Welcome to this message from the teaching ministry of University Presbyterian Church in Orlando, Florida Under the leadership of senior pastor Mike Osborne If you have a Bible, please turn with me to the book of Exodus chapter 20 The passage that I'm about to read is the ten commandments Exodus 20 beginning at verse one if you don't have a Bible no worries. We have Bibles that are found underneath a chair Near where you're sitting. I'm sure and it is found the passage. I'm about to read is found on page 73 73 Exodus chapter 20 1 through 17 here God's word and God spoke all these words. 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 in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below You shall not bow down to them or worship them for I the Lord your God and my jealous God Punishing the children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me But showing love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments You shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God for the Lord will not hold anyone guiltless who misuses his name Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God on It you shall not do any work neither you nor your son or daughter nor your man's servant or mate's servant Nor your animals nor the alien within your gates For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth the sea and all that is in them But he rested on the seventh day therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy Honor your father and your mother so that you may live long in the land the Lord your God is giving you You shall not murder You shall not commit adultery You shall not steal You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor You shall not covet your neighbor's house you shall not covet your neighbor's wife or his man's servant or mate's Servant his ox or donkey or anything that belongs to your neighbor The word of the Lord Bow with me and let's pray Lord. Thank you that you've given us the Bible Thank you that the Bible is in such plentiful supply in our in our nation and in most parts of the world and We ask now that as your word was given to us not only to teach us how to live But to show us Jesus We pray that you will show us Jesus and we ask this in his name Amen We've been coming through the book of Exodus rather the chapter 20 of Exodus looking at this series on the 10 commandments and Today we were to study the eighth commandment Which is in verse 15 that says you shall not steal and After the events of last Sunday I began to think, you know, is that really appropriate? Should we talk about stealing maybe instead we should talk about grief for something related to untimely death But then the more I thought about it and looked at this commandment and what it means I decided to go ahead and preach on the eighth Commandment you shall not steal After all a woman in our church had her husband stolen from her last Sunday Three young men in our church had their father stolen from them and in a very real sense all of us have been robbed Robbed of a friend robbed of a colleague robbed of a mentor perhaps a confidant To many people here at UPC So I think actually it's very timely that we talk and think together About the eighth commandment God's law against stealing But not only that I mean even if that had not happened You are a thief you have stolen I Am a thief I have stolen This is a sin that is common to all of us and in fact, I think you're going to see that the sin of stealing is a lot more Wide spread than you might have previously thought So let's dive in today and talk about the eighth commandment Or I'm bringing to you three things first the seriousness of stealing second the pervasiveness of stealing and Finally what to do about it? So first let's dive into the seriousness of stealing When someone steals something from you They are not just taking your stuff In a very real sense they are assaulting your dignity as a human being Let's see a show of hands. How many of you have had your home broken into anybody? Yeah a number a car perhaps a lot of us have Have had our stuff stolen I would be willing to bet that many of you if not most are all of you felt Violated after that happened right isn't that something we always hear people say how did it feel to have your home Invaded I felt violated Last week I had my Facebook account hacked Somebody posted something on my timeline that I have no idea how that happened, but It was very inappropriate and I had to go in and change all these things and change my password and so on like that and I felt Violated there's a reason we feel violated as a person when our things are stolen It's because our stuff is not just our stuff. It's part of who we are and This goes all the way back to creation to the Garden of Eden and Adam and Eve when God created the first human beings He gave them dominion over the earth Ownership of the earth and he said to take and use these things these plants these Animals for your own survival and for my glory. He gave Adam and Eve work to do Labor was a pre-fall Institution he said in Genesis 2 that the Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and to take care of it That was his trust. It was his property. You see we are meant to work like that We're created to work created to build and to produce and to make things we are meant to enjoy the fruit of our hands It's part of our image of God the image of God in which we were made In the Old Testament you see this in further display when God gave to Israel a land He gave them a piece of real estate and each tribe within Israel was given a territory And this tribe's territory was here and that tribe's territory was there Asher hears yours Nathalie hears yours Judah hears yours. This is yours. This is his Don't go into his now you don't go into his It was property that they were given and this was part of God's plan people built houses and they owned property so the ownership of property is a biblical concept The Bible says it is right and it's good that I have my things and you have yours You and I should trust each other with our respective property It's all right that we have boundary lines property You know, I should know this is my line. This is your yard. This is mine Some people erect fences to mark out their property That's okay That is not as a result of sin It's actually part of the the image of God that has been built into our Being it is right and good to own property But stealing is a violation of this principle If I steal something that is yours I'm not just taking your things I am assaulting you as a human being made in God's image And I'm violating this biblical principle That's what that that is what yours is yours and what's mine is mine In addition stealing destroys trust Trust is foundational to the survival of a society if we lose trust in one another No telling what other evils are going to arise from that but ultimately Talking about the seriousness of stealing What makes stealing so serious is that it is a lack of trust in God That's actually the sin underneath the sin of stealing. It's a lack of trust in God. God you see is our provider He will give us what he knows we need Or he will enable us to work and to earn money and buy what we need But when you or I steal we are saying God, I don't believe you I don't believe you're really a provider. I don't believe you're good Or that you will take care of me So I must take matters into my own hands. I must be God Do you see the evil that lies at the heart of stealing? It is a horrible form of unbelief
Adam's sin against God was really the sin of stealing Think about that What did God take to Adam and Eve? He said Adam and Eve these trees are yours all of these trees in the garden are yours to enjoy But this one tree over here that one's mine Just you know, don't eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil that one is mine. It is not yours But Adam didn't trust God's word He ate from the tree that was not his And in so doing he disobeyed the eighth commandment and brought sin and ruin and misery into the human race So stealing has been a part of the human story From the very day of the fall of Adam and the sin how serious is stealing When you think about it Every one of the ten commandments is a commandment against stealing something from someone Go through the list First commandment Don't steal God's glory and give it to some other God with a little G Second commandment Don't steal God's worship and give it to an idol Third commandment don't steal God's name Fourth commandment don't steal his day Fifth commandment don't steal the respect that is due your parents and under and other authorities Sixth commandment don't steal someone's life Seventh commandment don't steal someone who is not your spouse Eighth commandment is the one we're looking at ninth commandment don't steal the truth From the people who need to hear the truth 10th commandment is very similar to the one against stealing. It's not coveting. We're gonna look at that in two weeks But the difference it seems to me is that the 10th commandment says don't steal someone else's stuff in your heart See it begins in here with coveting Desiring that which is not yours and then it results in the eighth commandments violation which is the actual act of stealing See every commandment is in some way a command to Protect or to respect something that belongs either to God or to another human being Stealing then is a serious Serious sin Let's move on and talk about the pervasiveness of it How widespread is this sin of stealing there all sorts of ways that we steal from one another There is of course at bottom the act of stealing someone else's material possessions But there are many many other forms of stealing besides that one There's shoplifting for example Did you know that more than 13 billion dollars worth of goods are stolen from retailers in the United States every year 13 billion I read some study from the national association of shoplifting prevention didn't know that existed, but It does the national association of shoplifting prevention says that one in 11 people has shoplifted at least once in his or her lifetime And this is even more surprising people with incomes over $70,000 a year steel I mean shoplift 30% more often than people with $20,000 a year income So it's not the poor that are shoplifting as much as people who have everything they need There's simple dishonesty in addition to shoplifting simple dishonesty the Old Testament for example Talks about the need to use accurate measures and honest scales Suppose for example that you go to the butcher back in the back of publics or whatnot and you want to buy some fresh fish And while you're not looking the butcher puts the fish up on the scale but rests his hand on the scale too So it hikes up the weight of the fish and you end up paying more than you should That's a modern day example of what was often happening in the Old Testament when they used inaccurate scales And dishonest measures and over and over again in the Bible God says he hates that He hates that kind of dishonesty Moses in the prophets often said you are to use accurate scales and honest measures Simple dishonesty How do we engage in that sometimes When the cashier gives you more change Then you should get back for a purchase and you know that you got too much But you don't say anything about it and you walk out of the store that's stealing When bankers charge excessive interest rates that's stealing when manufacturers charge excessive prices for their products that's stealing when on your tax return You claim more deductions than you should and you end up paying less tax than you're supposed to You're not rendering the Caesar what is Caesar's you're stealing When you pad your expense account with things that you purchase for your own private use You're stealing All those are examples of dishonesty on a daily basis that many of us Who profess to follow Jesus do without sometimes even feeling the least bit of conscience about it And then there's the example of failing to return something that you find that belongs to someone else Is a violation of the eighth commandment so is stealing time Wow, this is just is so common stealing time is a form of the violation of the eighth commandment You're on the clock at work, let's say But instead of working You're sending texts to friends or you're checking Facebook Or you're playing computer games with untold numbers of people It's a form of stealing time or you're always late for work Or for meetings or for appointments You're stealing time or you take unjustified sick days You're breaking the eighth commandment Here's another instance The Westminster larger catechism you really should read How the Westminster larger catechism which is a document that we use in our denomination There's a list this long Of things that are forbidden in the eighth commandment and one of them is wasteful gaming wasteful gaming that's a 17th century way of Talking about foolishly gambling your hard earned money On lottery tickets and other games of chance A violation of the eighth commandment there's stealing here's another way to do it. They're stealing other people's reputation Have you ever entered into gossip? Have you ever criticized somebody behind their back without going to them and talking directly to them that's stealing someone's good name
They're stealing someone else's work If you don't give proper attribution to something that you borrow that someone else has done or someone else has written We call that plagiarism It's stealing And then there are the many more modern forms of stealing that are available to us now Think of identity theft. Why do you think all of us have to have all these passwords on our computer and On these different accounts that we have think of stealing your neighbor's Wi-Fi connection Instead of paying for one your own self. There's the theft of intellectual property nowadays Something our grandparents never had to worry about there's theft of music and movies We call it boot lagging. It's copying these things without paying for them There's theft of computer software If you've ever taken from work or from someone else their software and copied it so that you wouldn't have to buy it yourself That stealing and then modern day times there's securities fraud and insurance fraud and tax fraud We could go on and on But the worst form of stealing as we talk about all of its pervasiveness Is stealing from God stealing from God Not giving him the glory and the honor do his name Not giving him the time that he seeks from you and reading his word and praying and worshipping with your brothers and sisters and Christ Stealing from him the money that he has entrusted to your care Which you are to be stewards of for the work of the local church My point here is that is simply the stealing is so very pervasive and It's getting worse It's getting worse because we're getting more and more sophisticated in this global economy virus In coming up with ways to steal without a single other person ever finding out about it But of course God knows God knows Martin Luther commenting on the pervasiveness of stealing said if we look at mankind in all its conditions It is nothing but a vast wide stable full of great thieves Are you a thief? Am I thief? I think the truth is yes We are thieves we have stolen And we have to fight it in fact that's what my third and last point is what do we do about it? We've seen how serious it is we've seen how pervasive it is What do we do about the sin of stealing breaking the eighth commandment we fight it We God's people we fight it How do we do that well? Let me first address those of you Who know in your heart that you have stolen something Maybe even very very recently All of us have stolen maybe not recently maybe a long time ago, but we are all thieves So what do we do? How do we fight it? Let me give you five ways we fight it first confession If you're aware that you have stolen something You need to confess that as sin Confess it to God Confess it to the person from whom you stole something Last week Matt preached about the sin of David king David in the Old Testament the sin in which he stole Bathsheba from Euraya the Hittite committed adultery with her and then Compouted his sin by stealing the life of Euraya by having him killed For a while he stole the truth about what he had done and hid from people But finally Nathan the prophet we're going to talk about this in a few moments Nathan the prophet came to him confronted him about it and then what did David do he confessed and Psalm 51 is his confession of sin have mercy upon me oh God According to your unfailing love Blood out my transgressions against you and you only have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight So if you are mindful if you're aware of something you've done Even recently that is stealing you need to confess that Come out into the light come out with it walk into the light where there's freedom It's when we acknowledge the truth that we experience freedom in our lives And so confess your sin secondly if possible make restitution That's how you fight the sin of stealing you make restitution if you've done it Restore the thing that you have stolen if at all possible We love the story of Zacchaeus right in the gospel of Luke The wee little man That we sang about his kids He was up in the tree when Jesus came down the road and he wanted to see Jesus Jesus saw him and said I must eat with you today. He went to Zacchaeus his home Zacchaeus evidently turned his life over to Christ and became a new man And he said in Luke 19 Lord the half of my goods I give to the poor and if I've defrauded Anyone of anything because you see Zacchaeus was a Cheat he was a tax collector and they were all notoriously Thieves he says to Jesus if I've defrauded anyone of anything I restore it forefold He made restitution So if there's any way You can do that parents. Let me talk to you You should teach your children about making restitution In your worship guide every week we give you a number of things in the discussion guide To talk whoops to talk about with your kids and I hope you'll notice it I hope you use this from time to time back all the way down in the family section of this It's some resources to help you parents Have devotions with your children and one of the questions says does anyone in the family need to return something that was stolen From a friend or another person's home or a place of business I remember as a kid. I reached out my hand. This is the familiar story We've all told it. I reached out my hand when my mom took me to the grocery store. I stole a fifth avenue candy bar And I stuck it in my pocket We walked out I felt so incredibly guilty about that and I actually went back to the store and when no one was looking Placed it back on the counter nobody saw me I made restitution The Lord would not let me off the hook about that fifth avenue candy bar It happens. It's probably happened in your family So parents, I want to call on you to teach this concept of making restitution. That's the way god is honored when we sin We We make restitution we restore that But suppose that you just simply want to fight Stealing the third way is by learning contentment Learning to be content First Timothy chapter six says that godliness with contentment is great gain We brought nothing into the world and we can surely take nothing out of it But if we have food and clothes we will be content with that The more you are content with what god has provided the less likely you will be tempted to steal And so brothers and sisters learn the secret of being content as Paul the Apostle says in Philippians chapter four Fourth, how would you fight stealing you fight it with work Fight stealing with work. You know the commandment not to steal is actually a positive command to work The fourth commandment is also a command to work. That's the one about the Sabbath day But the eighth commandment is also a command to work not to be idle not to be lazy To work a solid eight hours if that's what your schedule is every day To work hard as a student in school not to be lazy with your homework not to be idle And getting into trouble But working hard and being industrious Paul in second Thessalonians 3 says if a man will not work Let him not eat We hear some among you are idle. They are not busy. They are busy bodies Such people we command and urge in the Lord Jesus to settle down and earn the bread they eat That second Thessalonians 3 10 through 12 fight stealing by being a hard worker in whatever Job God has called you into and fifth and finally how do you fight stealing you fight it with giving You fight it with giving giving generously Because the command not to steal is not only a positive command to work But it's a positive command to give to give away what God has given you Ephesians 4 28 Says he who has been stealing must steal no longer but must work Doing something useful with his hands that he may have something to share With those in need. Why does God give you your job? Why do you get your paycheck? Well partially is to provide for your needs But it's also there for you to give That's why you earn stuff It is so that you can be generous with your giving and the more you will give The less you will be stealing and you will be fighting that urge that the flesh has To steal from other people All right, so that's for those of you who are thieves and we all are But now I'd like to talk as I close to some of you from whom things have been stolen Last week Matt spoke to you victims of adultery I'd like to speak to you victims of theft Some one perhaps has violated your home many of you raised your hands Someone perhaps has violated your personhood By stealing something from you Some of you sadly have had your innocence stolen Some of you sadly have had your trust stolen by someone else And as I mentioned earlier all of us saw last Sunday afternoon The stealing of a life by someone who was careless and who was sinful So that we have been stolen of a friend Of a loved one and of a colleague Obviously all of these situations that I've just described Have to be handled as a matter of injustice These are all injustices If you've ever been violated in any of those ways or more that is wrong Someone sinned against you This is why we have laws on the books This is why we have a criminal justice system And police officers and the Department of Children and Families and courts Where citizens can appeal to the state and address our grievances with that person or persons who stole from them If it happens within the church family You also have elders to go to It you know if you're violated if you're sinned against here within this family And you can't work it out or it's too big for you You go to the elders you talk about it you say this is something that I need you to mediate for us I need you to get involved in it and it might initiate church discipline
People who steal need to be confronted with their sin and the consequences of their sin It's not something that you should just shrug off as though you don't care about it and didn't hurt It did it did hurt It stole something precious from you
A good story to sort of back that up is in second Samuel chapter 12 I referred to this earlier when David sinned against Bathsheba and her husband Nathan the prophet came to David and he confronted him with that sin But he didn't confront him indirectly at first. He told him a story He said to David David once upon a time there were two men A rich man and a poor man The rich man had lots and lots of cattle and sheep The poor man had nothing but one little you lamb And that poor man loved that lamb He cared for it like it was his daughter He slept with it in his arms at night. He fed that lamb. He loved that lamb. It was his most prized possession on earth One day a traveler came through and stopped at the home of the rich man And in those days as you know they had to provide a meal for the traveler And so the rich man looked out onto his pin Where he had lots of cattle and lots of sheep And instead of going out to get one of them he went to the home of the poor man And took his little you lamb and killed it And used it as food for his traveling friend Now when David heard Nathan tell that story he blew up He was enraged at what he heard He said as surely as the Lord lives the man who did this deserves to die He should pay for the lamb four times over And that's when Nathan looked at David right and square in the face and said David you are that man His point was David you're the one who stole Something precious See the point of that is that when someone has stolen from you It is an assault an assault against you as the image of God and ultimately is assault upon God himself And there are consequences to pay the person has lost trust It takes time to rebuild trust you know that if you've ever been involved in these situations It takes time and in fact in some cases you will never and you should never trust that person again But eventually Eventually what you must do is move toward forgiveness
Last week in Matt Sermon on adultery he said to you the victims of adultery He said you've got to go moving toward forgiveness Otherwise you will become a hardened Embittered person It's the same with victims of theft You must move toward forgiveness by God's grace. It's a process. It takes time But if you're gonna If you're going to experience the joy the Lord and the life of God instead of being hard and bitter You will by God's grace Forgive The person who's sinned against you
You and I have stolen from God time and time again We've stolen from other people time and time again We are as Luther said a vast wide stable full of great thieves We're just like the thief on the cross Isn't it ironic that next to Jesus as he died were two thieves Men who had spent presumably much of their life in crime And one of those thieves looked over at Jesus And gave his heart to Christ he knew he would send he knew that he needed to be forgiven And he said to Jesus Lord Remember me when you come into your kingdom And Jesus looked at this thief and said today you will be with me in paradise We who have put our trust in the Lord Jesus have been forgiven of our thievery He who had no sin became sin for us that we might become the righteousness of God He who had never been a thief became a thief That we might become the righteousness of God and be forgiven of our many thefts So because of the cross We who have been violated Can and must forgive thieves
Let us who have been forgiven many trespasses Forgive those who have trespassed against us Let's pray Lord we think of this young man Who stole last Sunday afternoon
And our hearts go out to him God he thinks his life is over And so we come around him right now in prayer and Father we pray forgiveness upon him And ask that he will come to know the sweet release Of having sins forgiven and records cleansed of the greatest sins Lord we pray for others that have sinned against us and Lord we ask you for the grace we need to let them go They have stolen something from us. We let them go It's hard father and we need your help. We might need counseling. We might need Patience we we might need the love and care of others but father help us to move toward forgiveness That we might be people who let people off the hook Thank you Jesus that you forgive us thieves When we had stolen and still steal so much from you from other people Thank you for grace. Thank you for the gospel that says thieves can go free In Jesus name we pray. Amen
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