Stealing
Notes
Transcript
Sermon Text
Sermon Text
Exodus 20:15 (ESV)
15 “You shall not steal.
How many of you have ever stolen before?
If so, can you count on your hand the times in which you did? Do you remember where you were when you stole what you stole? Do you remember what you stole?
For most of us, it was a pretty memorable moment because it’s not something that we seemingly do everyday.
In fact, it’s so infrequent like murder, that some of you watching may be asking is a sermon on stealing even necessary?
The answer is yes because like all the other commandments before us, there is much to learn.
We are in the home stretch of our series on the Ten Commandments. The final three commandments. As we discussed before, the first four commandments are mainly about God: How we view him, worship him, and love him. And the last 6 are mainly about our neighbors, how we relate to them, treat them, and love them
But as we have discovered over the last couple of weeks even those commandments about neighbor return back to God. This commandment is now different.
What is the commandment!
YOU SHALL NOT STEAL.
This morning I want to ask a few questions?
What is stealing?
Why does stealing matter?
What is the remedy/solution for the thief?
What is stealing?
What is stealing?
steal
verb
to take (something) without right and with an intent to keep
Stealing is a lot more extensive than just armed robbery. We know that of course armed robbery is bad but stealing can manifest itself in a host of different ways because it is simply taking something that does not belong to you with the intent of keeping it.
Stealing is not necessarily about value: The severity of the punishment may be but whether it we define it as stealing or not has little to do with value.
What we often do in stealing is we try to rate it. I mean sure I might claim dependents on my taxes that aren’t really my dependents but I’m not running with Ocean’s Eleven, right? I’m not pulling off some grand casino heist.
I may plug in to my neighbors cable or buy a few bootleg movies here or there but this ain’t Inside Man or Den of Thieves where I’m performing some extravagant bank heist.
Really what’s interesting about stealing as a commandment is how hard we work to try and disqualify the value of a thing in order to justify our stealing of that thing.
However, the act of stealing is simply taking something without the right to take it with the intent to keep it. And truly we all understand this. In fact, we connect with it at an instinctive level.
Think about the lessons we teach our children: When you go into a store and your child reaches for an item (a toy car, a pack of gum, a soda), what do you tell them if you have no intent to pay for it? PUT THAT BACK!
You don’t tell your child, “well it doesn’t cost that much! Go ahead, kid. Put it in your pocket. Let’s get out of here! :-D”
We know that it is not right because we know that it is wrong to take what does not belong to you. Even small amounts.
Stealing is also not necessarily about an object that we can actually touch.
Stealing can be the taking of intellectual property: the taking of a person’s ideas, a person’s research, or even using somebody else’s writings without giving them credit (otherwise known as plagiarism). All of these things are considered stealing because it is taking something that does not belong to us even if it is in someone else’s head rather than their pockets.
Also, stealing is not about force
Some of the largest crimes of theft in my generation were anything but what we would call strong arm robberies.
ENRON: Was an energy company that was caught cooking the books back in early 2000. Their CEO spent 12 years in prison on 12 counts of fraud, conspiracy, and insider trading. Enron’s investors lost over $70B dollars. Enron’s employees lost BILLIONS of dollars in retirement and pension funds.
This was STEALING!
Bernie Madoff was charged in 2008 for cooking the books of his investment firm and defrauding his investors of over $50B. He was sentenced to 150 years in prison. He never put a gun to anyone’s head. And yet…
This was STEALING!
Martin Luther once spoke of this kind of theft. He called them “gentlemen swindlers or big operators. Far from being picklocks and sneak-thieves who loot a cash box, they sit in office chairs and are called great lords and honorable, good citizens, and yet with a great show of legality they rob and steal.”
Small or large, Forceful or non-forceful, material or immaterial, stealing is taking something that we don’t have a right to and keeping it for ourselves.
Stealing isn’t even always about what’s legal or illegal in place. Take for example: Pharmaceuticals
Studies have shown that it cost companies less than $30 to make the EPI-Pen but they charged over $300 each in the US. All while Australians paid $37 for one. They of course were called in by the US Congress to discuss their price gouging tactics but even if they got no attention from Congress and it was considered A-OK by US officials, It still wouldn’t necessarily be considered biblically and morally right.
One theologian again rightly cites Martin Luther in discussing these more complicated examples of stealing. Luther said that we violate this commandment whenever we “tak[e] advantage of our neighbor in any sort of dealing that results in loss to him.”
The Bible helps us make sense of this in several places. One such place is Leviticus 6:
Leviticus 6:1-3 (ESV)
6 The Lord spoke to Moses, saying, 2 “If anyone sins and commits a breach of faith against the Lord by deceiving his neighbor in a matter of deposit or security, or through robbery, or if he has oppressed his neighbor 3 or has found something lost and lied about it, swearing falsely—in any of all the things that people do and sin thereby—
BREACH OF FAITH
Deceiving Neighbor in a matter of deposit/security - Bernie Madoff
Robbery - Den of Thieves/Ocean’s Eleven; Taking something from a store
Oppression - This can take the form of stealing a person’s labor or short changing them for work. Oppressive stealing can be paying an obscenely low amount of money for a job.
Found a lost item and did not return it asked - In fact, this is what the Lord says about the concept of losing and finding something:
Deuteronomy 22:1–3 (ESV)
Various Laws
22 “You shall not see your brother’s ox or his sheep going astray and ignore them. You shall take them back to your brother. 2 And if he does not live near you and you do not know who he is, you shall bring it home to your house, and it shall stay with you until your brother seeks it. Then you shall restore it to him. 3 And you shall do the same with his donkey or with his garment, or with any lost thing of your brother’s, which he loses and you find; you may not ignore it.
In other words it is not a blessing when you find something of value without at first at least making some attempt to find the owner. I’m not saying that will always be possible. For example, if you find a $20 bill in the middle of a public square and you didn’t happen to see who dropped it and nobody is around to claim it, that’s a different matter altogether...BUT having a $1000 dollars show up in your account by accident due to a banking error and then instead of reporting the error you hurry to withdraw the money before anyone notices IS NOT A BLESSING FROM GOD. It is STEALING!
Deceiving a neighbor on investments and deposits, robbing a neighbor, oppressing a neighbor, and not returning lost items to a neighbor are all considered stealing and the Lord groups all of these offenses together.
They carry the same aroma: Exploitation, taking advantage of another, lying, cheating, and destroying someone for our own financial benefit…
They are all stealing, just different types. Doesn’t matter if it's white collar or blue collar theft. Doesn’t matter if it is theft by force or theft by con or jive. It is stealing and considered by the Lord.
Alright, here is another question: Why is stealing bad? What makes it such a terrible thing?
Why is stealing bad?
Why is stealing bad?
Stealing is ultimately an offense to God before it is an offense to anyone else.
When we talk about David and Bathsheba, we often describe affair in terms of mutual and consensual. What we fail to understand is how much power the King possessed and how little a woman like Bathsheba and a man like Uriah would have possessed.
In fact, when he’s confront, Nathan the prophet doesn’t use an example of sexual immorality. He uses an example of theft. Like a oppressive ruler who many sheep taking one sheep from a poor man, so is King David in taking Uriah’s wife.
And how does David view that death????
4 Against you, you only, have I sinned
and done what is evil in your sight,
so that you may be justified in your words
and blameless in your judgment.
David realizes his theft of this man’s wife is against a holy God.
Stealing shows contempt for those created in the image of God and given his provision...When we steal from others, we declare that they are not worthy of what they’ve been given and God is not wise and/or good for giving it to them.
This is why God gives harsh words to the thief...
Micah 2:1–3 (ESV)
Woe to the Oppressors
2 Woe to those who devise wickedness
and work evil on their beds!
When the morning dawns, they perform it,
because it is in the power of their hand.
2 They covet fields and seize them,
and houses, and take them away;
they oppress a man and his house,
a man and his inheritance.
3 Therefore thus says the Lord:
behold, against this family I am devising disaster,
from which you cannot remove your necks,
and you shall not walk haughtily,
for it will be a time of disaster.
But it is not merely show contempt towards God…look at Lev 6 again...
6 The Lord spoke to Moses, saying, 2 “If anyone sins and commits a breach of faith against the Lord by deceiving his neighbor in a matter of deposit or security, or through robbery, or if he has oppressed his neighbor 3 or has found something lost and lied about it, swearing falsely—in any of all the things that people do and sin thereby—
Breach of Faith…
10 Put no trust in extortion;
set no vain hopes on robbery;
if riches increase, set not your heart on them.
What’s the SOLUTION to STEALING?
What’s the SOLUTION to STEALING?
Leviticus 6:4-7 (ESV)
4 if he has sinned and has realized his guilt and will restore what he took by robbery or what he got by oppression or the deposit that was committed to him or the lost thing that he found 5 or anything about which he has sworn falsely, he shall restore it in full and shall add a fifth to it, and give it to him to whom it belongs on the day he realizes his guilt. 6 And he shall bring to the priest as his compensation to the Lord a ram without blemish out of the flock, or its equivalent, for a guilt offering. 7 And the priest shall make atonement for him before the Lord, and he shall be forgiven for any of the things that one may do and thereby become guilty.”
Restitution Fully Plus Interest (20%) - Right with Neighbor
Ram without Blemish out of the flock or an equivalent - Right with God
You don’t right corruption that comes from theft, oppression, deceit, or cheating by simply ceasing the corruption. You right the corrupt act by ceasing the corruption and then bringing restitution to the one who you wronged.
A great example of this is the story of Zaccheus
Luke 19:1–10 (ESV)
Jesus and Zacchaeus
19 He entered Jericho and was passing through. 2 And behold, there was a man named Zacchaeus. He was a chief tax collector and was rich. 3 And he was seeking to see who Jesus was, but on account of the crowd he could not, because he was small in stature. 4 So he ran on ahead and climbed up into a sycamore tree to see him, for he was about to pass that way. 5 And when Jesus came to the place, he looked up and said to him, “Zacchaeus, hurry and come down, for I must stay at your house today.” 6 So he hurried and came down and received him joyfully. 7 And when they saw it, they all grumbled, “He has gone in to be the guest of a man who is a sinner.” 8 And Zacchaeus stood and said to the Lord, “Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor. And if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I restore it fourfold.” 9 And Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, since he also is a son of Abraham. 10 For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.”
Not only do we learn what restitution is and how connected it is to true repentance, but we learn that the opposite of stealing is not merely to stop stealing but it is to be generous.
Zaccheus after his encounter with Jesus doesn’t only feel the need to return back what he owes with radical restitution. He immediately realizes how much he has hoarded that he could have shared.
You see each one of these commandments has a positive side that we need to see as well.
Do Not Murder -> Value ALL LIFE (Unborn lives, minority lives, immigrant lives, poor lives, priivlleged lives, imprisoned lives) in other words don’t live with contempt towards anyone.
Do Not Disobey Your Parents/Guardians -> Honor your father and mother (hold them in high regard and esteem, value their counsel, appreciate their contributions to your life)
Do Not Commit Adultery -> Cherish your spouse, Respect and cherish the covenant of others.
Do Not Steal -> Do not take what you don’t have a right to; give what is rightfully yours. Don’t rob from others; Be GENEROUS to others!
Take a listen to what Paul says in Ephesians 4
Ephesians 4:28 (ESV)
28 Let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labor, doing honest work with his own hands, so that he may have something to share with anyone in need.
Again, we see the ultimate shift is from theft to generosity.
Stop stealing things you have no right to and start working so you give what is rightfully yours to those in need!
How many of you have ever stolen before? Yes and probably far more than we actually acknowledged at the beginning of this sermon.