Is Christ an addition or is He your all?
Correct Conduct v.6 If your joy in Christ is big, your lust for stuff will be small. If your joy in Christ is big, your lust for sin will be little. Make your joy in Christ kill your thirst for stuff.
Combat Coveting vv.7-11
- Coveting is defined as a loss of satisfaction in Christ and the pursuit of other things.
- The Ten Commandants begin and end with almost the same commandant. Exodus 20:3 “You shall have no other gods before me.” And Exodus 20:17 “You shall not covet…” It goes into anything that your neighbor has, stuff.
- Contentment in Christ– When faith is all satisficing in Christ, not in other things.
Fight and Flee
2 Offensive Weapons in Spiritual Warfare:
1) Word– Romans 10:17 “So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.” Saving, initial faith and continually growing faith, Ephesians 6:17 “In all circumstances take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one;”
2) Prayer– Ephesians 6:18 “praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication. To that end, keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints,”
Warnings in the word:
Ecclesiastes 5:11, “He who loves money will not be satisfied with money; nor he who loves wealth, with gain: this also is vanity.”
Luke 12:13-21 “Someone in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.” 14 But he said to him, “Man, who made me a judge or arbitrator over you?” 15 And he said to them, “Take care, and be on your guard against all covetousness, for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.” 16 And he told them a parable, saying, “The land of a rich man produced plentifully, 17 and he thought to himself, ‘What shall I do, for I have nowhere to store my crops?’ 18 And he said, ‘I will do this: I will tear down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. 19 And I will say to my soul, “Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.”’ 20 But God said to him, ‘Fool! This night your soul is required of you, and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’ 21 So is the one who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God.”
Mark 4:19 “but the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches and the desires for other things enter in and choke the word, and it proves unfruitful.”
Anytime the Word of God is preached, Satan wants your heart to be tangled in thorns. He wants you to think right now about anything but Christ. He doesn’t want your joy to be in Jesus. He wants you to long for everything and anything now. What will the score be tonight? What is for dinner? Fight, Fight, Fight for contentment in Christ!
v.9- look at the last word here in verse 9, destruction. What does this mean? This could very easily mean based on verse 12, Hell. If you find more love for stuff than for Christ, you are in grave danger! Do you love Christ more than anything? If tomorrow you awake and everything was ripped away what will you do? Listen to these Christians! Hebrews 10:32-34 “But recall the former days when, after you were enlightened, you endured a hard struggle with sufferings, sometimes being publicly exposed to reproach and affliction, and sometimes being partners with those so treated. For you had compassion on those in prison, and you joyfully accepted the plundering of your property, since you knew that you yourselves had a better possession and an abiding one.”
Commitment to Celebrate v.12