to desire something that someone's not willing to offer, that's not available to you, that is forbidden in some kind of way, that's where the sin comes in.

[20:04] Let's look at this a little bit more in kind of real life. If any of you have ever been in your backyard and you're just hanging out in a cool summer evening, you look at your neighbor's property and you see this big, strong ox in your neighbor's yard and you think, oh man, I really want me one of them.

[20:28] Probably not, right? But this is what actually comes into play here with the Hebrews here because this was exactly the kind of situation that you might run into when you are a landowner, when you're a farmer.

[20:43] And imagine you're just getting started. You don't have a lot. The only thing that you have to plow your field is an old stubborn mule. And every time you try to plow your field, this mule just is not compliant.

[20:57] You have lots of issues. And you look over at your neighbor and he's got dozens and dozens of these big, hulking, strong oxes.

[21:07] And he hooks them up to the plow and those oxen just, they walk right through and that plow plows through that dirt just like butter.

[21:19] You're like, oh wow. I really would like myself one of those. And you might think, you know, if I work really hard with my old stubborn mule, maybe one day I'll be able to get an ox of my own.

[21:33] And you know what? That's a good and noble desire. But then you start to think, well, that's a lot of work. What if, you know, he's got a lot of oxen.

[21:45] You know, if one of them kind of went missing and just like crossed over into somebody else's property, you know, he probably might never miss it.

[21:58] Hmm, I wonder if there's maybe a way where that could accidentally happen. And you start to ruminate in your mind about how something like that might actually come to pass.

[22:10] In that scenario, you have crossed a line from good thoughts about good things to evil thoughts about evil things.

[22:21] But you might say, I haven't stolen anything. All I'm doing is just thinking about what might happen. I haven't done anything wrong, right?

[22:36] I haven't hurt anybody just by thinking about something. But you know how many people have thought those same kinds of thoughts?

[22:47] Oh, my thoughts aren't really hurting anybody. But, you know, it's interesting how thoughts tend to very frequently lead to actions.

[22:58] And we shouldn't think. That we can dwell on and ruminate on evil thoughts and on forbidden desires in our heart and still keep from acting on them.

[23:13] You know, the Bible is very clear that the beginning, the precursor of sinful behavior is the heart. In Mark chapter 7, verse 21, Jesus says this, For from within, out of the heart of man, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lewdness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness.

[23:39] All these things come from within and they defile a man. Our sinful behaviors come from a heart, a heart that ruminates on sinful things.

[23:52] James also speaks to this. He says this in James 1, verse 14. But each one of you, and he's talking to believers, by the way, each one of you is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires.

[24:06] And then he's enticed. Then when desire has conceived, and by the way, we shouldn't think that these are good desires. He's specifically talking about evil desires, desires for forbidden things.

[24:17] Then when desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin. And sin, when it is full grown, brings forth death. Evil desires, desires for sinful things, for forbidden things, is a precursor to actually acting out on those things that are in your heart and that are in your mind.

[24:39] And really, covetousness is, right, the precursor of some of the other commands, right? You shall not steal. Before you ever grab or take that thing that doesn't belong to you, you think in your mind, I want that thing that doesn't belong to me.

[24:55] Before you ever commit adultery, you think in your mind and ruminate about that woman that belongs to somebody else, but I want her for myself.

[25:08] So, these sins of the heart, this covetousness, sin of covetousness, is a precursor to basically every other sin or every other, the breaking of every other command.

[25:24] But let me ask this question. Is covetousness, or these forbidden desires, are they just a precursor to sin? Jesus actually takes this a little bit further.

[25:39] In Matthew chapter 5, we call this the Beatitudes. He gave a long sermon called the Beatitudes. And he actually addresses the law and how people read it and how you should read it.

[25:51] And he said this about the commandment regarding adultery. He says this, whoever looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.

[26:04] Now, is he talking about a husband desiring his wife? No, that's not what he's talking about. He's talking about that forbidden desire. Desiring someone who is not yours, who is someone else's.

[26:21] So, what Jesus is saying here is that desiring a woman who does not belong to you, who belongs to someone else, is not simply a precursor to sin, to physical adultery.

[26:36] He's saying that that is sin, that that is adultery. Another example.

[26:48] You know, it's great to be married. And for many young men and young women, there's a desire to be married one day. Just imagine, you think about, in this example, a young man.

[27:00] He is ready. He's got his job. He's got his car. He's even got a house. And he's ready to settle down and find himself a good woman. And he's got kind of a picture in his mind of what he's looking for.

[27:12] And one day, he's having coffee at the coffee shop. And there is this young woman who's working behind the counter, takes his order, and he just becomes enamored with her.

[27:27] She's beautiful. She's kind. She's even witty. There's a sparkle in her eyes and there's a sweetness in her smile. And he is just head over heels.

[27:38] And he sits down to drink his coffee and he just starts imagining what life is going to be like when he marries this girl. Their life together, the adventures they're going to take, the vacations that they're going to go on, the kids they're going to have, and what their home will be like.

[27:56] And then he notices the ring on her finger. Bummer. And you know, before he noticed that ring, there was nothing really wrong with those thoughts, right?

[28:13] It's good for a man to pursue a woman, to desire to be married to a woman. But then some other thoughts start to enter into his mind.

[28:25] What does she see in her husband anyway? I mean, if she knew about me, if she got to know me, she'd probably prefer to be with me instead of him, if she knew how great I was.

[28:40] You know what? Maybe we should just get to know each other a little bit and maybe see where it goes. You know what? It's okay to be disappointed.

[28:53] But we need to guard our thoughts from the very, very beginning. And those thoughts enter into our mind. Proverbs 4, verse 23 says this.

[29:05] This is the wisdom of Solomon. Keep your heart with all diligence, for out of it springs the issues of life. Our heart and our mind is where everything starts.

[29:16] And if we do not guard our thoughts, where our thoughts go, where our imaginations go, we'll ultimately spring out into the rest of our life.

[29:30] Just one little aside here. You might think, because it's very easy, right, to have all kinds of fleeting thoughts come into our mind, things that might be temptations.

[29:42] And there is a big difference between a fleeting thought, a tempting thought, excuse me, that might come into your mind and something that we spend time dwelling on and ruminating about.

[29:56] Even Jesus himself was tempted and I'm sure had tempting thoughts that came into his mind as well. Coveting is when you allow those desires to, you entertain them, you feed them, you dwell on them.

[30:11] Martin, Martin, I believe it was Martin Luther. Sometimes people, things are attributed to people they didn't actually say, but I believe it was Martin Luther that said this about sinful thoughts that come into your mind.

[30:24] He said, you can't stop a bird from flying around your head, but you can stop it from building a nest, you know, on your head, in your hair. And so, that's the idea.

[30:37] Hey, the fleeting thoughts might come. Those desires might come and come through our head, but we cannot allow it to build a nest in our hair. You know, desire, I see, it's kind of like water.

[30:53] Water can be such a powerful thing. Water is one of the biggest life-giving things in life. Water is used to give life to plants and animals and human beings.

[31:07] Without water, everything just shrivels up and dies. But you know that water can also be a hugely destructive force. It's the same way with desire.

[31:18] If we just allow desire to run rampant, we think about water and some of these floods that we've seen over the last several years, where the waters rise and instead of that water being channeled along where that river is, the water gets out of hand and it ends up destroying lives and properties.

[31:42] Desire is like that. We should and we ought to channel our desires towards proper things, towards good things. He who finds a wife finds a good thing.

[31:54] Enjoy the wife of your youth. If you work hard to build up a successful life full of riches and a good name, those are good things for you to pursue and enjoy.

[32:08] But if you do those things, if you gain your riches through wickedness and cheating and exploiting others, that's quite different.

[32:20] And so, our desires are good in and of themselves, but we need to channel our desires to things that are right and towards what is good.

[32:32] But, things are easier said than done, right? And in the Bible, in this command, it tells us what we ought to do and what we ought not to do.

[32:46] Hey, don't think about these things. Don't desire the wrong things, but does the commandment itself help us, does it empower us to actually do what is right, what is good?

[33:02] Paul actually speaks to this. Turn to Romans chapter 7. This is where we're going to kind of finish up. Romans chapter 7. The book of Romans is a theological treatise on God's salvation, but there's a lot in there about the law and what the law is good for, but also where the law fails.

[33:32] And he actually, in Romans 7, brings up this 10th commandment specifically. to talk about the failure or the inadequacy of the law.

[33:45] Start in verse 7. So Romans 7, verse 7. What shall we say then? Is the law sin? Well, certainly not. On the contrary, I would not have known sin except through the law.

[34:00] So the law, the commandments in the law are not bad. They actually give instructions for good things. So it's not that the law is bad in and of itself. He continues, for I would not have known covetousness unless the law had said, you shall not covet.

[34:18] So I might not have known what it even meant to covet except the law says you shall not do this. So it provides these instructions, these moral boundaries. But then he says this in verse 8, but sin, taking opportunity by the commandment, produced in me all manner of evil desire.

[34:37] For apart from the law, sin was dead. He said the law actually in my heart did the opposite of what people think that it was supposed to do.

[34:49] Instead of making me hate sin, it actually drew me towards the evil desire. This is Paul, by the way, who kind of bragged in a way about his, the uprightness of his life as a Jew.

[35:08] If you remember in the book of Philippians, he's actually talking about why the law doesn't actually help us to live an upright life, but he says, hey, if there's anybody who benefited from the law, who was made righteous by the law, it was me.

[35:24] And he actually calls himself blameless when it came to keeping the law. But it sounds like there was one of them at the very least that he really, really struggled with.

[35:36] The one that nobody may ever know about. The one that you can keep secret, hidden, in the shadows of your mind for all of your life.

[35:49] Which, by the way, is one of the reasons why it can make that kind of sin the most insidious. But he says, if we skip down from Romans 7 down to verse 21, he says this, I find then a law that evil is present with me.

[36:12] The one who wills to good, he says, there's a kind of a part of me that wants to do good, but then there's this other part of me that doesn't really want to do what's right, just wants to follow my desires wherever they may go.

[36:25] Verse 22, for I delight in the law of God according to the inward man, but I see another law in my members warring against the law of my mind and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.

[36:40] O wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from this body of death? I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. Here he's asking, who's going to rescue me?

[36:52] Is the law going to rescue me from my wretched self? No, the law's not going to rescue me. But who will?

[37:03] He says it right here, Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin. And then he goes on into chapter 8 and says this, therefore, or there is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the spirit.

[37:29] He said, here is what Jesus did. He died for the sins of the world and he took away the condemnation of the law. The law that said you are a covetous sinner, worthy of death.

[37:44] And by the way, what does that do? That separate, the Bible says that sin separates us from God, where we cannot have a relationship with him. There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus.

[37:57] When we put our faith in Christ, that condemnation is taken out of the way because the law, by the way, is taken out of the way. And who are us who are in Christ Jesus?

[38:08] Well, it's us who do not walk according to the flesh, just according to commandments. commandments, but according to the spirit. In other words, we don't walk just according to commandments, we walk with God.

[38:23] Later on, it says that the spirit is the Lord. He's talking about the Lord. For the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death.

[38:35] For what the law could not do, and that it was weak through the flesh, God did by sending his own son in the likeness of sinful flesh, on account of sin. He condemned sin in the flesh, that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the spirit.

[38:55] If we want to do what the law says, we can't just read the law and try our very best to keep it. We need something else to fulfill those righteous requirements of the law.

[39:11] for those who live according to the flesh set their mind on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the spirit, the things of the spirit. You can either walk with the law or you can walk with God.

[39:25] For to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace, because the carnal mind is enmity against God, for it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can it be.

[39:36] So what's the answer? Is the answer for us trying to live the good life, to trying to obey the kinds of things that are in the law, to just kind of pull ourselves up by our bootstraps and try harder than we did last week to keep the commandments?

[40:01] No. The answer is the cross, and the answer really is God himself, because what we need, and go back to that passage that we talked about, we've talked about so many times in Romans, I think it's chapter 13, let me see if I can find it, I didn't write it down, Romans 13 verse 8, O no one anything except to love one another, for he who loves another has fulfilled the law, for the commandment, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not murder, you shall not steal, you shall not bear false witness, you shall not covet, and if there is any other commandment, are all summed up in this saying, namely, you shall love your neighbor as yourself, love does no harm to a neighbor, therefore love is the fulfillment of the law, and so what we need is not the law, or at least just the law, what we need is love to fill our hearts, because what is in our hearts, remember, is what comes out, where do we get this love?

[41:07] Well, in Romans chapter 5, verse 5, Paul says this, now hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us, we need God's love in our hearts, because on the cross, Jesus took care of our sin, our sins have been forgiven, the law has been taken away, it can no longer condemn us, so all that's left is we have peace with God, and we have a relationship with him that we can enjoy, and we enjoy that relationship with him, that relationship, through that relationship, grows a heart of love for the Lord, his love for us is poured out in our hearts, and that same love comes out, it wells up in our hearts, through good desires, desires for good things, Paul says in 2nd Corinthians chapter 5 verses 14, he says the love of God, excuse me, the love of Christ compels us, the actions in our lives, even the desires of our heart are compelled by the love of

[42:15] God, so we don't need the law anymore, now we can reference it, we can look to it, but it can't help us to make us righteous, it can't make us holy, it can't make us more like Christ, it's good, but it can't change our hearts, it can't change our desires, but you know what or really who can?

[42:41] It's God himself, and so as Christians we have peace with God, and he will change us from the inside out as we daily walk with him, he's cleared the way for us to have a daily relationship with him, and all we need to do each and every day is take advantage of that, of our union with him, of our identity with him, of his love towards us, walk with him on a daily basis, and he will change us, not just our behaviors, but he'll change our hearts and our minds, he'll change us from the inside out to be more like him, amen, amen, let's ask God to continue to do that in us, and help us to turn to him each and every day, father we're so grateful to you for what you have done for us, you took the law out of the way, and you gave us your grace instead, so that we could have peace with you, so that we could walk with you each and every day, and build a relationship with you, and we ask that you would help us to do that, to always turn to you each and every day, to talk to you on a regular basis, to grow in the knowledge and grace of our

[43:58] Lord, so that your life and your love would change us each and every day to be more like you, we thank you for your work in us, what you've already done in the past, and what you continue to do through us, day by day, we thank you for these things in the name of Jesus, amen, amen, thanks everybody, hey, could we try one thing, somebody brought this up the other day, you know, I always kind of struggle on how to end these messages, so why don't we stand up, who knows the doxology, okay, there's enough of you that the rest of you can follow along, it's a simple song, we can do it acapella, but everybody stand up on your feet, I'll try to start us on the right key, but it goes like this, praise God from whom all blessings flow, praise him all creatures here below, praise him above ye heavenly host, praise father, son, and holy ghost, amen, amen, amen, thanks everybody.