traviswright

Now that I have a significantly longer commute to work each morning, I listen to about 1 or 2 sermon podcasts each week. Mark Driscoll at Mars Hill Church has been going through the book of Luke, and this week the sermon was entitled “Mary’s Song – Luke 1:46-56.” I thought it was worth reposting this section. 

“Worshiping is the answer for coveting. And so what I want you to learn from Mary is to replace coveting with worshiping. Now coveting is this: we look at someone else’s life, and the evidences of God’s grace in their life, and God’s provision for them, and God’s caring for them, and we get jealous. It’s actually one of the Ten Commandments: “Thou shalt not covet.” Well, what do you do if you don’t want to continue coveting? Well, you start worshiping. And see the truth is, we live in a world that exists to make you a coveter. We call that marketing and advertising. All it exists for is coveting. See their car, don’t you wish you had that car? See their house, don’t you wish you had that house? Oh, look at them, they’re skinny, don’t you wish you were skinny? Oh look, their clothes are nice, don’t you wish you had their clothes? Oh, they’re healthy, don’t you wish you were healthy?   And what Mary does, she celebrates the evidences of God’s grace in her life, and then she looks out at the evidences of God’s grace in other people’s lives, and rather than coveting, she’s worshiping.

See, what can happen is, worship becomes this narcissistic, individualistic, absolutely selfish activity. “As long as God does something good for me, then I’ll sing to him.” Well, we worship God, number one, because of who he is. Number two, because of what he does in our life. Number three, because of what he does in other people’s lives. We worship God for all of it. And so maybe right now is not the season where God is doing something for you, he’s doing that for someone else. So rather than coveting, you start worshiping and you say, “Thank you, God. That I’m sick, but they’re healthy. That I’m struggling, but they’re growing. That I’m unemployed, but they found a job.” 

 

It’s not always easy to rejoice when God is doing something good in someone elses life instead of yours. I would also venture to say that when you think that God isn’t doing any good in your life, he probably is, but you just can’t see it.