Sermon Tone Analysis

Attention Getter:

Stealing Software Story

Introduction:

Exodus 20:15, the 8th commandment, “You shall not steal”.

No footnotes, no lengthy commentary, no wiggle room.

You shall not steal.

Opening Prayer

Our mighty God and Heavenly Father we turn to you, very conscious that apart from you we can do nothing.

Conscious that we are prone to wonder.

Therefor we pray that you would send the Holy Spirit to soften our hearts to hear from you this morning.

May we also be conscious that all we do, is for your glory and not our own.

Hear us, we humbly pray to you our Father, in Jesus name.

Amen.

If you go to the average person (Christian or not) and you ask, "Should anyone ever steal from you?" “No one should ever steal from me ever.

That's my right.”

Do you know you have a responsibility not to steal from anyone?

"Well, you know, there's circumstances--my life is hard.

You don't understand."

We should say, “I have a right not to be stolen from AND a responsibility not to steal from others."

And what starts to undermine an entire culture is when people are far more committed to their rights than their responsibilities and getting what they think they should get, rather than giving generously what God wants them to give.

We all here have stolen!

At first, we steal our parent’s hearts.

Then a cookie from the kitchen, a pencil from a classmate, money from someone’s change jar, we have stolen time at work, fudged on our taxes, and downloaded something we had no rights to.

I want you to momentarily think about the areas in your life where you have stolen in the past, and are tempted to steal today.

*PAUSE*

So, the question is not if you are tempted to steal, but when are you tempted to steal – will you instead pursue a path of integrity?

The question of why people steal is explained by sociologists using a theft triangle.

According to this concept, theft occurs when three elements are present: (1) Desire, (2) Opportunity, and (3) Justification.

1. Hey - there it is.

It looks good and I want it.

2. I can get away with it.

3. It’s someone’s fault that I don’t have it.

That’s EXACTLY HOW Genesis 3 went down!

1. Hey, there’s some fruit!

2. I want that fruit!

Ignore all the fruit I already have.

THIS fruit is the source of all goodness.

3. It’s God’s fault I don’t have the fruit.

The human equation never really changes, does it?

That being said, I have a list of ways that we steal.

I'm sure it's not an exhaustive list, however, let me just give it to you so you have some concept of how deep and how broad the problem is, SO that we see it as God sees it.

Just for a moment, consider the following:

These would constitute stealing:

shoplifting,

underpaying your taxes,

filing false insurance claims,

false billing clients and/or false billing an employer,

misusing company funds,

killing time at work,

not paying your employees a fair wage,

taking supplies and/or stocked goods and items from your employer,

plagiarism,

illegal downloads, etc.

Psalm 26:1 (ESV)

Vindicate me, O Lord,

for I have walked in my integrity,

and I have trusted in the Lord without wavering.

It damages the reputation of the Gospel of Jesus Christ when those who fly the Jesus flag don't have integrity when it comes to the issue of money.

They raise their hands, they sing their songs, take notes from the sermon, but when they come to the proverbial fork in the road, they're takers, not givers.

SOLUTION (SCORRE):

Psalm 7:8

The LORD judges the people.

Judge me, O LORD, according to my righteousness

and according to the integrity that is in me.

We all desire to be men and women of God with unwavering integrity so let’s look at our integrity in a few key areas.

Integrity in the workplace

Killing time at work:

A survey by Salary.com

found that 89% of workers admitted to wasting time at work every day.

Of these people, 61% claim to waste between 30 minutes to an hour a day.

While this may not seem like much, it can add up to 5 hours a week or 260 hours a year - per employee.

1 DONUT SHORT EXAMPLE

Stealing goods/services from your employer

10-10-80 rule: 10% will never steal, 10% will steal as soon as the opportunity presents itself, 80% will go either way.

Business owners are more fearful of the staff stealing than the customers.

They are aware that more theft goes out the back door than the front.

False billing of hours for client or employee

Have you been deceitful when it comes to billable hours?

Have you billed a client for 1 hour when it took 15 minutes?

Have you had a co-worker edit your timecard to benefit you (showing up late, leaving early)?

Have you changed the price for an item or service depending on the customer?

Oh, “Pastor Dan” is here, he’s loaded!

Have you seen his house?

He can afford a bit extra.

So, God’s blessing on Dan’s life has caused jealousy in you, discontentment with God being a Sovereign God, and a justification for stealing from this fictional “Pastor Dan”.

Feeling convicted yet?

Okay… Let’s look at our homes.

Integrity at home

Proverbs 20:7

The righteous who walks in his integrity—

blessed are his children after him!

What in your home is stolen?

Close your eyes and allow the Holy Spirit to bring to your mind’s eye, the items that you have stolen.

*PAUSE*

Do you have pirated music, movies, and games?

Do you have things in your possession that you borrowed and never returned?

“Well, they moved away”.

Okay, contact them, apologize, and pay them for it.

Have you taken anything from a member of your family without consent?

Money, clothes, tools, treat food (our home), really really good left-overs?