“Do not covet your neighbor’s house. Do not covet your neighbor’s wife, his male or female servant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.” (CSB – Read the chapter)
In the world of preachers, there is a phrase that occasionally gets thrown around when someone says something that is particularly profound or is worded in an especially memorable way. “That’s preach.” The idea is that you could take that line and build a whole sermon around it. Of course, a sermon built around an idea that isn’t directly informed by Scripture isn’t a sermon at all, but we won’t get into homiletical nitpicking right now. I say all of that to say this, one of the most preachable ideas I’ve ever heard (and which came out of a serious engagement with the Scriptures) was this big idea from Andy Stanley: “There’s no win in comparison.” He was talking about the dangers of comparing ourselves to others, but this danger is rooted in a sin whose prohibition in the Law of Moses is the caboose of the Ten Commandments. Let’s talk for a few minutes about coveting.
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