When I was growing up, one of the movies that I really enjoyed was Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. You know the one, with Gene Wilder? I loved to watch that movie because I thought it was so cool to see a whole building made out of candy and chocolate. That’s every kid’s fantasy, right? Plus, I loved Willy Wonka’s eccentricity. He was so odd and silly.
We all remember the kids too, 5 kids chosen from Golden Tickets to tour the chocolate factory, neither of them knowing that if they pass Wonka’s little test, they’ll inherit the factory. You watch as one by one, the bratty, greedy, vilest children to ever walk the planet get phased out of the competition they don’t even know they’re in, and after each child is eliminated from the factory, the Oompa Loompas come out and sing a song about what was wrong with that child.
My favorite of the bratty kids was Veruca Salt. She was the little rich girl who had her daddy use their entire factory to search for her golden ticket. She had horses and ponies she never rode. She had fur coats at the age of 12! She was spoiled and had everything money could ever possibly buy her, except humility.
When she gets eliminated it’s because the tour group goes into a room where there’s a bunch of golden geese laying golden eggs and Veruca boldly tells her dad, “Daddy, I want a golden goose!” Her dad then proceeds to try to buy one from Wonka, but he says they are simply not for sale. This then launches Veruca into a song, titled, “I Want it Now!” Because every time she sings in the song about some new candy or treat or something she wants her dad to buy her, she screams, “I Want it Now!”
Any time I watch that movie, I always think, “Yeah, all the other kids are pretty bad, but she is the absolute worst.”
I think this give me, give me, give me attitude is pretty common to some extent in kids, and fortunately most of us grow out of this.
But what do you do when you’re in a position of power and authority and all you have to do is say, “Bring me that…” and all those who serve you rush out to make your wish come true?
Today, we’ll be in 2 Samuel 11, talking about David’s great sin. We’re all pretty familiar with the story: David gets up one night and goes outside and sees Bathsheba bathing herself on her roof. David, full knowing that Bathsheba was married, has his own Veruca Salt moment. He says, “I want it now!”
Bathsheba is brought to David and they spend the night together. She gets pregnant. So David sends for her husband, Uriah, who was fighting in David’s army, hoping that when Uriah went home he would spend some time with his wife and David could pretend that the baby was Uriah’s. But, David didn’t count on Uriah being an honorable man, and Uriah refused to sleep with his wife while so many others were still on the front lines fighting instead of at home with their families.
When David sees that this plot isn’t going to work, instead of coming clean and confessing to Uriah that he had committed adultery with Bathsheba, David conspires to have Uriah placed on the front lines where the fighting is the worst so he will be killed in combat. Uriah is indeed killed in combat because of where David placed him.
In today’s legal terms, David could be charged with first-degree murder because he had the intent of killing Uriah and it was premeditated. In our legal system, this is the “worst” degree of murder. David’s great sin was very, very bad. In fact, the end of this chapter ends like this, “But the thing that David had done was evil in the sight of the Lord.”
We know the murder was evil, for sure. The premeditated and intentional killing of another human is evil indeed. But that was a secondary sin for David. Now, what I mean isn’t that it wasn’t as bad as the adultery, that it was somehow a lesser sin. What I mean is that the murder happened because of the adultery, it was to cover up the adultery. If the adultery hadn’t taken place, then the murder wouldn’t have taken place either. The adultery sin is the root of the murder sin.
But…there’s more to it. The adultery is the action sin, but there’s other sins happening here, mental sins that we need to look at and understand.
The first is fairly obvious, and I have it listed in your bulletin if you’d like to follow along and take notes. The first mental sin is lust. Makes sense right? David sees Bathsheba bathing herself and he thinks she’s pretty, and he starts to have thoughts about her that he shouldn’t be having.
The second sort of mental sin is a little less obvious. It’s COVETING. That’s your first blank, if you want to write it down. David saw someone he liked, he thought she was pretty, and it wasn’t just the lust, he wanted to have her for himself, despite the fact that she was married to someone else. He couldn’t stop at just the mental sin of lust, he had to carry it through to possessing the object of his lust.
The thing about coveting is that it doesn’t matter if you already have what you’re coveting, you find something that doesn’t quite measure up, so you want what you think is better. We see this sort of mindset when it comes to electronics. To someone who has a tendency to covet, it won’t matter that they already have a smartphone that works perfectly fine, they want the newest model because they have become convinced that the one they want is better than the one they have, even though the one they have is perfectly fine.
See, David had wives. He had lots of wives. He had lots of wives and lots of concubines. He didn’t need another woman. He had all his needs fulfilled, all he had to do was go to one of his wives or concubines. But he coveted what he couldn’t have, he coveted what he didn’t need.
All three of David’s sins here: coveting, lust/adultery, and murder are all on the ten commandments! And you can see how the outcome of David’s sin, is more SIN! That’s your next blank, in case you’re following along. And that’s usually how sin goes. One sin turns into another. We start off with one tiny lie, but before we know it, we have to keep lying to protect the first lie.
So…what was David to do? How could he have kept his covetousness under control so it didn’t morph into adultery and murder?
Quite simply, the cure for coveting is CONTENTMENT. That’s your last blank in your bulletin this morning, and I hope it’s one that you remember.
There’s always going to be something or someone that comes along that we think is better than what we have in some way. The opportunity to covet what we don’t have presents itself frequently. But God’s Word has a lot to say about how to avoid the trap through being content for what we already have.
Turn to Matthew 6. In verses 25-34 Jesus gives the cure for anxiety in the middle of his sermon on the mount. He tells people that they shouldn’t worry about what they will eat, or what they will drink, or what they will wear or where they will live. He tells them that the Father above knows they need these things and He will provide the necessities. Our job, however, is this, verse 33, “But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.”
Not that we will be given more than we need. We may not have the biggest and best, but we will have what we need because God loves and cares for us.
Though this is a cure for anxiety, to rest in the promise that God will give us what we need, we must understand that this is true for coveting as well. God will give us what we need. That doesn’t necessarily mean the biggest, best, newest. He will give us what we need, and we have to learn to be grateful and thankful for whatever that might be. Contentment with what God has given is the cure for coveting.
Let’s look at Psalm 37 as well, verses 3-5, “Trust in the Lord and do good; Dwell in the land and cultivate faithfulness. Delight yourself in the Lord; And He will give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the Lord, Trust also in Him, and He will do it.”
This section of Psalm 37 talks about a very important lesson, one that Matthew 6:33 touched on as well in a way. It’s this idea that if we seek God, He’ll give us what our heart desires. We can twist that and take it to extremes, and try to make it mean something that it doesn’t at all. This is what the prosperity gospel does. If I seek God with all my heart…I’ll eventually get that red, convertible Ferrari I’ve always wanted.
If I seek God with all my heart…I’ll get whatever my heart desires. No. Not really.
Matthew 6:33 helps us understand what Psalm 37 means. If we delight ourselves in the Lord, seek His Kingdom first and foremost above anything else in the world: above family, above friends, above wealth, above happiness. If you do that…and here’s the important part…if you do that, the desires of your heart change!
Your heart will start to desire what He desires for you. I can tell you, it’s probably not a red, convertible Ferrari. And when you start to desire what He desires for you, when you start to desire the things of His Kingdom…then He gives you the desires of your heart!
Seek first His Kingdom, and He will give you what you need. Delight yourself in Him and Him alone, and He will give you what He desires for you to desire.
1. Be honest…do you struggle with being content with what God has given you?
2. Do a little internet sleuthing on Psalm 37. Who wrote this Psalm? What does verse 25 say about the writer’s age? How does what we read in Psalm 37 connect with David’s sin as a young man, and what does Psalm 37 say about preventing sin in our own life?
3. What does Paul say about contentment in Philippians 4:8-13? What is his advice for learning to be content?