Exodus 20:15
There were two pastors, one Baptist and the other Presbyterian. They each preached at two churches on Sunday mornings and would go from one church to the other on bicycles and if they both finished their services on time, they would pass each other close to a bridge over a stream.
One morning the Baptist came to the bridge, crossed over it, kept on going and finally he saw the Presbyterian pastor walking. He asked him, “What happened to your bicycle?” The Presbyterian answered, “Somebody stole my bicycle; I think it was somebody in my congregation, but I don’t know what to do about it.”
The Baptist preacher thought for a minute and then suggested, “Next week, when you preach, preach on the ten commandments and when whoever it was that took your bicycle hears ‘You shall not steal,’ guilt will strike and you’ll get back your bike.”
The next week when the Baptist pastor came to the bridge, there was the Presbyterian riding his bike. “I guess the sermon worked. Did you preach on the ten commandments as I suggested?”
“I did,” said the Presbyterian, “and when I got to the seventh commandment, ‘You shall not commit adultery,’ I remembered where I had left my bicycle.”
Being ordained in the Presbyterian Church, I thought it wise to make my denomination the butt of this joke.
Today in our series on the ten commandments, we come to the eighth, You shall not steal. I trust that God will convict us of any way in which we are not living lives pleasing to him.
So you know where I am going in this sermon, I will talk first about the commandment as it is presented, You shall not steal. Then after a little discussion of Biblical stewardship, I will move to the positive side of this commandment, You shall give.
On the face of it, this commandment seems pretty simple. Don’t steal; don’t take something that does not belong to you.
When this commandment was given, there was not a lot that could be stolen. Archeology shows that families had very few possessions. Just some pots, a few tools, some weapons, livestock, grain and some gold and silver for the more fortunate.
Compare that with the modern Western world where families have cars and TVs and computers and music systems and musical instruments and on and on and it seems that this commandment has a lot more to do with life today than it did at the time it was given.
So to the Israelites who first heard it, it meant that you should not steal someone’s pot or tool or sheep or cow and the law expanded on this in Exodus 22:1-4
“If a man steals an ox or a sheep and slaughters it or sells it, he must pay back five head of cattle for the ox and four sheep for the sheep.
2 “If a thief is caught breaking in and is struck so that he dies, the defender is not guilty of bloodshed; 3 but if it happens after sunrise, he is guilty of bloodshed.
“A thief must certainly make restitution, but if he has nothing, he must be sold to pay for his theft.
4 “If the stolen animal is found alive in his possession—whether ox or donkey or sheep—he must pay back double.
But this commandment had a much broader scope than merely taking a possession that belonged to someone else.
One of the understandings of this commandment when it was given was that you should not kidnap, as was done by the brothers of Joseph when they sold him into slavery in Egypt. This was a story 400 years old but fresh on the minds of Israel since it explained how they had come to live in Egypt.
It also included cheating or deceiving someone to get what you wanted. The Biblical story that illustrated this was also well known to the Israelites. Jacob, the father of Joseph, took advantage of his brother Esau’s hunger and sold him a bowl of stew for his birthright. And then, with his mother’s help, he deceived his father, Isaac, and pretending to be Esau, he stole the blessing that was to be given to his brother.
Jacob may have argued that Esau sold him his birthright for a bowl of stew and that it was a fair and legal exchange, but when you take advantage of someone to get what you want, it is still stealing.
So let me make some applications for this part of the sermon.
It is stealing when you rob a bank or store or home or someone on the street. This is pretty obvious. Shoplifting is stealing.
It is stealing when you bribe a judge to get a judgement against someone to have the decision go in your favor. In this case, both the one who paid the bribe and the judge who accepted the bribe have stolen.
It is stealing when you find a wallet on the street and do not give it back to the owner.
It is stealing when you work for a company and take company property and use it for your personal use. It is stealing when you use the company phone to make personal phone calls. It is stealing when you take company work time to play on the internet or take a sick day when you are not sick.
I had a company and did not mind when people used a pen and took it home with them. I did not mind when someone made a phone call for personal business. It is a mistake for a company to be so petty that they pay rigorous attention to such small details. But there is a line that is crossed and when that line is crossed, it is stealing.
It is stealing when you fill in an insurance form and claim money for something that was not damaged or lost. It is stealing when you pay taxes to the government and do not pay what you are supposed to pay.
It is stealing when you borrow a book from a friend and then never get around to returning it.
It is stealing when you sell someone something and do not tell them the problems with what you are selling them. If you sell someone a car and do not tell them it had been in an accident or that the car does not start up easily in the mornings, you are stealing from them.
If you buy something from someone and know that it is worth a lot of money but they are selling it very cheaply, you are stealing from them. You are taking advantage of their ignorance to make money for yourself. If you buy a painting from an elderly lady who is selling family possessions because she needs the money and she doesn’t know it is a masterpiece, you steal from her if you do not tell her what her painting is worth.
You steal when you tell someone you will do a job for them and then do not deliver what you promised. You may build a building but cheat on the amount or quality of cement used, or the amount of steel used so that when there is an earthquake, the building crumbles because it was not built to code. You steal when you tell someone you will fix their roof and then use cheap materials so the roof lasts only a year or two.
The financial scandals in the US with companies like Enron and Tyco that lied about their financial situation were massive acts of stealing from thousands who had invested in those companies.
Last week after our service, there was a man who said he was from Niger talking with a visitor to our church. He told the visitor that his electricity had been cut off because his landlord had not paid the bill and that his wife and children were suffering. The visitor was very sympathetic and as I drove away, I saw the two of them walking down the street.
I discovered later that the man was not from Niger but from Nigeria. He was an Ibu, not a native French speaker, not a Muslim as would be the case if he was from Niger and he was lying to the visitor so he could get some money for whatever he had in mind.
He was stealing from this visitor to our church.
There is a popular teaching in churches in Nigeria and perhaps other countries, I do not know. But the teaching in these churches is that it is OK to deceive someone to get to where you believe God has called you to go. The Biblical basis for this teaching is the exodus of Israel from Egypt when people gave their gold and silver to the Israelites. This is terrible teaching, not at all Biblical, not at all what happened in Egypt.
So let me take a moment to tell any of you who have come to church this morning to find someone from whom you can get some money that this is inappropriate behavior for you. Even if you tell the truth, our Sunday morning service is not the time or place for you to come and find someone who will give you money.
We come to church to worship God, not to make money. In the US there are people, like insurance salesmen, who will go to church because that is a good place to build relationships so that they will then buy insurance policies. It doesn’t matter if you are asking for money or selling something, Sunday morning worship is not the place to do it.
The UN has a program here at the church on Tuesdays when you can come and make application for financial assistance. RPF has forms to be filled out if you need help and you can fill those out and give them to me. But do not take advantage of people who have come to church. And most certainly do not lie and deceive to get what you want. When you lie and deceive, you cheat and steal and take what is not yours.
I talked last week about the seventh commandment, You shall not commit adultery. When you have sex with a married person who is not your spouse, you are stealing what does not belong to you. A wife and husband belong to each other and to commit adultery is to steal from the wife or husband. When you have sex with someone to whom you are not married, you are stealing from that person what is meant to be given to the person they will marry. You are stealing yourself from your future spouse.
You shall not steal. Now let’s move to a Biblical understanding of stewardship.
Imagine a world where we did not possess anything, a world where we had no possessions. I might be driving a car but when you tell me you need a car to get something we decide together who has the greatest need and if you have the greater need, you take the car and I can walk to where I was going. If you need money and I have some you take what you need and have the right to do so because no one owns anything. Actually, in such a world, there would be no need for money. We would simply walk into a store and take what it was we needed. If the car needed gas, we would drive up to the gas pump, fill the gas tank and drive away without paying anything. Stealing would not be an issue because there would be nothing to steal.
This is, of course, absurd and impossible. Society cannot function without people owning things. It costs money to get oil from the earth, refine it, ship it so I can fill up my car at the gas station. The gas station buys the gas and sells it to me. Possessing is necessary.
This inevitably means that some people will possess more than others. And given our human nature, those with less will want what those with more have. (This is a prelude to the tenth commandment, You shall not covet, which is closely linked to this eighth commandment.) So because people covet, they steal to get what they want from those who have what it is they want.
We live in a material world and possess material things.
It is commonly understood that in the Old Testament a God-fearing person owned 90% of his possessions and gave to God the other 10%. In fact, the way the tithe worked, a God-fearing person gave a 10% tithe to the Levites, the priests, a second 10% tithe was used to celebrate at the festivals and every three years a 10% tithe was given to help the poor and the widows. So a God-fearing Israelite knew that 76.7% of what he had belonged to himself and the other 23.3% belonged to God. He could do whatever he wanted with his 76.7%.
In the New Testament we have a new and more complete understanding of stewardship and it is far more challenging. There is no 10%, no 23.3%. The New Testament understanding is that 100% of what we have belongs to God. It is as simple as that. Paul wrote to the church in Rome and told them:
Rom. 12:1-2
Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship. 2 Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.
And Paul wrote to the church in Corinth to remind them
I Corinthians 6:19-20
Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; 20 you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body.
The New Testament is clear that Christians belong to God. We do not own ourselves. We have been bought with a price, the blood of Jesus poured out for us as the price of our redemption.
Because of this, everything we are and everything we have belongs to God.
It is no longer a question of giving to God the 23.3% so I can have the 76.7%. All that I am and all that I have belongs to God. The question then is, how am I to manage what I have been given?
A steward in the Bible was one who managed the possessions of his master and we are to be stewards of what God has given us. We do not own what we have, we only manage our material goods. We are stewards of our master’s possessions and one day we will come under the judgement of God for whether or not we were good stewards of what he gave us.
This is what Jesus taught in the parable of the talents. (Luke 19:11-27) A man of noble birth went to a distant country and before leaving, gave each of his ten servants ten minas, a measure of money.
‘Put this money to work,’ he said, ‘until I come back.’
When he returned, he called each of his servants for them to give account of what they had done with the money.
The first one came and said, ‘Sir, your mina has earned ten more.’
17 ”‘Well done, my good servant!’ his master replied. ‘Because you have been trustworthy in a very small matter, take charge of ten cities.’
18 “The second came and said, ‘Sir, your mina has earned five more.’
19 “His master answered, ‘You take charge of five cities.’
20 “Then another servant came and said, ‘Sir, here is your mina; I have kept it laid away in a piece of cloth. 21 I was afraid of you, because you are a hard man. You take out what you did not put in and reap what you did not sow.’
22 “His master replied, ‘I will judge you by your own words, you wicked servant! You knew, did you, that I am a hard man, taking out what I did not put in, and reaping what I did not sow? 23 Why then didn’t you put my money on deposit, so that when I came back, I could have collected it with interest?’
24 “Then he said to those standing by, ‘Take his mina away from him and give it to the one who has ten minas.’
God has given each of us talents, abilities, money, possessions, time and we will one day be held accountable by God for how we made use of what we were given. Some of us have been given more than others, but we will all be held accountable for how we used what we were given. Some of us have more money, some more intelligence, some more ability but all of us will be held accountable for how we used what we were given.
With this understanding, we can move to the positive side of the eighth commandment, You shall give.
As a steward of what God has given to you, you are responsible to use what you have in the way God wants you to do. This is very difficult and very complicated.
It is clear that not giving to anyone and keeping all your resources for yourself is not being a good steward. But what about the opposite? The easiest thing to do would be to give to anyone who had need until all your resources were used up. But that is also not being a good steward. A good steward makes decisions about how the master’s resources should be used based on the desires of the master. Decisions are required, not blind giving. Sometimes when someone says they have a need, you help and sometimes you do not.
If you have money, it is easy to say “yes” when someone asks for money. In fact people with money to give are tempted to play God in the lives of people by always helping them out when they have a problem. But what if God’s purpose is for that person to struggle longer without the money needed? What if God intends for them to be blessed by some other person? What if God is trying to direct that person to turn away from one course and set off on another course? If you give when asked it may be you will encourage that person to continue on a course God does not intend for that person to take.
If you give when God does not intend for you to give, you may deny the person asking for money the chance to grow in faith.
It is very difficult to be a good steward of the resources at your disposal which is something Aristotle realized when he wrote this:
To give away money is an easy matter
and in man’s power.
But to decide to whom to give it,
And how large and when,
And for what purpose and how,
Is neither in every man’s power,
Nor an easy matter.
Hence it is that such excellence is
rare, praiseworthy and noble.
To give blindly to everyone who asks for help is not wise and not helpful. On the other side of the coin (to use an unintentional pun), is the problem of not giving when we ought to give.
When we do not give in the way God wants us to give, we are stealing from God and stealing from the person needing help. If it is God’s desire that I give money to someone and I resist, keeping the money for myself, I have stolen that money.
The prophet Malachi spoke God’s word to Israel about their giving.
Malachi 3
“Will a man rob God? Yet you rob me.
“But you ask, ‘How do we rob you?’
“In tithes and offerings. 9 You are under a curse—the whole nation of you—because you are robbing me. 10 Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this,” says the LORD Almighty, “and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have room enough for it.
Examine your giving. Are you robbing God by not giving to him as he wants you to do?
When I preached on the fourth commandment about honoring the Sabbath, one of the things I mentioned is that in order to rest on the Sabbath, it is necessary to work on the other six days of the week.
Work is also a necessary part of this commandment. Hear this that Paul wrote to the Ephesians 4:28
He who has been stealing must steal no longer, but must work, doing something useful with his own hands, that he may have something to share with those in need.
In order to give, you need to work so you have something to give. Don’t steal. Work so you can give.
Let me conclude with a couple suggestions. Find someplace to relax, get out a pen and paper and write down all the things you can think of that you have stolen. Then resolve that in the next thirty days you will work to return all that you have stolen. You can do this anonymously if you prefer. You can give me something to give to someone else and I will be happy to help you. It may be you cannot return something you have taken but pray and see if God brings to mind someway you can make a repayment.
Then pick up the pen and paper and write down a list of the people you believe God wants you to help and act on that. It can be money, time or abilities that you give. But pray and see who God brings to your mind that you can help.
Don’t steal; Do give.
