Either Way It’s Not Yours (Part 2)
Exodus 20:15
The eighth commandment reveals in a few words how God views "this world’s
goods" and our attitude toward them. How are we doing as His managers?
1. Ownership
2. Stewardship
"Looking after"
"Leaving alone"
"Loving others"
Proverbs 3
9 Honor the Lord from your wealth, and from the first of all your produce.
10 So your barns will be filled with plenty, and your vats will overflow with new
wine.
Ephesians 4:28
Let him who steals steal no longer; but rather let him labor, performing with his own
hands what is good, in order that he may have something to share with him who has need.
Exodus 20:15
You shall not steal.
The first time I went to do jail ministry, I was nervous. The jailer had told us we
would be talking to this fellow who was a thief. He had just knocked off the Safeway store
in Lewistown, Montana. I was a little nervous waiting for him to come in to the room. I
was with a friend. The thief probably weighed 120 pounds; he was just a scared, skinny,
nervous kid.
We got to talking and I tried to turn the conversation around to spiritual things.
"Have you ever read the Bible?," I said to him. He said he was reading the
Bible, but he was pretty discouraged. He started reading in the book of Genesis and got
through Exodus and into Leviticus and realized that God is not too pleased with thieves
and figured he was in a lot of trouble. My counsel to him was that he really needed to
keep reading because not only does God have a remedy for his problems, but Jesus was
crucified between a couple thieves and one of them met Him in glory that day.
People have misconceptions in Scripture about stealing. Just like this young man in the
Fergus County jail years go who didn’t go far enough, sometimes I’m not sure we
do either in understanding what the issues really are.
The Bible says "You shall not steal." That’s pretty clear and pretty
simple and actually pretty short. But then the Bible goes on to the Law of the Old
Testament. The Ten Commandments are the core of the other 600 plus. Those flesh out the
Ten. What we see in this one is perhaps a bit of a surprise.
We first learn that the grounds for everything is based on the fact that God is the one
who owns everything. The minute we forget that and start thinking that it is ours, we are
on our way to committing theft of one sort or another. It is not ours. God is the designer
and the creator. God is the sustainer and God also has demolition rights to that which
only He owns. He is the owner. That is His rightful place.
We move from there to where we will be today. Our proper place is that of stewardship
or that of being a manager. I broke this down into three different compartments. That
helps me understand things. Stewardship or management; that is, we are looking after -- we
are managing. Secondly, we are leaving alone -- that is, respecting other’s stuff.
Third, with our possessions, our things, we are loving others. Managing, respecting, and
caring. That is a proper attitude and approach toward the possessions with which God
entrusts us.
Our proper place is that of stewardship. When we overstep as managers and consider
ourselves owners, when we take over regarding property whether supposedly ours or someone
else’s, we are flirting with thievery.
As I mentioned, the eighth commandment as one of the Ten is developed in Scripture.
There is more to "Thou shall not steal" than Exodus 20:15. There is more to it
than lifting somebody’s wallet or knocking off the Safeway store. It is a broader,
deeper issue than that. The Ten Commandments reflect not only what God wants, but at a
deeper level, who God is. This commandment informs us that God is the owner, creator,
sustainer, renovator. He is the owner.
We are, first of all, to look after His stuff. We are to be managers of that which He
has created and which He sustains. We are managers. I’ll read a few verses out of the
first chapter of Genesis.
26 God said, "Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let
them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over
all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.
The true environmentalists are those who take God’s commands seriously to manage
well. It is a biblical mandate, not a political one. We cannot quite escape that.
God blessed the couple, man and woman, created in His image. He focused His favor.
28 And God blessed them; and God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply, and
fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the
sky, and over every living thing that moves on the earth."
29 Then God said, "Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on
the surface of all the earth, and every tree which has fruit yielding seed; it shall be
food for you;
I have given you every beast and every bird and everything He says over and over again.
We are managers foundationally before God. This includes dominion and wise care over what
God has entrusted to us. That will vary, depending on who you are, where you live, what
you do, your sphere of influence. Whatever it is God has entrusted to us, He expects us to
treat it as His and to manage it wisely, to be resourceful, to be smart, and to be
God-centered in the whole thing.
Primarily, we are talking about physical things, treasures. "God control my time,
my treasures, and my talent." We sometimes can get quite cavalier about that
statement, but it is quite true. Our treasures, like the house we live in, whether we rent
from the landlord or we rent from the mortgage company, or live in it until the government
wants it, we are to take care of it.
Christians ought to be biblical about that, but not just about our stuff. Also, about
ourselves, who God has made us to be, what He has given us by way of time and how we spend
it, by way of health and how we enhance it or don’t, the abilities that we have. I
personally draw a distinction between spiritual gifting from God and abilities God gives
us to do things.
I remember my dear friend Buzz, who went to be with Jesus. Buzz had come to faith as a
young man after having played a trumpet in the honky tonk. He was so convicted about
playing that trumpet. He had ability with it. He had trouble detaching his ability with
the trumpet in the honky tonk to doing anything else with it. We had to work to convince
him it’s ok, God has given you this ability, use it for Him.
Let’s talk for a minute about money. Jesus said something pretty convicting,
"Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also." Where our treasure is,
the heart always follows, always. What we are thinking, what we are pondering, how we are
choosing, deciding, prioritizing, going and spending. Our heart always follows our
treasure.
A pastor in a city not all that far from where we live, at one point having been in his
church for quite a while, realized that he had yet to speak on the subject of tithing.
Tithing is 10 percent off the top to the church. He announced one Sunday to his
congregation that the next four Sundays he was going to be pursuing the topic of tithing,
and he did. Sunday came, he preached on tithing. The second Sunday came, he preached on
tithing.
The guys on the board got together after that and said we’d better talk. These
guys got together and each said I have a little trouble about this tithing talk. He seems
pretty serious about wanting us to tithe. He’s talked about it twice and he’s
threatening to go two more. What do you think we ought to do? Well, I will if you will.
Shall we tithe, gentlemen? So for the next two Sundays these guys in the church started to
tithe and the church budget went poof! Why? They were giving way more than 10 percent and
they didn’t need him to tell them and it was not theirs; it was God’s.
That 10 percent figure is an interesting one. Where it came from requires more than we
are at liberty to pursue in our time together. Here is the verse I like, Proverbs 3:
"Honor the Lord from your wealth," I believe the Authorized Version says
"from your substance" and with the first fruit of all of your increase."
Honor the Lord and He will take care of you. I like that because that doesn’t limit
anybody. It doesn’t put an amount or a percentage. It simply says what would be
honoring. Ten percent -- honor God with it. Ninety percent-- honor God with it. Why?
Because it is all His and giving is not a business transaction where we sit down and shave
off a portion. It is not supposed to be that way because God owns it all. It’s
management. It’s stewardship that we are dealing with in this case.
I have three guidelines for giving. I think first of all that it should be regular,
somehow measured out. Why? For planning purposes. It helps us plan as givers. It helps
those to whom we are giving plan. I think it ought to be regular. I Corinthians 16:1
indicates that would be true, as well as all the giving that was mentioned in the Old
Testament was on schedule. I think there is a reason for that.
Secondly, sacrificial. If it is God’s, give it to Him. If it hurts it’s ok.
He can make up the difference. Here is the painful part. The story of Jesus in the temple,
He sees this lady put in her last penny. She throws her last cent into the offering plate.
What is interesting to me is what Jesus did not do. He didn’t go over and say,
"Lady, don’t do that. You need that." No, He didn’t stop her at all
because Jesus knows, as owner of all things, that He is fully capable of taking care of
this lady. He let her give sacrificially. If we are not giving in some sense sacrificially
it could be an indication of our heart condition.
Third, give willingly. II Corinthians 9 tells us that every man as he purposes in his
heart so let him give, not grudgingly or of necessity because God loves a cheerful giver.
It is a worshipful giving. Lord, this is yours, I give it back to You. Somewhere along the
line somebody came up with 10 percent needs to go to the church. I didn’t see that in
the Bible. It goes to God. He will take it from there.
We manage. We look after that which God has entrusted to us.
Leaving alone
Secondly, leaving alone. This has to do with respect for God and for other people. This
is predominately the impression we get from the Commandment, "You shall not
steal." Don’t take what is not yours. Keep your hands off that which God has not
entrusted to you. Leave it be. Be respectful.
Perhaps the greatest thinker, philosopher, and theologian of the early church was Saint
Augustine, who became Bishop of Hippo in North Africa, an extremely influential saint in
the early days of the church. Augustine had a mother who was a Christian and he was a
pagan. As a matter of fact, he reveled in his pagandom. His mother, thankfully, prayed for
her son who was just running wild.
One night he was with his friends running wild. They were carousing about and making
their way through the residential neighborhoods, doing things I’m sure none of us
would relate to when they spied over the fence in a yard a pear tree. The pears were ripe.
The guys said let’s steal that lady’s pears. Over the fence they went, ran over
to the pear tree, stealing pears, running away.
That theft event turned out to be the catalyst for the conversion of Augustine because
he got to thinking about what he had done. His mother had been praying for him. He knew
this was a violation of the eighth commandment and it bothered him. "Augustine, why
did you steal those pears?", he said to himself. The reason he was so tormented and
the reason he was brought face to face with his fallen sin nature was because he had to
confess he didn’t even like pears. He stole them anyway. He stole them to steal them.
That act was used by God to smite conviction into the heart of a man who would become a
famous and influential saint. Augustine had a God-given sense, and so do we, that theft is
wrong. If it is not ours, we leave it be.
A gentleman in the book of Joshua learned this lesson the hard way. His name was Achan.
Achan stole. That was his sin. Remember that the children of Israel crossed the Jordan
River into the Promised Land and had to take out Jericho. God had sanctioned it, placed it
under the ban and said everything in that city is Mine, keep your hands off. He placed it
under the ban. He said you steal, you die. Achan stole, and at his trial here was his
confession. It is recorded in Joshua chapter 7.
20So Achan answered Joshua and said, "Truly, I have sinned against the LORD,
the God of Israel, and this is what I did:
21when I saw among the spoil a beautiful mantle from Shinar [Babylon] and two hundred
shekels of silver and a bar of gold fifty shekels in weight, then I coveted them
In other words, the process went from my eyes to my heart and I wanted them. Up to this
point he would have been ok if he had just kept walking. He should have confessed his
coveting to God. But by an act of his will he chose to take what was not his. He did not
just take from somebody else. When you are among the spoil, I suppose it’s pretty
easy in the wake of a battle to think this stuff doesn’t belong to anybody. Soldiers
have plundered and looted in many cultures through many wars for many years. But in this
case this is God’s stuff and He keeps a fairly careful inventory.
and took them; and behold, they are concealed in the earth inside my tent with the
silver underneath it."
He steals a lot of stuff. This is not something you just put in your pocket. I would
suggest he had some help and I would imagine the family was wondering why he was digging a
hole in the floor. They all paid for it, but that’s the process. It helps us see that
theft doesn’t stand alone as sin. These commandments seem to dovetail together.
Several sins are in view here. First he covets. Then he took it -- the theft itself. He
covets from his heart, he shows he has forgotten his place. That’s the core of theft.
I see something I want and then I forget my place. It somehow, some way, from somewhere
enters into my thick head that I can own something. It can be mine. My interests now, as
an individual, come first. I want it. I’m taking it. Suddenly now, it is all about
me. What have I done? Not only coveted, but I have forgotten my rightful place as a
manager. I step outside the job of Christian steward and I decide to become an owner. Now
I not only have trouble with the Tenth Commandment and the Eighth Commandment, but now I
am bumping up against the First Commandment, because when I decide to become an owner and
God is already the owner I am trying to nudge Him aside.
He said you shall have no other gods besides Me. No other shall take head of line
privileges to Me. But when I steal I decide it is not God’s. I decide it’s mine
and I commit treason as well as theft and coveting. I have taken His place and I have also
interfered with someone else’s responsibility as a steward. God gave that item to
another to use, not me. Who am I to take what God has given to another person? It’s
not right.
Theft has been with us since the beginning, it seems. People clamor to take God’s
place, to take what is not ours. It’s interesting how the Bible anticipates theft.
You shall not steal is one direct expression of that, but it’s interesting that the
biblical response to theft from a legal standpoint is we lock him up. The Bible
doesn’t talk about imprisonment for theft. The Bible talks about restitution for
theft. Not paying my debt to society, that’s far to vague. If somebody steals my
money, I want my money back.
A couple of interesting points in Scripture. I’ll read some verses from Exodus 22.
Restitution is what is required in Exodus 22:7. It says if it is stolen, the thief has to
pay back double. So the amount I am actually trying to gain as a thief, I end up losing. I
don’t just pay back what I took; I’m supposed to pay back double so that I feel
the pinch of the law. Predictably that will leave an impression on my checkbook, on my
heart, on my mind, on my home. Restitution -- pay it back double, and I’ll bet the
thief thinks double before trying to steal again.
Interestingly as well, restitution is required in case of theft except if someone tries
to steal another person. We call that kidnapping. If someone tries to steal an individual
created in the image of God it is a personal affront to the maker of all. Kidnapping is a
capital offense in Scripture. You don’t steal people!
Loving others
So theft involves looking after, management, leaving alone -- that is, keeping your
hands off, and finally, the most overlooked dimension of this Commandment is that of
loving others, or caring about others. You know the story of Ruth in the Bible, how it is
that Ruth and her mother-in-law Naomi are destitute, having left the land of Moab as
widows, they journeyed back to the west up the hill to Bethlehem with very little to show
for their time away and without any welfare or social programs whatsoever. There they
were, destitute. Ruth, being the younger and the more able bodied of the two went to work
in the fields. By God’s gracious providence she landed in the right field, the field
of Boaz. This was the time of harvest. It was good timing. The hired people were given
clear instructions by Boaz to leave a lot of the grain lie on the ground and let the
destitute have it.
This is the positive statement of "You shall not steal." You also shall care
for others who are without with the goods God entrusts you. Boaz exemplified that
beautifully and actually got himself a wife out of the deal. As a result of that -- this
is why the Bible includes the story -- we have King David. As a result of that we have
Jesus the Messiah. So it’s a beautiful story. Boaz’s point was trying to honor
God’s command here. You shall not steal doesn’t stop with ok, don’t touch
it. You shall not steal goes beyond that into the realm of the positive saying help others
out with your stuff. Care about other people with your stuff.
Leviticus 19
9'Now when you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap to the very corners of
your field, nor shall you gather the gleanings of your harvest.
Don’t you be a tightwad! Don’t you run around picking up every little head of
grain and squirreling it away. It’s not yours, remember. God is saying it’s Mine
and I am telling you to leave what is mine where I tell you to leave it.
10'Nor shall you glean your vineyard, nor shall you gather the fallen fruit of your
vineyard; you shall leave them for the needy and for the stranger. I am the LORD your God.
When the boys were little we had a book called "Selfish Sue."
Selfish Sue, Selfish Sue
With toys of every kind
You never share, you never share
You say, ‘These are all mine.’
Selfish Sue with face so blue
The Bible says be kind
Share your toys with girls and boys
And then your face will shine
The point is as managers, as stewards, it is not enough just to keep your hands off
stuff. It is incumbent upon God’s people to be inclined to give to others and to
share particularly when there is need. It is the Eighth Commandment stated positively.
The book of Ephesians was not written only to Jewish people who sat around reading the
Old Testament. A good many Ephesians were from a Gentile background and pagan backgrounds
and they were thieves. In those types of cultures, thievery was not that big a deal, kind
of like in our culture, until you get caught. This is why Paul says when you put on Christ
you have to do more than just quit doing the bad stuff, you better take on the good stuff.
The putting off and putting on is the process of sanctification and growing in the Lord
so he talks about he who steals, let him steal no longer. Quit your theft, of course. But
don’t just quit your theft. Replace it with what is good. Let him who stole steal no
longer but rather let him labor. Get constructive. Why? Just so you can pay your bills?
More than that.
Ephesians 4:28
He who steals must steal no longer; but rather he must
labor, performing with his own hands what is good, so that he will have something to share
with one who has need.
Take it the other direction, the Bible is saying there.
In Deuteronomy 22, an interesting elaboration of the eighth Commandment awaits us:
1"You shall not see your countryman's ox or his sheep straying away, and pay no
attention to them; you shall certainly bring them back to your countryman.
2"If your countryman is not near you, or if you do not know him, then you shall
bring it home to your house, and it shall remain with you until your countryman looks for
it; then you shall restore it to him.
Do the same thing with his donkey, the same thing with his garment, with anything lost
by your countryman. Help him out. You are not allowed to neglect him.
4"You shall not see your countryman's donkey or his ox fallen down on the way,
and pay no attention to them; you shall certainly help him to raise them up.
We get the picture. You’re not only not going to steal it, you are going to help
him out with it. There is a tremendous difference between the two.
We help people or we should be. We do help people as a church. We should be helping as
individual believers because of this very principle. Because we are not the owners, we are
the managers. We manage well and wisely. We are to leave others stuff alone. And we are to
love others by caring for them.
We are not the owners. Not only that, the Bible says we are not our own either. Nor are
our possessions our own. We and our stuff all belong to Him. Paul said to the Corinthians
your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you. You are not your own. I like that.
You are a lot better if Jesus owns.
You are not your own. You have been bought with a price. He built it. He bought it.
It’s His.