There was a letter received by the IRS right after tax season just a few months ago April 15th, you know, that dreaded deadline that we have to encounter every year and The letter went like this. It said to whom it may concern. I Enclosed you will find a check for $1,500. I failed to pay my taxes this year and I Haven't been able to sleep ever since PS if I still have trouble sleeping. I'll send you the rest Well this morning we're going to be looking at the 8th commandment which says you shall not steal and the 8th commandment has to do In addition to the things that we typically think of it as in terms of stealing and theft and robbery and burglary with things like Paying our taxes and paying our bills and Property rights and intellectual property rights and I and I and I and I and I and I and I but This is a this is a commandment that does sort of speak to us or speak to our wallets and and one way or the other and we're going to look at that more broadly in a minute But one of the things I thought we might do this morning is Review where we have been thus far if you're joining us for the first time this morning we've been doing a series on the 10 Commandments and Somebody might be wondering you know why are we doing a series on the 10 Commandments and well for us for those of us who are Followers of Christ the 10 Commandments are still in play in the sense that they tell us how we ought to live it tells us What God's holy requirements are for us as his as people But what I wanted to do was is maybe just talk a little bit before we get started about the three uses of the law We talked about this in passing before and I just wanted to kind of recap some of this because we can forget and and you know as Presbyterians we talk about Three uses of the law and the first use of the law is what we call a civil use of the law The law is a restrainer God in his grace and in his mercy what we sometimes call his common grace that grace that God bestows on all of his creatures You know God causes the rain to fall on both the just and The unjust the righteous and the unrighteous. That's what we call his common grace and and in God's common grace he has given His creatures a law that instills restraint in society in civil society and And this prevents of course anarchy in society. I don't know if you've ever experienced anarchy before we've been very blessed to sort of live in a country a nation a culture Where you know we have law and what order right there's even a TV program by that name law and Order and we live in a country that has law and order Not every nation is so blessed especially when there is what we might call a transfer of power We have eight we have what we call a peaceful Transfer of power But in most nations most nations don't experience peaceful transfers of power There you know when when someone goes out of office when a high rank in official a president a prime minister or Or if there's a more of a dictatorial office and play then when there's a change of power. It is seldom peaceful It is several seldom civil and Usually what happens is at least for a while a brief period of anarchy will accompany that some countries You know unfortunately around the world living almost total anarchy for long periods of time in their history and so We are very blessed not to have had to experience that on any kind of a large scale We have seen little pockets of that breakout here and there over the 200-year or more history of our country, but they are their pockets and it's brief. We don't we don't experience Anarchy, but so this this tells us about God's grace is common grace to To his creatures so that they can experience a civil Orderly society it it restrains us from being as bad as we could be It keeps us in check. I had dinner the other night with one of our former worship leaders David right now Or he was in town taking a couple of courses here at RTS We went out to dinner. We went out to the outback and If you know, you know the outback is of course a great steak house. There's no question about that And I like to go there and I like to eat steak And now if you've been with me before if you've had dinner with me Before whether it's breakfast lunch or supper doesn't matter What you will discover is is that I always ask for ketchup. I Have I put ketchup on everything including my outback steak Wow, you people. Oh, okay, I get it so you all you all are curious right You're curious see you want you want your steak unadulterated, right? Yeah, well, oh boy. We're alive today, aren't we huh? Yeah, well listen as you might imagine. I've already gotten apologetic for this. Okay. I already have a defense for this for you Purist out there Okay, yeah, I love you guys. I remember having dinner with Mike Dumas one time out there and made him taste it We'll catch you find it, you know, but he's a purist. Oh, that's terrible. That's horrible. Oh, I said so let me get this straight Okay, you're a purist you want your steak unadulterated, right? Yes, of course. I like us pure steak Just nothing but the beef the flavor of the beef. Well, what's the advertisement for the outback? What is it? Right? Here's our here's our steak with what 21 different herbs and spices, right 21 21 different. Oh, you're a purist with 21 different herbs and spices and now I adulterate the steak because I put ketchup on it I've got 22 flavors. You got 21 Please
Yeah, I understand But you know why I was having dinner at the outback I happen to think for a minute, you know about what their marketing slogan is You know what it is don't you everyone knows it. It's very memorable. What is it? No rules just right See that's anarchy Civilization the culture society a state of People without rules is not right It's wrong It's anarchy It's deadly wrong and and by God's grace by God's common grace by his mercy He has given us his law to Restrain people from being as bad as they can be where there are no rules There is no restraint and people will normally degenerate to greater and greater and greater and greater Depths of depravity and evil and wickedness No rules is not right. It's wrong and we have a a a graceful and merciful and loving creator Who in his common grace not just for the people of God not just for the church But for all of his creatures he has given us a law to help restrain us from being as bad as we couldn't be And that's God's common grace and we must never underestimate The power of God's common grace. This is what keeps you and I From that downward spiral Into evil and wickedness and darkness and sin This is what keeps a world from that same downward spiral Second use of the law is that the law is a teacher Paul talks about the law being a tutor a a Pedagog it's a teacher it's a tutor it the law works like school for us and what does it teach us? It teaches us of our need for Christ Luther like to say the law drives us to Christ You see what the law does is it can it convict us of our sin It makes us awareness of our own sin of our own depravity of our own inability To keep it to do it even to love it And and what the law does is it shows us that we have an inability to do what is right to meet God's perfect standard and that and that Realization hits us it drives us to Christ
You know, I don't know about you, but you know, we're on the eighth commandment this morning and Exodus chapter 20 But let me just read them all to you for a minute. I am the Lord your God who brought you out of Egypt out of the land of slavery You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself an idol You shall not misuse the name of the Lord remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy honor your father and mother You shall not murder you shall not commit adultery you shall not steal you shall not cut cover to your neighbor's house You shall not cover to your neighbor's wife or man serve and our maidservant his ox or donkey or anything that belongs to your Neighbor we're on the eighth Commandment now folks the eighth commandment and I don't know about you But I'm starting to feel the weight of these commandments bearing down on me I'm starting to feel the holy righteous requirement of the law and it's making me wonder it's making me think what about the gospel? What about grace you see this the commandments what they do is is they drive you know That's exactly where we should be by this time as we come to the eighth commandment We're right where God wants us it ought to make us cry out for Christ it ought to make us cry out for grace It ought to make us cry out for the gospel Whether you're a believer or an unbeliever this law functions in such a way as to drive us to Christ because it convictions of our sin It shows us that we stand guilty before a holy and righteous God and it makes us cry out for our savior That's what this does folks Yes, it makes us want the gospel you better believe it does Yes, it makes us want the cross you better believe it does Yes, it makes us want grace and mercy you better believe it does drives us to Christ in the third use of The law has to do with the The law being a guide or a rule to life See how do I as a believer? How do I know how to live? What is my rule of life? What is my guide For living the Christian life if you want to know how to live the Christian life in the moral law the 10 commandments is your guide It is your rule of faith and practice. It is your rule of life And so that's that those are the three uses of the law the law is a restrainer the law is a teacher the law is our rule and guide to life And folks, I you know listen, I want to live a life that's pleasing to God I know God loves me unconditionally. I know I can't do anything to deserve his grace I know that the gospel is is free to me, but it costs Christ everything But now because I'm a recipient of that grace of that mercy of that gospel of that cross Then now I want to live a life that is pleasing to him. I want to live a holy life And and we find that illustrative for us in this summary of God's law Which points to his holy character and in that sense we become imitators of God imitators of Christ And and living the Christian life and that's what it means to be a follower of Christ And so that's that's why we we talk about the law as a rule of life You know We also talked about By way of analogy borrowing from CS Lewis that the law Morality in general and the moral law and in specifically One way to think about this is as a fleet of ships remember we talked about this a little bit and that and that in order for a fleet of ships to successfully Reached their destination on their voyage That every ship Must be ship shape that is to say that every ship must be a sea worthy vessel The nuts and bolts and the mechanics of our engine room need to be in good tune You know anything that has an engine needs it requires a tune up from time to time right and and and so you know We have to think about you know as as individuals were like ships that belong to a fleet that is on a voyage And our engines need to be in tune We need to be sea worthy we as individuals need to be a sea worthy vessel And then Lewis says that we need to relate harmoniously with all the other ships in the fleet And that is to say that otherwise we're going to be clinging and banging into each other We're going to be colliding into each other. We're going to be getting into each other's way Okay, and listen, let me tell you this folks I thank God Daily That in this church and covenant Presbyterian church we we don't get in each other's way a lot There's not a lot of collision going on So not to say we have problem don't have problems not to say we're perfect church It's not to say that everybody is equally content with whatever is going on here But by and large we don't have a lot of conflict and when we do have conflict we do our best to work it out in a biblical way You all know I serve on a committee in the Presbyterian that deals with With problems in churches within our Presbyterian. I'm dealing with one now All right, I'm dealing with a discipline case where the defendant has called 40 witnesses
The churches divided the churches in conflict the churches in chaos They've lost their pastor. They've lost their youth minister the inactive elders are at war with the active elders Is complete conflict and it's caused chaos. They're in each other's way The this individual ships because they are not ship shape are not in harmony with the other ships in the fleet And they're banging and climbing and colliding with each other and guess what that just throws the journey right out the window You're stuck in the harbor
I praise God because we don't have that here
We try to keep short accounts. We try to deal with things when they happen
It takes work It's a little bit messy But family life is a little bit messy, isn't it?
We relate harmoniously one with the other not only that but everybody in the fleet all the ships in the fleet need to know where we're going You need to know what the destination is and our destination is Described for us in the first question of archaicism, right? See what is the chief end of man the chief end of man is to glorify and enjoy God forever That's our end. We want to work towards the end of as the people of God glorifying and enjoying God and those are both the same thing
Because John Piper would say we glorify God by Enjoying him In blood more than anything else. I want to see you Enjoy God. I want to see you satisfied in him. I want to see your life Full of joy and gladness and delight in God It doesn't mean we walk around with a smile on our face all the time That doesn't mean we have this sort of phony personality when we put on this front when we're around people And you know, oh yes Everything is just okay pie in the sky and all that no that's not what that's talking about This is a religion for reality
But in the midst of reality in the midst of conflict in the midst of struggle and in the midst of You know All these kinds of tribulation and affliction and things or sickness or illness or whatever is going on in our lives In the midst of those things you can still have joy in God you can have the joy Uh, the Lord in your life in the midst of those trials and tribulations in your life And I want that for us. I want that for you I want that for me. I want that for the people of God And one of the ways, you know, think of Psalm 119 when David was talking about the law. Oh How I delight in the law of the Lord I delight in his statutes You know, there's great joy on David's part about the law
and so This is this is where we're going folks. This is our destiny and the other part of that is you know glorifying and enjoying God As terms of our our destination. We also want to see the kingdoms of this world become the kingdoms of our God We want to see the kingdom of God spreading on this earth We want to be a part of what God is doing and I'm going to tell you this folks a lot of people have a lot of strategies about how to do that A lot of people have a lot of plans about how you know how to make the kingdom of God a reality Through you know the work and ministry of their church, but I'm going to tell you this nothing would work Nothing would work nothing would come closer to working to manifest the kingdom of God here on earth Then the people of God living in light of the law of God When the people of God start living holy and lives before the Lord before the face of God Corum dayo then let me tell you something you would begin to see a change in our land and in our communities and all around this world If the people of God begin to live in light of the law of God
You could do away with most of the church's programs If the people of God would just start to live in light of the law of God
Yes, we're going to fail Yes, we're going to fall Yes, we're going to stumble Yes, we are weak Yes, we need to rely on the Holy Spirit. Yes, we're completely unable to do this apart from Christ in the Holy Spirit But if we live lives of continual lifestyles of repentance sincerely endeavoring to live in light of the law of God beloved Let me tell you this the heathen would begin to come to church and begin to repent and begin to praise God And begin to rejoice and begin to delight in the things of God
And then we talked about the two tables of the law Moses came down off the mountain with these two tables of the law written by the very finger of God the one table talks about the first table talks about our relationship with God Right, we just read that the first four commandments I am the Lord your God who brought you out of Egypt out of the land of slavery She'll have no other gods before me You should not make for yourself an idol. You should not misuse the name of the God. Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy All pointing to God God who is infinite eternal and unchangeable and is being wisdom power Holyness just as goodness and truth the God who loves us with an everlasting love
And this is all about our worship to him all about looking up to him All about praising and exalting him and his name The honor and glory of God And then the last Six commandments have to do with loving our neighbors as ourselves We've begun to look at those And now we're at the The eighth commandment and the eighth commandment says You shall not steal again Just like the last two commandments that we look like I looked at Number seven and number six murder and adultery very short commandments They are respectively four and five words of peace And the English and the Hebrew just two words No murder No adultery No stealing This is the third of these two word commandments in the Hebrew just two words But as we saw with adultery and as we saw with murder these commandments are loaded with meaning They are loaded And you could spend you could write a book on each one of these commandments if you were so inclined even though it's only two words and They are very powerful words And it has to do with a lot more as we said in the beginning than just robbery or burglary or other kinds of theft Has more to do with say shoplifting or petty stealing It has to do with things like paying our taxes paying our bills being good stewards Paying an honest wage for an honest day's work trusting God for his provision It even includes something called man stealing which we would call kidnapping All of this has to do with this two word command No stealing has to do with property rights intellectual property rights a work ethic It has to do with things like laziness and idleness and slothfulness All of this is packed into these two words no stealing But I want to Go a little bit behind the eighth commandment in the time that we have left this morning Because what we've been trying to do as much as possible is we've been trying to get Behind these commandments and see what is also there implicitly to see what is in there with respect to our hearts And really I think that the eighth commandment and really all the commandments beg a question What is life About to think about this for a minute think of the eighth commandment and then think about it in terms of this question What is life really about is life about getting Is life about taking Hmm or is life about giving So you think about that what is life about Is about how much I can get Or how much I can give
Is it about how much I can keep or is it about how much I can give away Charitably And I would argue that what this commandment tells us is that what life is about is that life is really about for the Christian for the believer for the people of God Life is about giving Now typically in a church setting you know when we talk about giving the first place you you expect The minister to go to is talk about giving our money Okay, and and there's a reason for that is because for a long history of the church The church has not been a good steward of the people's money There's a long history and abuses in that regard where the church has violated the trust of the people Respect the money But there's more than just money here involved money would be including in giving But there's a whole bunch more here than just money And the first thing that I want you to see here is that what this command has to do with Really more than more than money is the giving of ourselves Giving to ourselves God wants us To give of our and When we don't give of ourselves You see then we are Stealing We're stealing from God And we're stealing from God's people God wants us to give You know I was as many of you know I teach a class not one security college Uh, and uh just finished up a class in the 20th century Had a great class this. I mean just my students were some of the best students I've ever had in 10 years of teaching This is my hobby. This is my mission field You know, and in fact one of the things I told them when when I finished the class I was just saying you know, I just said you know you guys have just been great. They said oh you say that to everybody And I said well not like this. I really mean it you guys have been great You know more than half the class is made up of international students from all over the world. It is just A blessing And uh, and I said you know, I was telling them, you know, why I do what I do and listen my goal my goal in the classroom or wherever I do is too full that we just talked about Is that when is is to help you learn How to love God and to help you learn to love your neighbor as yourself And I said that emphatically to my students But one of the things that we talked about in the 20th century is this sort of mentality that has arisen And it's arisen especially among young people
Old people too, but I've noticed this from the from the time of my generation You know All the way up until the present there is this mentality That somehow we ought to get something for nothing See, there's this mentality that that we get something for nothing I don't know where that started. I know how how that began But somehow some way young people are are are becoming of the belief that that life owes them something And we go around looking about how to get something for nothing I hang out with a bunch of people Some from this church and some not from this church I hang out with people that some people in this church would never hang out with um But I've noticed this where I where I hang out Everybody's always working an angle Everybody's trying to work a deal Everybody's trying to you know figure out how to Get something and then get more for it Much more for than you would ever dream you could get for You know interesting this word stealing uh it had this this word stealing where it says no no stealing this word Has to do with doing something with stealth with secrecy
I don't know where this mentality came from but you know what folks that is stealing
It violates the reason why we were created it's a it's a direct assault on the image of God
When we try to get something for nothing God Formed us in his image male in female. He made us like himself. We're creating the image and likeness of God
And he put us in the garden He said care for Cultivate it Here is the idea of labor good honest righteous Working with the hands the thing that is good And when we try to get something for nothing or something for almost nothing We're violating The very purpose for which we created we're violating the very image of God in us
and that's stealing God wants us to give away our lives. Why do you think lian is going back to curious you You know she had she just had a she just had a terrible time in her last assignment We thought it was going to be great. We talked to the pastor there. We talked We we learned about the church. We did research on the church. We talked to people that knew the this ministry and everything It turned out to be a disaster
I'd like to have that happen to you All the way around the other side of the world optimistic about going into a ministry and then it turns out to be a disaster and you are all alone and all by yourself To disaster And thank God God has a place for her and with some people that we feel very good about and another church for her to go to and we're excited about that But why would you after going through that? Why would you subject yourself to more of the same and the answer is this and I quote John Piper again, it's because ministry is better than life God wants to us to give all of our selves ministry is better than life That's why lian is doing what she's doing That's why Victor Cruz is doing what he's doing down in Mexico That's why I'm booming mccuckoo the missionary from Kenya is working in the largest slum in Nairobi After being educated in the United States when he could work any place else in his that he wanted to he could have any job He wanted to in Kenya, but what does he do he goes into the largest slum in Nairobi and he serves people Who are considered by everybody else to be the all scouring of the earth why because ministry is better than life
That's why we at CPC coming to Presbyterian Church Even though we may not go That's why we work We work we do that which is good with our hands we work we labor so that we might have to give to those who are in need the whole purpose of work and the whole purpose of wealth It's not to get something for nothing. It's to give and let me just say this is like close You all have been doing a good job this year giving A good job our budget this year we had a little little little blip last month We'll give it to the summer months. So you need to be conscious of that, but you've done a great job This year has been our best year of giving I think in a long long time and I thank you for that It pleases God you do it cheerfully and you do it with with a great heart Towards the lost and towards the mission of the church and God is pleased and you know what your pastors please too Let's pray heavenly Father. We give you thanks and praise You are a good God
and you're a great God And we thank you Lord that you have not just left us to ourselves to try to figure this out and work it out but you've given us The word of God Your revelation yourself disclose your your communication to your people that we have Restraint in this world This world is bad that it is sometimes is not as bad as it could be because of your restraint And we thank you for that We thank you Lord that you have given us a law That convictions of our sin and drives us to Christ and his grace and his gospel We thank you Lord Because you've given us this guide for your people so that they might know how to live pleasing lives to you We give you thanks in Jesus name