Don’t Steal - Ex 20:15
The mp3 of this talk can be downloaded from the Bethany City Church website here.
Introduction
I have a confession to make. I have handled stolen goods and am a thief. In fact, I have stolen from you, the British tax payer, whether you know it or not. When I was a student I shared a flat with a girl who was a nurse studying to be a midwife. On one occasion she brought home a hospital regulation towel with 'property of the NHS' written on it. Somehow it found it's way into my possession and I still have it. I have now passed it on to someone else - our dog, Max.
The problem is, I am not alone. In one way or another I suspect we have all done something similar somewhere along the line, right? And because of that it doesn't matter, right?
As we have been considering the Ten Commandments we have been reminded that untimately they are about God, and show us what his character is like. Therefore, in considering the ten commandments, we are actually seeing what the implications are of knowing God.
On one occasion, Jesus was tested by teachers of religious law of his day. They had heard him debating and answering well so they posed him a question.
‘Of all the commandments, which is the most important?’
Jesus replied, “The most important commandment is this: ‘Hear, O Israel! The Lord our God is the one and only Lord. And you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul,, all your mind, and all your strength.’ The second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbour as yourself.’ No other commandment is greater than these.’ Mark 12:28-31
Notice that at the heart of both of these 'most important statements' is Love. We must love because God is love. But how do you command someone to love? Is it possible to love on demand?
People who read this will be divided up into two groups of people; those who love marmite and those who hate it. Just imagine for a moment that the central commandment around which the world operated was ‘You must love marmite.’ That would be a problem wouldn’t it, at least for half of us. Those who do't love marmite would be breaking the law so would be foced to do what they could to fall in love with marmite. But could they? At best them might learn to tolerate marmite, or learn to live with it. But could they learn to love it?
The difficulty with any command to love is that you can't make yourself love someone. You can make yourself look like you love them, and act in the right way. But to make yourself love them, whether God or neighbours, is a different issue altogether.
As a result, as we consider these commands given to Moses, running constantly in the background is this truth - you need to have your heart unlocked in order to love God and others well. Summarising the Ten Commandments in a word is easy – love the Lord you God and love your neighbour as yourself. But to do this we need our hearts unlocked in order to be able to love.
Hearts unlocked
Having our hearts unlocked only comes through knowing how great God’s love is for you and me. Even when we are living reckless God hating lives, he still loves us. Even when he knew we would live as rebels against him, Jesus gave his perfect life, hung on a cross and died that we might we might be forgiven our rebellion, then he rose from the dead in order that, we can have hearts unlocked to love God and others - relationship. All we have to do is trust his cross and ask him to unlock our hearts to love him, love others and to live for him. As we hear the ten commandments opened up we must remember, even as these words were first carved into stone, the gospel was playing in the background.
The eighth commandment – Do not steal (Exodus 20:15)
This commandment is very familiar to us, so what needs to be said on that subject?
Well, the first question to ask is this - Why is stealing wrong?
- Stealing – is not loving others
When we lived in Peckham we would often get mildly irritated with people when they labelled the area we lived in as a nasty place to live. Of course, there is no denying that it has its fair share of problems with crime, but the vast majority of this is within specific communities, particularly the drug communities in the area. However, over a 6 month period, we ourselves were victims of theft. Our flat was broken in to (when we were at home) and our car was broken in to 4 times within 6 months. After the first occasion we left nothing in the car. After the 2nd occasion we left the car unlocked to save them breaking the windows.
If is has ever happened to you, you will know that it is a very unpleasant feeling. Not only do you feel like you property has been invaded, but in a strange sense, it feels like you have been invaded. People have trampled over all boundaries you have in place and they have invited themselves in to take whatever they want of your things. Actually, nothing at all really needs to be stolen in order for you to feel this way. Boundaries of your identity have been transgressed and it leads to feeling violated. Why is this?
At heart, Stealing is a lack of love. More specifically, stealing is a positive disregard and respect for other human beings.
Read Romans 13:9-10 states -
'For the commandments against adultery and murder and stealing and coveting - and any other commandment - are all summed up in this one commandment: "Love your neighbour as yourself." Love does no wrong to anyone so love satisfies all of God's requirements.'
If the commandments, including ‘Don’t steal’ are summed up as ‘Love your neighbour as yourself’, then to steal is a clear disregard of this commandment. Stealing is active love-less-ness towards others.
An attitude and action that stinks
The problem is, if I were to ask when was the last time you stole something or when did you last choose to disregard someone else and actively not love them you might not be able to answer the question. We all have pictures in our minds of what a thief or a robber looks like, and more importantly what their attitude looks like. And it stinks.
Do you ever wonder if you smell? Sometimes I walk down the street and pass someone who really smells. I wonder to myself, how they can walk around like that and not know? And my next question is very interesting - what about me? Do I smell and not know it?
If I’m honest there is nothing that gets me more riled, wound up and cross than when someone shows absolute disregard towards somebody I know, or even someone I don't know. I think it stinks. The problem is, I spend too long with myself and I can’t smell myself when I stink anymore.
When we think of stealing we think of thieves as men with balaclavas, swag bags and dark clothes who creep around in the dark taking things that people immediately know are missing – obvious theft. But the most prevalent types of theft fall below the radar.
Stealing from work
Some ways of stealing from work are obvious. How many of us have work stationary, paper and equipment at home?
Axa, the employers group and insurance company carried out research1 showing that the cost of covering salaries for absent staff, the resulting overtime and temporary cover, and lost service or production time was £12.2billion last year. That accounts for 185 million sick days. £1.7 billion of that was due to people ‘pulling sickies’ rather than real health issues. That is nearly 26 million sick days a year stolen from employers. According to the Employment Law Advisory services, that is about £600 per employee.
Who pays for this – the money to cover those days has to come from somewhere?
Stealing from family or friends.
We would never steal from our families would we! Well, I’m not so sure. At the Global Leadership Summit held at Bethany Christian Centre in 2006, a number of us heard a guy called Andy Stanley talk about “cheating” at home.
Every friendship and relationship we are in has some kind of unwritten contract. Not a ‘if you do these things, you can be my brother, or my Father’ but ‘because you are my Father, this is what being a Father means and therefore what role you should fulfil in my life'. But so often we break these contracts. Time which should rightfully be our husband or wife’s time, time that should really be our children’s time gets diverted towards something else. We decide to take that time away from our partner or our children and give it to something or someone else – whether that is work, other people or ourselves.
This can be financial too. As a society we are tied to debt.
At the end of March 2008 the UK personal debt was £1.43 trillion.2 Average consumer borrowing via credit cards, motor and retail finance deals, overdrafts and unsecured personal loans has risen to £9,216 per average UK adult at the end of March 2008 (excluding mortgages).
The problem is, we can’t live without debt – and debt is itself not stealing. But it impacts who we are and what we can give to others. Spending money we don’t have on things we want means we live a life tied to debt repayment. This means we can’t be generous when it is needed, meaning our minds are occupied with paying debt back and not investing in a happy family. Just think for a minute - what the UK population owes in personal debt, if added up and divided amongst the population of the planet would mean £200 per person throughout the world!
So, why is stealing wrong? Well firstly, at it's rawest it is deciding no to love others. Far from the 8th commandment being a sadistic command of the God of heaven, it is what is best for the world we live in!
- Stealing - is cheating God
If you were to look in your wallet or purse, the chances are you would find a bank card, credit card or some other finance card. Have a look at that card, the chances are it says somewhere on it these words, or something like them.
‘This card is the property of Barclays Bank…’ (or whichever bank you are with). It makes clear that to damage or misuse of that card is to damage the banks property.
Psalm 24:1 says this
‘The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it. The world and all its people belong to him.’
Do you see that – everything in the world belongs to God. From sheep and hills to cheque books and cars. From buildings and possessions to you! So it matters to him what we do with all these things because anything we do against anyone or anything else in his world is an offence against God himself.
Right back at the beginning of creation, Genesis tells us that God made everything and put man in place over all he had made as stewards and masters over the world. As they tended it, he gave them one command – do not eat from one tree in the centre of the garden - the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Yet they took what was not theirs to eat.
From that day on, the world is still the Lord’s and everything in it is his too. Matthew 25:14-30 makes this very clear. The passage raises a number of big questions, but one thing is very clear. God expects us to use all he has given us wisely. And when we don’t, we are not just stealing from others, we are stealing from God himself. If you hold back from your tax return, you are stealing not only from the government and the tax payer, but from God. When you steal time from work, you are stealing from God.
My wife received a parcel in the post this week – things she had ordered for a relatives birthday present. She opened the parcel, wrapped the gift and put it back in the same bubble wrap envelope. On closer inspection the original stamps and envelope had not been franked. There was no evidence that the envelope had previously been used. She went into the post office, got the gift weighed and then the sales assistant spotted the unfranked stamps. 'Just post it' she said. 'You already have the stamps on it!' My wife explained that it had already been posted once and eventually bought the full price of stamps and posted it. The sales assistant was encouraging Esther to steal because she couldn't see the consequences of her actions. But we must be clear, stealing is always ultimately stealing from God and is always opposed to God.
Jesus puts it like this.
“The thief’s purpose is to steal and kill and destroy. My purpose is to give life in all it’s fullness’ John 10:10
Stealing is totally opposed to fullness of life, and to God, and ultimately leads to destruction. In fact, when dealing with a bunch of issues that were plaguing the church in Ephesians Paul tackles this issue of Stealing
- Stealing – gives the devil a foothold
In Ephesians 4 v 25-26 Paul tackles the problem of lying and anger – finishing it with the phrase
‘for anger gives a mighty foothold to the devil’
We will tackle anger elsewhere in 'Don't murder', but briefly, when people revel in anger and don’t deal with it, it is as though they are leaving doors open in their heart. Doors that the devil can get his foot in and make life miserable for people. Peoples lives broken by bitterness, broken by damaged relationships and people consumed by resentment. The devil uses consistent, repetitive, undealt with sin as a foothold to influence and harm people. But don’t get me wrong. I’m not talking about spooky, occultic practices, satan worship and alike. The devil doesn’t need that to harm people, although he can use that too. All he needs is to work on people's sin and weaknesses to cause damage whilst staying invisible in the process. What is interesting, is that Paul immediately moves on to talk about stealing.
Look back at the verse from John 10v10 . Jesus isn’t really talking about any old thief. He is talking about the thief - the devil. Stealing is another way to let the devil get a foothold in your life. Many people can testify to this opening of the door leading to progressively worse stealing habits. Starting with something small and then growing and growing until it is a huge issue. The devil, the one who has stolen from the beginning, get sa foothold in someone's life.
- How should we response to stealing?
However big or small, obvious or hidden, we must respond to stealing on our lives - and Paul again tells us how.
“If you are a thief, stop stealing. Begin using your hands for honest work, and then give generously to others in need.” Ephesians 4:28
1. Stop
Let’s not beat around the bush here. If you are stealing, if you are claiming on your expenses things you are not really owed. If you are cheating on your tax return or you are wasting time at work you are being paid for. If you are not working the hours you are paid for – stop it. You are stealing, both from your employer and from God. Men, if you are stealing from your family, be men and stop it. Stop stealing.
But real repentance means more than just stopping what I’m doing. It means, changing direction.
2. Love others
Loving others will mean 2 things
A. Do honest work
Paul says, start to do honest work. Change what needs to be changed. Put a stop what needs to be stopped. Start to love others in regards to wealth and possessions. Put your hands to work in an honourable way, and then be generous to others in need. The Christian who is seeking to be obedient to God will want to do some kind of honest work. Not everyone can hold down a paid job, but we can old work in some way, whether volunteering, visiting those who are sick or just helping out those in need. Be proactive in putting right what is wrong.
B. Be Generous
The antidote to Stealing is actually generosity towards others and what that means will differ from one person to the next, dependant upon the way in which they were stealing. Remember – nothing is really ours anyway. So, how do you view your salary? How do you view the taxes you pay on your salary? How do you view the way you spend your money? How do you view the way you give? What are you going to do about it?
Responding to stealing in any form will require action. Find out what!
3. Love God
But all of this finds its origins in a love for God. Your life revolves around who or what you most love – make that a love for God. John Piper recently wrote a book called ‘When I don’t desire God’. It addresses exactly that issue – what happens when I don’t desire God? And by now we will have already seen what we must do. We return to the cross of Jesus, to see once again his grace, his goodness, his mercy and generosity towards me. And I ask him to unlock my heart to give me a love and desire for him that would drive me to love others and be generous too. Shall we do that?
1 http://www.presseditor.co.uk/PRESS%20RELEASES/VittestPR.htm
2 http://www.creditaction.org.uk/debt-statistics.html