Do not Steal
Exodus 20:15 - "You shall not steal.
Why people steal
We steal because we don’t trust God to provide for us
Ways Christians steal
We steal from God by withholding what is due Him
We steal Glory that is due God
We steal Tithes that are due God
Trusting God to Provide
God honors those who humble themselves
God provides for those who Seek Him
When we seek God, we work hard
When we seek God, we give joyfully
Slide
Intro
Exodus 20:15 reads “You shall not steal.”
This is the 8th commandment that the Lord gave to the Israelites through Moses.
Now most of sitting here this morning know that stealing is wrong.
Even those who are moral relativists, those who think what is wrong for me, may not be wrong for you, would, I believe, have a hard time saying that it is ok to steal if they are the ones from whom something has been stolen.
And if you walk into any society, we will find that people hold to the view that taking something that is someone else’s without permission is wrong.
This is something that kids learn at the earliest stages of life.
So then if it is recognized as wrong by nearly everyone in every society,
Why do people steal?
Slide
Often we think about career criminals. They steal as a way of life. They don’t want to work or and they believe stealing provides an easy way to provide what they want.
What about others who steal, who have money?
But what about those who steal who have the money to purchase what they stole.
I think of the people who may shoplift something from a store.
They often have the money on them to purchase what they were stealing.
Bernie Madoff
Or the people like Bernie Madoff who was the head of a billion dollar ponzi scheme where he took people’s money and lived off of that and used the money from future investors to pay existing investors.
He did this to fund his own lifestyle.
Why do people like this steal?
People steal because they don’t trust God to provide for them
Slide
Now for many people, they don’t trust God to provide for them because they don’t have a relationship with God. So it is somewhat understandable that they don’t trust Him to provide.
Instead, they have bought the lie that if they are going to have what they want, they are going to have to provide it themselves and stealing it will be the fastest way to do it.
If they are going to enjoy life, then I need more money or stuff.
This is why people who have money shoplift. They want to use the money for something else.
This is why Bernie Madoff stole from people. He did it to fund his lavish lifestyle. He thought living that way was the key to happiness and if he had to steal from others to have it, then so be it.
And while for a while sometimes, it can seem to be true, that more stuff and money will bring happiness. But the lie will always come back to bite us, whether in this life or the next.
Now while we can look at people like criminals and shoplifters and the Bernie Madoffs of the world and be angry at them for how they steal, I think sometimes the place for Christians to start in their judgments is by looking in the mirror and removing the plank from our own eye.
“What? I am not a thief. How have I stolen?”
This morning we are not going to focus on the ways people steal that most of us would recognize as wrong anyway.
Instead, I want to talk to the Christian about ways we steal or are tempted to steal.
Ways Christians Steal
Slide
Now, we know that even those who profess to be Christians steal in ways that everyone would admit is wrong. They have stolen from people, from businesses, etc.
However today, we are going to talk about ways we steal from God.
Steal from God?
How can anyone steal from God, the God who knows all, sees all, and is all powerful?
Well, we don’t really sneak up on God and take what is His without Him knowing about it. We steal from God in a very specific way.
Christians Steal from God by withholding what is Due Him
Slide
We withhold things that we should be giving to God and thus we steal from Him things that are rightfully His.
What do we steal from God that is due Him?
Well, to start with
We steal Glory that is due Him
Slide
This is something that results directly form pride.
All of us face the temptation to be prideful at times. And when we do, we want to be honored and exalted and we can easily take the glory that is due to the Lord and keep it for ourselves.
In the last years of Hezekiah, one of the kings Judah, he became prideful and stole glory that rightfully belonged to the Lord.
Some messengers had come from Babylon and listen to what Hezekiah did.
2 Kings 20:13-15
13 Hezekiah received the messengers and showed them all that was in his storehouses-the silver, the gold, the spices and the fine oil-his armory and everything found among his treasures. There was nothing in his palace or in all his kingdom that Hezekiah did not show them.
14 Then Isaiah the prophet went to King Hezekiah and asked, "What did those men say, and where did they come from?"
"From a distant land," Hezekiah replied. "They came from Babylon."
15 The prophet asked, "What did they see in your palace?"
"They saw everything in my palace," Hezekiah said. "There is nothing among my treasures that I did not show them."
Now, we need to realize that it was God who was the provider of all that Hezekiah had, but it was Hezekiah who took credit for all that he had.
Psalm 29:2 - Ascribe to the LORD the glory due his name
In 1 Corinthians 10:31, Paul tells us that as Christians, whatever we do is to be for the glory of the Lord. (1 Cor. 10:31 – So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.)
When
We do something using and ability or talent that we have been given, or
we have something that has been given to us from the gracious hand of the Lord and we receive praise or honor or glory for it without reflecting it back to the Lord as the provider of the talents or gifts to accomplish the feat, or the giver of the gifts that we have, we rob God of the glory rightfully due Him.
Some stealing your thunder at work
Imagine for a moment how you feel when you are at your work place and maybe you made a great sale or closed a big deal, and your boss takes the credit for it to the higher ups without giving you any credit.
Wouldn’t you feel like you were stolen from?
Maybe the Lord has blessed you like Hezekiah.
Are you thinking that all you have is due to your hard work and effort and your own hand? You are stealing God’s glory.
Maybe the Lord has gifted you with talents and abilities.
Do you receive the praise for what you can do as something that is from your own hand or effort? You are stealing God’s glory.
Paul reminds us where everything we have comes from in
1 Corinthians 4:7 - “What do you have that you did not receive? And if you did receive it, why do you boast as though you did not?”
Why do we take pride as if we have achieved something are attained something that when we stop and think about it, is completely a gift from the Lord.
We need to reflect back to God the glory for what He has given us and provided for us.
Well, that is not the only way we steal from God.
We steal Tithes that are due Him
Slide
Malachi 3:8-10
8 "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.
What is a tithe?
There may be some here who have never heard of tithing.
Tithing is the giving of 10% of what you earn. And it is not just 10%. It is the first 10% of what you earn.
I remember when I first heard about tithing. I thought that it was crazy.
“You want me to give 10% of what I make to the Lord?!” 10% of what? Net or Gross? Gross! That really is gross.
I thought to myself, “how am I supposed to provide for myself and my family if I give away that much of my money.” At the time, I was making about $50K a year, so that would amount to about $100 per week.
But did you hear my thinking in that?
“How am I supposed to provide…?”
At the time, I failed to realize that I don’t provide for myself or my family. It is the Lord who provides.
Now there may be some here who argue that tithing is an Old Testament practice.
I would agree, but I think it sets a good principal in percentage giving for Christians under the New Testament.
Paul even affirms that in
1 Corinthians 16:1-2 - Now about the collection for God’s people: Do what I told the Galatian churches to do. 2 On the first day of every week, each one of you should set aside a sum of money in keeping with his income…
We are to give in accordance with how much we make. So often we find in the New Testament an even higher calling than we find in the Old Testament.
For myself, I think the tithe becomes a minimum standard of giving for the Christian, but understand that this is a maturity issue, not a salvation issue. As we grow in the Lord, we realize more and more that we don’t provide for ourselves and that it is not just 10% that is the Lord’s, it is 100% that is His and we are only stewards of His upon the earth.
Our giving is a recognition in real terms of our trust in the Lord.
When we fail to give to the Lord, we steal from Him.
Transition
In the beginning of the message this morning, I said that non-Christians who steal don’t trust God to be the provider for them and that is because they don’t know God and are not in a relationship with Him.
But for the Christian, we do know God and yet we still so often fail to trust the Lord to provide for us.
Slide – Trusting God to Provide
This is because we so often confuse our wants with our needs.
God will provide for our needs, but not always our wants because He does not want us to become dependent on things in this world to provide happiness, He wants us to depend on Him and our relationship with Him to do that.
What is even more ironic for us Christians is that we are often stealing from God to fulfill a desire that God Himself desires to fulfill in our lives anyway.
Honor and Glory
For instance, we steal God’s glory because we want to receive Honor.
It is nice to be honored.
Who doesn’t want to be honored?
In fact, I think God put that desire to honored in us as people who are created in the image of God. So the desire is not wrong.
It is how we go about getting honor.
We try to steal God’s glory to be honored.
We don’t have to do that.
We need to trust God and trust His word in how God will provide for us.
God’s word tells us that
God Honors those who Humble themselves
Slide
James 4:10 - Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up.
Now we do not need to falsely humble ourselves.
What we need is to have a proper view of who we are and who the Lord is.
When we have that correct view, that we can do nothing on our own apart from the Lord’s work and blessing in us and through us, you can do nothing but be humble.
And as we strive to do what the Lord wants us to do, we can trust that we will receive honor that is appropriate to who we are in the Lord, without ever having to pursue being honored.
Pursuing honor and glory yourself will only bring about an appearance of arrogance and ultimately humiliation.
Jesus told this parable about those who pursued their own honor in
Luke 14:7-11
7 When he noticed how the guests picked the places of honor at the table, he told them this parable: 8 "When someone invites you to a wedding feast, do not take the place of honor, for a person more distinguished than you may have been invited. 9 If so, the host who invited both of you will come and say to you, ’Give this man your seat.’ Then, humiliated, you will have to take the least important place. 10 But when you are invited, take the lowest place, so that when your host comes, he will say to you, ’Friend, move up to a better place.’ Then you will be honored in the presence of all your fellow guests. 11 For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted."
God Honors those who humble themselves.
But not only does God honor those who humble themselves and fulfill that desire to be honored, but each of us has a desire to make sure our needs are met. Well, if we don’t provide for ourselves, who will?
God’s word tells us that
God provides for those who Seek Him
Slide
Matthew 6:25-33
25 "Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? 26 Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? 27 Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?
28 "And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. 29 Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. 30 If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? 31 So do not worry, saying, ’What shall we eat?’ or ’What shall we drink?’ or ’What shall we wear?’ 32 For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. 33 But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.
Seek Him and His kingdom and all the things we need, the necessities of life, will be provided.
Now this is difficult.
Because sometimes as we seek Him and His Righteousness and Kingdom, do not always seem like the most rational thing to do.
CME
I remember when I was to leave the CME and pursue full time ministry, I quit my job without having any idea of how God was going to work things out. Now I did have a severance package that covered us for about 9 months, but I made a commitment to God to volunteer fulltime during that 9 months.
Now, I would never counsel anyone to quit their job without having another, but as I was seeking the Lord, I knew this is what He wanted me to do.
And you know what. God provided. We never missed a meal. We always had a roof over our head. Now it got scary at times. I remember when the 9 months was almost up and we did not know what we were going to do. I had committed to the Lord to not only volunteer for those 9 months, but to not even pursue looking for a job, but to devote myself completely to serving Him at our church.
Now understand that this is something that I felt totally led by the Lord to do.
But as we came to the end, the church I was at took me on as paid staff. And here is where things get tricky for us sometimes. We become accustomed to a lifestyle. When I came on staff at that church, I was hired with a salary that was 1/3 of what I made my last full year of work. One third, and yet the Lord provided for us every step of the way.
It helped me to realize more that it is not me who provides for my family. The Lord provides as we follow Him and His lead in our lives.
Transition
Now, there are a couple things to understand about seeking God and His kingdom and His righteousness.
Trusting God does not mean doing nothing.
First, understand that
When we seek Him, we Work hard
Slide
Paul writes in
2 Thessalonians 3:10 - For even when we were with you, we gave you this rule: "If a man will not work, he shall not eat."
Now keeping this in proper perspective. We don’t provide for ourselves. It is the Lord that provides for us. But He provides for us mostly through the work He has designed for us to do, and as we work hard, we glorify Him.
Work is not part of the curse. Work is something that the Lord gave Adam in the garden before they sinned. Work is good. The curse made work burdensome, but work is still something we are called to do.
And we are not just to work and grumble about it being just the way things are.
No. We are to work as if we were working for the Lord.
Colossians 3:23-24
23 Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men, 24 since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving.
So, realize that God provides for us as we seek Him and as we seek Him, we will work hard.
Not only should we work hard as we seek Him, but we should find that
When we seek Him we Give Joyfully
Slide
Listen to what Paul writes to the Corinthians bout the Macedonian churches.
2 Corinthians 8:1-7
And now, brothers, we want you to know about the grace that God has given the Macedonian churches. 2 Out of the most severe trial, their overflowing joy and their extreme poverty welled up in rich generosity. 3 For I testify that they gave as much as they were able, and even beyond their ability. Entirely on their own, 4 they urgently pleaded with us for the privilege of sharing in this service to the saints. 5 And they did not do as we expected, but they gave themselves first to the Lord and then to us in keeping with God’s will.
As they sought the Lord and His will, Paul says that, in the midst of extreme poverty, they gave sacrificially and they gave joyfully, and it says they even gave beyond their ability.
How does that work?
I will tell you how it works.
It works by trusting God for your provision even as you give away resources that could be used to provide for you and your family.
Earlier I read some verses from Malachi, about robbing God because people were withholding their tithe, not giving 10%. I will read those verses again and listen to what God says in the last part of verse 10.
Malachi 3:8-10
"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.
As we grow in our relationship with the Lord, we realize more and more that God is the provider, He is the one who blesses, and that we can never out give the Lord. It allows us to give joyfully and at the same time to experience incredible blessings from the Lord.
Withholding our tithes and offerings because we think we need them to provide for our needs not only robs God, but it robs us of experiencing God’s blessing to the fullness that He desires to give it.
Trust the Lord to provide and give as the Lord has laid on your heart.
Conclusion
Maybe you are here this morning and as we have talked about these things, you have realized that you have been stealing from God.
If you have been stealing God’s glory, I want to challenge you to humble yourself and allow the Lord to lift you up and honor you.
If you have been stealing from God by withholding appropriate giving to the Lord, then I want to challenge you to take steps toward tithing and giving as the Lord lays on your heart. Do what it says in Malachi and test the Lord in this, even during these difficult economic times and see if God doesn’t provide for your every need.
God’s word and His promises are true and can be relied upon.
He is the God that provides for our every need.
He is the God that has provided salvation through the Sacrifice of His only Son.
He is the God that is in complete control and desires us to trust Him in every circumstance of life.
Will you do that? Will you take real steps of faith that say, Lord I trust you and I know it is going to be alright?
I am going to have the worship team come up and we are going to close in a song titled “Salvation is Here”.
Make this your anthem and prayer to God this morning.
I want to read you some of the words.
Salvation is Here
God above all the world in motion
God above all my hopes and fears
I don’t care what the world throws at me now
It’s gonna be alright
Chorus
’Cause I know my God saved the day
And I know His word never fails
And I know my God made a way for me
Salvation is here
The God who has provided salvation through Jesus Christ, is the same God who wants to provide for your every need.
Proclaim your trust in Him this morning.
Let’s sing and worship Him.
