Would you take your Bibles, please? Turn to the Ten Commandments in Deuteronomy chapter 5, as we turn tonight to command the number 8. And talk about the benevolent God. We live, I probably should say, as the understatement of the century perhaps. We live in a society that is rife with cheating. And I don't mean by that infidelity. We talked about that a couple of weeks ago. But I mean a society that believes in dishonest game. Back in April this year, ABC primetime news is special called Cheating the Crisis of American Schools. And they reported from the Josephson Institute of Ethics in Los Angeles, California that 74% of all 12,000 high school students surveyed across the country admitted to regularly cheating or to cheating within the last six months prior to the survey. A smaller poll conducted by ABC itself for high school students between ages 15 and 17 found that 36% admitted to cheating and 70% said their friends regularly cheated. I hope you find that a little bit comical. That may be the only comical thing in this sermon tonight. 36% said yes, I cheat regularly, but 70% by friends do. Now I never was real good at math, but those numbers don't add up. Unless every American has, as his two friends, 100% cheaters. So they're cheating and lying about cheating and lying. In fact, cheating has become a big internet business. There are websites known as Papers for Less, CheatingHouse.com and SchoolSucks.com, where people can go and get all sorts of papers, term papers, grades, and the cheat sheets and find out the latest technology for cheating. They can be instructed on how to link into further insurorority computer files of test papers that have been gathered for almost 40 years, or they can be taught how to take a graphing calculator that mathematics teachers allow you to take into a test, and you can download onto the graphing computer information that you need for another class. An IPAC, a handheld computer with downloads is also available. There are wireless internet and many computers that you can seal. There's advice on how to cut open a book and place within it your cell phone that can then be accessed to your friends in another room through texting or through internet access in order to find the right answers on the exam. One website called TurnItN.com is a tech service for teachers that enables them to monitor term papers that students write against term papers that are on these websites or have been published on the internet, and their findings are that 30% of all term papers submitted included significant levels of plagiarism. A plagiarism, as you know, is stealing the ideas and words and the research of someone else without giving them credit. Elizabeth Ryder wrote for USA Today that plagiarism epidemic is shutting down schools overseas. Centenary college, a small private school in New Jersey, runs an MBA program in Asia for Chinese and Taiwanese students. And they recently had to shut down their program that has over 400 students because plagiarism was so blatant. The thing that's interesting is that most universities in the United States who run these programs overseas, even though they know that plagiarism is going on, will not shut the programs down because they are cash cows, they are profitable programs. And that should not surprise us because 50% of all teachers when surveyed indicated that yes, they knew cheating was happening in their courses and in their examinations, but they choose to do nothing about it. And then the students cheat on homework weekly by their own admission. And they have gone to such measures as stealing keys or forcibly entering into teachers office or in some instances of drugging high school teachers and while they were unconscious, getting into their files to get test scores. There are three national cases of fraudsters, one up in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, prestigious preparatory schools that have been rocked by the scandals of plagiarism. Donald McCabe, the founding president of the Center for Academic Integrity at Clemson University, has surveyed 24,000 students in 70 public and private schools and parochial schools throughout the United States and found that 64% of all students engage in one of three of those serious cheating behaviors, copying from another student's work during a test, taking cheating notes into a test or helping someone else cheat through the internet. And parents are often complicit in this behavior. In fact, one in four student surveyed sets that on a regular basis, their parents do their homework for them. And when parents were asked why they did not encourage their students to step forward and admit that they were cheating, they said it would be because it would be ruined their college chances. However, we have to admit that the reason students cheaters was they watched mom and dad. For example, at least one out of five Americans admits to cheating on his internal revenue return every year. The IRS says that 17% of taxpayers do not fully comply with the most simple of tax legislation on a regular basis. And if people were to cheat, we would add people who cheat by not filing, then that cheating statistic could go up to one in four. In fact, the Internal Revenue Service says that cheating by self-employed people approaches 100%. The Rocky Mountain News reports back in this February of this year right in the midst of tax season that 90% of the people in Colorado believe that cheating on taxes is wrong, but 25% said that they regularly did so. And if we looked into sports, into all the use of steroids, and the fixing of ball games by referees, pain but of coaches, gambling in an illegal way and other things like that, we would find that Americans are just as ingenious at cheating at sports as they are, cheating in the government or cheating in school. In fact, NASCAR has now beginning to test gasoline fluids for automobiles before a race just as athletes are tested for steroids before a sporting event. Because in the last year, they found that several race car drivers were using jet fuel in their modified engines to cheat nuts. You better hope you get some good brakes when you throw that thing in the 200 miles an hour on curve and using jet fuel. And it even goes to the point it's sad, but at the same time, folks, if you don't laugh at this stuff, you die of misery, that horse racers are now injecting into their race horses, poisonous venom from a cobra because it stimulates the heart and enlarges the blood vessels and it makes the horses joints in pervious to pain. When asked, well, what happens if you run the horse to death and race, these owners of these multi-million dollars investment in these horses that cost sometimes as much as half a million dollars said, well, they're just an expendable item for victory. In the midst of all of this wickedness, there are some bright spots. I got to put this in because if I don't say this, this one will be so depressing that you won't ever come back and you'll hate me forever. But there are some people who don't believe in cheating. One little girl named Hayley Millborn was on the woman's golf team at her high school, the Roland Park County High School in Roland Park, Maryland. In the spring of 2007, she came in first place and won the golf tournament in the Interest Galactic Athletic Association of Maryland. She had already run the previous two years, claimed first prize in the tournament and this was her third victory, but as she was beginning to fell out her scorecard and put her equipment away, she realized that inadvertently on the 18th hole, she had actually picked up another person's ball and brought it to completion. She actually finished with someone's t-shirt that was far the way from the green that she was and she still was under par and won the tournament. All she had to do was assign her scorecard, put her ball back into the bag and no one including the coach or the players, her partners, the scorepeaker or the tournament officials would have known what she did. But she turned herself in. Upon investigation, they removed her trophy fummer and disqualified her from either placing. She said, I just couldn't accept a trophy for something I didn't deserve. I would not have been able to sleep at nights. I can't comprehend the type or person who would do that. Let me tell you the end of the story about young Haley Milborn. She did get the scholarship that she was afraid she was going to lose to Amherst College. She has led her team to three championships. She was the freshman of the year and her division in her freshman year and has been three time all-american, elected to the first team of ladies golf. For three straight years, they projected by the time she finishes, she will be one of the most decorated golfers in college NCAA history for women. All because the Lord honored her skills and her honesty. It's an important thing folks to be honest about things. And it's an important thing not to steal. And that's what this cheating really is. That's kind of a euphemism for theft. For when we cheat, God or someone else, we steal. We take something that he intends for someone else, whether it's a golf championship or money for the government or perhaps a grade that would put you at the top of your class. And that is intended for someone else, cheating robs someone of their blessing from God. This commandment number eight simply says, you shall not steal. It's a commandment that reflects again the nature of God, the work of Christ, and has certain instructions for our lives. At first of all, it reflects the benevolent character of God. The God is good. And in his goodness, he gives to us out of his moral perfections, all that he thinks is right and good for us. The goodness of God is defined in a lot of ways in the Scripture. And one of those ways is that God provides for us all that we need for life and for eternity. And it is part of his moral perfection that his benevolence is celebrated by his grace, his charity, and his good nature towards all of his creation. The psalmist says, as we sang this morning, the Lord is good to all and his mercy is over all his works. The Lord is patient in loving kind. The Lord is gracious. The eyes of all look to him and he opens his hand and gives him their food and do season. You open your hand and you satisfy the desires of every living creature. The Lord is righteous in all of his ways and kind in all of his deeds. God exercises his benevolence towards us in two things, in two ways. In his providence, what he provides and governs and bally guards us and in his common grace, which is the measure of his providence towards all creatures. That's why Jesus Christ would say in the servant on the Mount as we looked at a couple of weeks ago, that the Lord causes the rain to fall on the righteous and the evil as well as to cause the sun to shine on the just and on the wicked. Paul, when he was preaching to the men and women at Mars, he'll talk about how God existed in such a way that he needed nothing but gives all things to all men. So the whole recognition of the goodness of God kind of revolves around the idea that God is gracious, that God is always giving to the creation that never taking. Now you think about that for a minute. It's a remarkable statement that theologians and Bible scholars make, but it's true. God is always giving to people that never taking. I can't think of anything that God takes. Now he will receive things from us, things that are his right and privileged to have, whether it's our worship or his glory or certain things like the preserving of his time on the Lord's day. But you can't really say that God is taking those things. They are rightfully his. God is the giver of all good gifts. James says in chapter 1, and that there is no variation or shifting of shadow in his goodness and his benevolence and his fond disposition towards all of his creatures. In fact, I imagine if we were to study the attributes of God, it would be his goodness that would be the most sterling of his attributes. And at the very heart of this is the goodness of God that is always doing something for someone else and never taking from his creatures. Those of you who might have had the opportunity to watch the HBO series a couple years ago called Band of Brothers, about a real military division. A paratrooper division in World War II will remember that the leading star of that show was a lieutenant. And one of the things that he would teach his officers is that a good officer never takes from his troops but is always giving to them. If you remember in the series he found one of his companion officers gambling with some of the men. They were pitching pennies against the wall and he rebuked this young lieutenant. And he said, you know, never let me see you taking from your men again. You are an officer of the United States Army and it is your job to provide for your soldiers, not for them to provide for you. And that is the mark of good leadership and that is the leadership of God. His benevolent character is always giving but never taking. And we see that reflected in the finished work of Jesus Christ. We've said that every one of these ten commandments says something first of all about the character of God, God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit, but also it points to the finished work of Jesus Christ. Jesus himself made it clear that he had come in order to give riches of God and his good graces to people and not to take anything from us. He said the thief comes only to steal, to kill and destroy but I came that they might have life and have it abundantly. Jesus says, if I was a thief, I'd be looking out for my own good. I'd be taking from you but I have come to give you abundant life, life with the Father and with the Son. So it is significant that as we read the historical records of Matthew and Mark and Luke and John, we never find Jesus receiving anything from people except perhaps on one occasion a request for a drink of water. And on another occasion a request for someplace to stay for the evening. Jesus Christ went about doing good, the Apostle Peter said, God anointed this Jesus of nation with the Holy Spirit and he went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil because God was with him. Jesus healed and he fed and he raised from the dead and cleansed and cured and cared for people. He never purchased property, never owned a home, never had any personal possessions. In fact, the only thing he had was literally the clothes on his back which they gambled for once he was crucified. He was constantly giving them a self with no record of asking for something. In fact, what Jesus Christ favored questions seemed to be is what do you want me to do for you? Isn't it ironic then that when Jesus Christ was crucified, Mark tells us, he was crucified between two thieves. I find that not only divine irony but a divine purpose. Theologians for centuries have argued over what was the essence of Adam and Eve's first sin. St. Augustine said it was pride. That's probably true. Martin Luther said, no, it was unbelief. That is also true. They doubted the word of God. John Calvin said it was in gratitude and indeed it was. In fact, it was all three of those things. And John, when he gets to his first letter, first John says that it's the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the pride of life that causes all of our sins. But what was the first sin? What did Eve do? She was guilty of stealing. Calvin said that God had an effect said to her that she might eat from any tree except for the one that belonged to him. And so she took God's fruit and consumed it for herself. And since that time, Jesus Christ has been on a great mission as Don sang just a few minutes ago. All that has been taken will someday be restored for the glory of the Lord. I need to say to you that the man you're listening to and those that I'm looking at have in our spiritual DNA the character of a thief. For we want to rob God of everything from the Lord's day to our ties and offerings and everything in between. And we act as if this world is ours, free to do with whatever we want to and really this world is God. The earth is the world is the Lord. All that it contains the earth and all who dwell therein. And so Jesus Christ has been on a divine mission to reverse the effects of Eve's sin of theft. He is conquering theft with generosity. He is conquering greed and accumulation with sacrifice and the power of stealing with this thing called grace. Jesus gave himself for us to break this addiction that we all have for taking what God has intended for another. The essence of theft is to sin against the providence of God. That God has in his good pleasure and it is inscrutable wisdom determined exactly for each living person exactly what they need and given to them a lot of what they want. And he has this plan so that if we were leave him to his providence and not in a fear there would be enough good gifts and graces to go around to everyone and no one would lack. No one would be poor. No one would be oppressed or taken advantage of. The sin is the sin against God's providence. It says in effect I do not trust God to provide for me all that I need or to give me the majority of the things that I want. And so I will take providence into my own hands and I will take from another even God and use it for myself. Jesus Christ through His great grace and His divine work of the Holy Spirit in our hearts is teaching us know we can trust the providence of God that the Lord is good to all and His mercy is over all of His works. Now as in all of these commandments they are so expansive it's amazing how in such a short statement as and you shall not steal so many different things are covered. John Calvin said the purpose of this commandment is this since injustice is the abomination to God. We should render to each man what belongs to him. In summary we are forbidden to pant after the possessions of others and consequently are commanded to strive faithfully to help every man to keep his own possessions. We must consider that what every man possesses has not come to him by mere chance but by the distribution of the supreme Lord of all. For this reason we cannot by evil devices to bribe anyone of His possessions without fraudulently setting aside God's providence. Let us remember that all those arts whereby we acquire the possessions and the money of our neighbors when such devices depart from sincere affection to a desire to cheat or in some manner to harm. These are to be considered thefts and direct and vile actions against God's great grace. What are forbidden by these commandments where you know what's forbidden and of kind of cheating or thief or chicanery or manipulation. And what is commanded is that we not only be content with what we have and trust in the providence of God but that we are also willing by God's good design and by our outward means and outward the states ourselves as our catechism says to protect the property and the riches of other men who are under God's same providence. If we were to discuss all the things that this commandment covers we'd be here till next year. But let me just mention briefly, ten things. You say briefly, well briefly, my voice won't hold out but briefly tonight. Let me mention ten things that are common in our culture and that we are beginning as Christians even to accept into our ethic as legitimate when in fact there are nothing short of stealing. And the first one is gambling. Gambling is a form of theft because it is dishonest gain of money depending upon luck and not depending upon God's providence. The old Greek philosopher Aristotle lumped thieves and gamblers together in the same lot. In fact our southern Baptist brothers in their convention a few years ago talked about gambling and they said while the Bible contains no thou shalt not in regard to gambling it does contain many insights and principles which indicate that gambling is wrong. The Bible emphasizes the sovereignty of God in the direction of human events but gambling looks to chance and good luck. The Bible indicates that man is to work creatively and uses possessions for the good of others but gambling fosters a something for nothing mentality. The Bible calls for careful stewardship gambling calls for reckless abandon. The Bible condemns covetousness and materialism gambling has both at its heart. The moral thrust of the Bible is love for God and neighbor gambling seeks personal gain and pleasure and another person's loss and pain. Gambling is dishonest. I don't know if I'm talking about the local poll of who's going to win the football game this weekend but the likes of gambling casinos and professional gaming and even the lottery tickets we buy. These things are presuming upon the providence of God and they're all dishonest. The state never gives to all of the educational projects and to the community needs and to the poor the things they say that this income from gambling is going to warrant. The odds are terribly unfair and unjust. The poor are the most exploited by the gambling industry. Taxes on weddings are exorbitant and the criminal element gets rich off the majority's losses. Gambling is a sin against the providence of God. Secondly, we struggle with cheating in school to sin that harms many people. We've mentioned some of the shocking statistics but you know not only does it cheat other students since most grading is on a curve but it also lies to the teacher. It gains both grades and diplomas fraudulately. It discredits your school, dishonors your parents, yourself and your God. John Gersner for years an educator at the Pittsburgh Theological Seminary said to students, a special word to a student for whom I have a particular concern. If you are tempted to cheat it is for some presumed advantage that you hope to secure thereby. Granted you may achieve that supposed advantage. You may pass the course that you would have flunked. You may receive a stolen diploma. You may then get a job on false pretense of knowing some things which in fact you don't know. Is this really an advantage? What will the profit you if you gain a world of diplomas while forfeiting your own soul, disturbing your own conscience and making your own God, the victim of your thievery? Thirdly, frivolous solstice or a most pernicious form of theft. It is stealing from others under the guise of law. I don't need to remind you that everything that is legal in America is not necessarily ethical. And even though the government may permit you to do certain things, it still can be theft in the eyes of God. And a frivolous lawsuit is getting rich at the expense of someone else's misfortune or mistake. And it usually comes about through forms of manipulation, manipulating the jury and the judge, getting the sympathy of people to overlook the facts of the case and strike out usually at a richer person or some corporation so that people in the jury openly and forthrightly say, well, let's overlook justice and give sympathy to this aggrieved person because after all, the rich and the large corporation can afford to pay. Frivolous lawsuits are nothing short of stealing and they are condemned in 1 Corinthians 6. Fortly, running up death that you cannot pay off is the sin of stealing especially if it leads to bankruptcies. I don't have to use any evidence but the present economy. And brethren, I must say, although this will probably get me in trouble, that I don't think we can blame all of this crisis that we have on the banks alone. We should know better when we decide to buy something we can't afford, hoping somehow that in the future our wages will rise and inflation will take care of that so that we're able to live beyond our means. That, in effect, is a form of grand gambling. We're presuming upon the luck of the future and God's providence that we can live beyond our means. And even though the bank is willing to loan you money for a house you cannot afford, that is no excuse for you buying that home. Bankruptcies are nothing more in most occasions than someone's irresponsibility in the management of their own money so that they took things and used things that they didn't pay for and stuck someone else down the line with the bill. Fifthly, cheating on taxes is never warranted and is always an unadulterated theft. And I know that there are people who say things like this to me. Pastor, if this administration takes my tax money and funds abortions, I will not pay my taxes. Let me say this lovingly, yes you will. Romans 13 says that you were to pay taxes to whom taxes are due and tolls and charges to whom those things are due. Let me remind you, we are responsible in Romans 13 for conscience sake before God, Paul says. We are responsible individuals to pay our taxes to the state, that is what we will answer for. It is the state who is responsible to God for what it does with our taxes. You may want to say, well I'm not going to contribute to evil, but that begs the question of God's providence. What if you giving to something that you thought was good through your taxes was considered evil by someone else? There are people in America who think it is evil for people who give to church to get a tax deduction. In fact, there's a great fight going on in all Congress right now about that and certain people who are not church people, who are not Christians and perhaps they're thinking, says that that gives an unfair advantage to Christians, the majority of whom are middle class people. And if they took those ties that they gave to the Lord and their church and gave it to the government, the government could do more for people than the church does. So there are people who think that tithing to a church, giving to missionaries, supporting something over in another country is evil. What if all of us didn't give to the government because we thought the things were evil and our key would reign? You are not responsible for what the government does with your money except that the voting booth. You are responsible for giving your money to this servant of God, Roman says, who has instituted for right. And if God decides to remove the government and place a more responsible one in its place, then that is his providential prerogative. Sixthly, unjust pricing in businesses is also a very subtle form of theft. We call it charging what the market will bear. And one author after another, one businessman after another, one professor at a university after another said this is nothing more than the outworking of Adam Smith's principle of the invisible hand. When I studied economics as a freshman at Ohio State University, I found out something surprising. I had always thought that Adam Smith's invisible hand was the hand of providence. It was not. Adam Smith's invisible hand was the greed in the human heart. And he said, if everyone just give way to their greed and their materialism, it would provide for a robust, although competitive economy. And therefore people could and would charge what the market will bear. You know, that's not what the Bible says, that the workmen's worthy of his hire, that a price should be worthy of its value and commensurate with its service. You may be able to get more through supply and demand. But that is a law of a fallen world, a world pitted against providence. It's not the understanding of God that a just weight and measure is the mark of an honest businessman. Also, seventhly, if we are lazy, if we fudge on our expense accounts, if we falsify time clocks, if we lodge fraudulent grievances against these major corporations, we are stealing. I ask you a question, loved ones, where in the Bible does it say that the corporation is not an individual in the eyes of God? Is it interesting that we Americans want corporations like Enron or BP Oil or some of these Wall Street corporations to be morally responsible for their behavior? But we don't mind treating them like an individual before the law when they do wrong and not treating them as an individual before the law when we want to do them wrong. It is just as much as sin to steal a pencil from me as it is to steal a pencil from General Motors. This because General Motors is a large corporation, many individuals who are stockholders, that pencil is still theirs, and it's not mine. And the number one expense of American businesses is theft by their own employees. Number eight, on the other side of the coin, the business corporations dishonesty and corruption can be an often our massive forms of theft. They are scandals of cooking the books, they are gross negligence and cutting cordies on federal regulations, they are underpayment of workers while they overpay top executives, unequal salaries for men and women who do the same job, age discrimination and race discrimination. All these are forms of fraudulent activities that steal from people. I recently read on the internet that one of the things that corporations are struggling with now is that in their personnel departments attractive men and women are hired more, promoted more and paid more than unattractive men and women even though their qualifications and their performance may be some standard. That is a form of theft. They are taking a job that someone else deserves and giving it to the pretty people and seem to be doing so and a great and increasing regularity. Big businesses lack of loyalty and care for their employees is a measure of theft. Ninety, oppressing the poor and not caring for the needy is a crass form of stealing. It is what one author called reverse robinhood, taking from the poor and giving to the rich. And all through Exodus and Leviticus and Numbers and Deuteronomy, there are repeated expressions, always following commandments about stealing, of how to leave some grain at the edge of the field for the sojourner who is traveling by. And how to take care of the widow in the orphan, and how not to take a pledge against a poor man to keep his cloak overnight because he needs it for his covering, his bedding. And how to take all of these extra measures to be careful that structural evil and institutional injustice and a social form of theft does not take its toll on people who are least able to bear that kind of injustice. Tently and finally, you know what the tenth one is going to be. When we do not tie our money to the Lord, Malachi says, we rob God. We fail to think sometimes that God is a personal being, and he has certain things that belong to him, not many. In fact, everything belongs to him, but if you read the Bible, God seldom makes a claim upon certain things. But he does say he will not share his glory with another. He does say serious things about the day called the Lord's Day that belongs to him, it's his time. And he says that a tenth of what we get from his divine providence belongs to him. And you know who may be the worst at not tithing are preachers. And preachers and missionaries and full-time Christian workers who say, well, I'm not responsible to tie it because I live off the tide. Look at the Levites. Well, folks, we're not priests. We're just the same as the people in the pew. And if we live by the tide, we ought to give by the tide. Paul makes it clear in his own life that he, although he received the generosity of the churches of Greece and Macedonia, he felt that his obligation to be a faithful steward and to give back to them in the same measure that they had given to him. I'm assuming that they tithe to Paul, and therefore I'm assuming that Paul tithe back to the Lord. You cannot pay yourself the tide. You can't use your tuition at CDS to count as the Lord's money, or the fees that you spend at SOAR with your children's activities as part of your tide. And I can't count my salary as some quarter-bond as the Pharisees did that since you've already tied on it, it's sacred money and can't be tied down again. Talk about manipulating things. Everybody ties. And when we don't, we rob God. We could go on because of stealing and fraud and oppression and manipulation and cheating and graft and corruption and embezzlement, cooking the books, tax evasion, plagiarism, bankruptcy, gambling, credit card debt, reckless spending, price gouging, bogus loss, it's unfair bigs of practices, and greedy measures that play our society, we could talk about stealing till we died, and not plummet the depths of our human depravity that has something fundamentally wrong with it. Something that began a long time ago when a serpent said to our first mother, can you really trust God's providence? And she and her husband said, no. But Christ has come, living among thieves and dying between two thieves to reverse that. And I believe his calling challenges us to five things very quickly. Number one, to rest in his providence and believe he will provide first. Paul says, he who did not spare his own son, but freely gave him up for us all, how will he not also willingly give us all things? If there is an indication of the benevolence and goodness of God, it is Christ on the cross. Secondly, we are prepared to live with less, which is usually the price for doing things honestly. I don't want to give you some romantic picture of honesty and generosity integrity. If you do the right thing, things will always be better for you. It may not be so in this world. There is a price to pay for not cheating. Maybe you don't get into Duke University because you didn't get the grade. Or maybe you do pay more money in income tax because you fill out the form correctly. Or maybe you won't be able to buy that dream house. You will always live in something that to your mark is too small for you and your family. Maybe you won't be able to drive a Lexus, have to be satisfied with your Corolla. There is something that you are going to have to say no to, but that's what happens for the price of doing things honestly. It will be easier if you do this third thing, if you grow in your generosity and you are giving, realizing that giving breaks the power of stealing. That's why Jesus said is always more blessed to give than to receive. God is always more happy giving than He is receiving. Fourthly, to cultivate a simple lifestyle will curb your appetites for more and more, which usually drives us to cut corners and do things illicit. A simple lifestyle and finally to be grateful for what we have. God has not, short-changed us. He has given us all that we need. And let's be honest, He has given us many, many things that we want. Most of all, He has given us His Son and whom there is redemption and the forgiveness of sins. If God were an American businessman, He would never give us what He has given us in Christ. It would be a bad investment. He would be gambling on a loser. He would be squandering something precious on somebody who acted worthless, but that's not how He is. The Lord is good to all, and His mercy is over all of His works. God is always giving. And long before it was a fashionable thing to sell a book, and long before it was a little mantra for health and wealth theology, there was a precious little prayer tucked right in the middle of one of the less popular books of the Bible called First Chronicles by a guy we know nothing about. And nothing about except His name meant painful child. How is that to bear in life? Painful child. His name was J.B.S. And he prayed a prayer. Now J.B.S. called upon the God of Israel and said, oh God, that you would bless me indeed and enlarge my border. And that your hand might be with me, that you would keep me from harm so that it may not bring me pain. And God granted to Him all that He asked. He asked for things. That God would bless Him indeed with spiritual riches, not things. That God would enlarge His border, the influence and spiritual sway of His life and family and ministry. That He would, God's right hand would be with Him to govern and guard and provide for Him. And that God might keep me from harm, that it may not pain me. That He just would be protected from evil. And the Bible says, and God granted to Him all that He asks. Why? Because God loves to give. And I suspect that the God of J.B.S. is the God of Jesus Christ, the God of you and me. And the Lord is gracious and merciful. Slow to anger and abounding and steadfast love. The Lord is good to all. And His mercy is over all that He has made. Look how merciful He's been to me tonight to sustain this wretched voice. Thank you for all those pain looks when I was in physical pain. And look how good He's been to us to give us salvation in Jesus Christ. Amen. Let's pray before I can't say anything else. Father, we want to thank you for how good you are to us every day. We marvel when we think that you may be the only being in existence who does not demand things or ask for things or try to position yourself for more than what He wants or needs. You are just pure and unadulterated goodness that manifests itself and the benevolent caring and provision for all that you have made. We're told that you give all the lilies of the field, their Raymond and their nutrition, that there's not a bird in the sky that doesn't depend upon you by every moment for not only its flight, its life, but its provision. That you open your hand and you feed every living creature. That you provide for us everything pertaining to life and godliness. And that you have loved the world so much that you gave your only begotten Son so that we would stop stealing from you and come back to the life of grace in you and receive all these good things. Break this power of doubt and fear and manipulation in us that causes us to sit against your providence and help us to realize that the things you give us, physical and spiritual, are sacred because they come from your design and your plan for each one of us and that by loving you and loving our neighbors, we will protect what you have provided both for us and for others. And use it well with hearts of gratitude. Go with us this evening as we go to our homes and to the vision of our meals and out into work with our good health and loved ones and families and help us to count all of your good gifts this week and to be grateful in these things to be thankful for Jesus Christ, the fountainhead of all your promises and all your providence as it pours into our life. For our good, our blessing and for your glory as we ask these things in Jesus name, amen.