November 2002
Central Christian Church
St Petersburg, Fl
Joe Bedy
Commandment number 8 seems as direct and plain as the first 7. “You shall not steal.” Ex. 20:15
Do not take for yourself anything that belongs to somebody else. I think the question is where do we draw the line? The quarter on the sidewalk, well it is not mine, but it is not anybody else’s either or how about the red corvette idling in front of Blockbuster without anybody in it?
How about these situations and determine for yourself whether they constitute stealing or not.
1. The clerk at McDonald’s gives you too much change and it is not worth your time to return it.
2. You take a pen from work and use it at home.
3. You indicate more for your charitable giving for tax purposes then what you actually contributed.
4. You have an expense account that gives you up to $25 per day for meals, you spend $3 and keep the $22.
5. You read personal emails at work and play internet games while you are on the clock
6. You take longer than your hour lunch break for lunch.
7. You buy the lunch special your wife buys the buffet and you eat food from her plate.
8. You copy a CD or tape of your favorite music
9. I order the all you can eat crab legs and you order a salad, when my crabs’ come we share.
10. You do not give God back the first 10% of all He has given you.
What do you think are you a thief?
I don’t bring these items up to shame anybody or to point the finger. I mention them to you tonight that we might examine ourselves. That we might make the changes we need to make to live more in line with God’s command. I mention it that the world might see us as squeaky clean, avoiding even the appearance of anything evil and being beyond reproach.
We need to know the difference between right and wrong from God’s perspective and not from our own. God is the one who holds the plumb line to examine if we are fair, righteous and just people.
To the restaurant owner when you eat from someone’s plate even one carrot stick without purchasing the buffet you are stealing.
I will tell you one that use to drive me crazy, when I was a property manager, we would have dumpsters on our property and people would fill those with their trash. That is stealing!
Or how about this?
A Sunday school teacher was teaching her class about the difference between right and wrong. "All right children, let’s take another example," she said. "If I were to get into a man’s pocket and take his billfold with all his money, what would I be?" Little Johnny raises his hand, and with a confident smile,
he blurts out, "You’d be his wife!"
I absolutely hate to be stolen from and have been a victim of it several times in my life. Yet, I am able to accept as just another sin of fallen humanity.
It is interesting though the last two times Cathi and I have been robbed our cars have been broken into and they have taken our Bibles. I just hope they read Exodus 20
When we steal we simply do not believe in a God who can be trusted to meet our needs.
“Danny Sampson robbed a bank in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. Danny Sampson used a hand-me-down Colt 45 and robbed a bank and got $6,000. When the Royal Canadian Mounted Police caught him and confiscated the gun, routinely they sent the gun to their laboratory where it was recognized as a collector’s prize. Danny Sampson didn’t have to rob a bank; he had a gun worth $100,000.” --Associated Press. Danny Sampson didn’t know it, but God had already provided for his needs. It was when he tried to take matters into his own hands that Danny got himself in trouble.
This 8th commandment was established by God so we could live in community with one another. God wants to protect the weak and the helpless, he doesn’t want the strong to take advantage of the weaker members in the community. We are not to claim for ourselves that which belongs to someone else.
I was driving across the Winn Dixie parking lot one day with my lovely and righteous wife Cathi when I spotted currency tumbling along as it was being blown by the wind. I maneuvered the Mustang into position so that when I opened the door it miraculously blew right into my left hand. In due diligence I surveyed the scene, but no one was chasing the $20. Pay day money from heaven. Cathi said, “turn it in.” To whom?
It was easy for me to come up with a solid legal argument: “Hey, finders keepers losers weepers.”
That was rejected so I rested my case with, “Possession is 9/10 of the law.”
She shook her head at me and we went grocery shopping.
Too many times, I was at events for Christian kids and items would be stolen. It would totally destroy the witness and benefit of the entire conference when that happened. And yet we need to understand that it is going to happen.
Maybe we should try prayer like Cindy Hartman of Conway, Arkansas. According to an Associated Press account, in September 1994 she walked into her house to answer the phone and was confronted by a burglar. He ripped the phone cord out of the wall and ordered her into a closet. Hartman dropped to her knees and asked the burglar if she could pray for him.
"I want you to know that God loves you and I forgive you,’’ she said. The burglar apologized for what he had done. Then he yelled out the door to a woman in a pickup truck: "We’ve got to unload all of this. This is a Christian home and a Christian family. We can’t do this to them."
As Hartman remained on her knees, the burglar returned furniture he had taken from her home. Then he took the bullets out of his gun, handed the gun to Hartman, and walked out the door. That is one way to disarm our enemies and probably the best way.
The idea not to steal is so that we can live in community. But it is also a Christian principle that we work. I f we do not work we do not eat, but with that being said Acts 2 and 4 leads us to understand we should not be obsessive about our possessions and we should not allow Christians to live without their needs being met. To have much and not give back to the storehouse is no less a sin than stealing to eat.
I love this story:
One winter’s night in 1935, it is told, Fiorello LaGuardia, the irrepressible mayor of New York, showed up at a night court in the poorest ward of the city. He dismissed the judge for the evening and took over the bench. That night a tattered old woman, charged with stealing a loaf of bread, was brought before him. She defended herself by saying, "My daughter’s husband has deserted her. She is sick, and her children are starving."
The shopkeeper refused to drop the charges, saying, "It’s a bad neighborhood, your honor, and she’s got to be punished to teach other people a lesson." LaGuardia sighed. He turned to the old woman and said, "I’ve got to punish you; the law makes no exceptions. Ten dollars or ten days in jail."
However, even while pronouncing sentence, LaGuardia reached into his pocket, took out a ten-dollar bill, and threw it into his hat with these famous words: "Here’s the ten-dollar fine, which I now remit, and furthermore, I’m going to fine everyone in the courtroom fifty cents for living in a town where a person has to steal bread so that her grandchildren can eat. Mr. Bailiff, collect the fines and give them to the defendant."
The following day, a New York newspaper reported: "Forty-seven dollars and fifty cents was turned over to a bewildered old grandmother who had stolen a loaf of bread to feed her starving grandchildren. Making forced donations were a red-faced storekeeper, seventy petty criminals, and a few New York policemen."
-- Jim Danielson, Kingsford, Missouri. Leadership, Vol. 11, no. 2.
We as the church need to make sure that we are contributing to the church so the needs of the church can be met when necessary. No Christian in God’s design of the church should ever go without food, clothing and shelter.
Since I have been at CCC I have seen us meet the needs of families of this church with food, shelter and clothing-but, we could do so much more if the storehouse were full. Our food pantry continues to provide food for people who walk through these doors.
God is concerned that we as Christians deal with fair weights, scales balances and measures. What that means is we must pay meticulous attention to being fair, righteous and just people in every aspect of our lives.
Do we really give to the church what we say we give? Is 10% really match the income shown on our tax return for charitable contributions? According to George Barna and his research for the most part it doesn’t.
This is not a sermon about tithing it is a sermon about stealing and yet God says, “we rob Him, we rob in tithes and offerings, we rob Him of our time.” He says, test me give me what is fair and watch me work in your life. Mal 3:10 Bring the full tithe into the storehouse, so that there may be food in my house, and thus put me to the test, says the LORD of hosts; see if I will not open the windows of heaven for you and pour down for you an overflowing blessing.
I tell you He will bless us if we are honest and do not steal.
When Cathi wanted to surprise me with the 1997 Mustang 2 years ago our friend Mark Pippin called her and said I found the car for Joe. Cathi asked Julie to call Mr. McNeil (a wholesale car dealer) and ask him how much he wanted for it and he quoted her a price. Cathi said, “I will take it.” When she got to his office he said, “I really under priced the car.”
Cathi said to him, ”my husband and I are Christians- How much then do you want for the car?”
He paused and said well I guess a deal is a deal so pay me what I quoted you.
If we worship on Sunday and are dishonest the rest of the week in our business dealings we really have no religion, we have taken the Lord’s name in vain.
This commandment reminds us that there is a vital connection between our faith and our ethics, between whose we say we are and how we live, while we wait for Him to provide. If we don’t have it, He doesn’t believe we need it!
Remember, whatsoever you do… do it all to the glory of God.
Work’s cited
Talton, Chris online sermoncentral.com “Stop Thief”
Stroman, John A. “The Obsession of Possession”
