Keeping Up with the Joneses

 

Exodus 20:17 “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.”

 

Pastor Emeritus Willie Nolte stated in a previous sermon, that we live in a “consumer society”, meaning that a society where people think that spending money on goods and services is very important way of life, often buying new goods, especially goods that they do not need, and in which a high value is placed on owning many things. Secular society has convinced people to buy more goods beyond those needed to sustain them, by generating a new ideology of pleasure and leisure, was part of the birth of modern marketing; after all, you deserve what everybody else is getting … right? No, it's unrealistic. I remember the first time that I heard a young co-worker tell me: “I see it, I want it, I get it.” Living within their means was not a consideration; they never do without. 

 

The term “Keeping up with the Joneses” is an idiom in many parts of the English-speaking world referring to the comparison to one's neighbor as a benchmark for social class or the accumulation of material goods. According to this philosophy, conspicuous consumption [the consumer practice of buying and using goods of a higher quality, price, or in greater quantity than practical] occurs when people care about their standard of living and its appearance in relation to their peers. The over-desire and demand for status goods for either attaining or of maintaining a given social status fueled by conspicuous consumption, has diverted many resources away from necessary goods and services in order to satisfy consumer preoccupations with their relative social standing and prestige". The message to this worldly culture is: “Do not let anyone outlive you!” Our materialistic society has become so geared to massive consumer spending, that when the general public has economic fears and holds onto their money, the community economic system begins to collapse quickly and depression sets in. But, what does God want our thinking and associated actions to be like?

 

1 Samuel 16:7 “Man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart” 

 

Ligonier ministries states that God has never said that a mere external righteousness is sufficient; rather, His people are to be holy in their thoughts and affections, as well as in their deeds. The tenth commandment, which addresses what happens in our hearts and minds, makes clear that the Lord forbids those sins that no one sees — our covetous thoughts and desires leading us to long wrongfully, including for what others have and for what rightfully belongs to others. This is the commandment that deals most specifically with the sins of the heart, showing us that though we might refrain from all outward acts of sin — murder, adultery, theft, and idolatry — we have failed to keep His law when our hearts are filled with jealous discontent.

 

In many ways, covetousness can be seen as the one sin that gives birth to all the others. An adulterer must first want someone other than whom he married before he breaks the seventh commandment. A thief is envious of his neighbor’s estate before he steals his goods. People want to look good in the sight of others and covet the earned reputation of respected people, so they assassinate character and lie about their own accomplishments. The list of ways in which covetousness leads to other sins is endless. The tenth commandment, in particular, proves that the Ten Commandments of God’s Moral Law are not just civil laws for ancient Israel but statutes that penetrate the deep recesses of the heart. They are an expression of the righteousness of God, who searches the hearts of all human beings and finds them wanting [deficient; lacking; needing; desiring].

Romans 3:22a-25a “For there is no difference; for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God set forth as a propitiation by His blood, through faith.” We can covet anything. The answer to covetousness is not the absence of all desire, but forget keeping up with the Joneses; rather cultivate of contentment. If we are walking in the Spirit and endeavoring to be grateful to God for every blessing He has given to us, then we will not fulfill the sinful flesh desire to covet. This day, let us be thankful to the Lord for the blessings we now possess.

 

In Christ, Brian