Exodus 20:15
Introduction
I like to
plan ahead. Whether it is with my wife
and kids, or with my extended family, or with the staff of our church or other
church leaders, we will often look at our calendars together and plan ahead. Collaborating and syncing calendars and
schedules has become a lot easier with the use of computers and smart phones,
but back in the day, we would sit down with an actual calendar and write in our
plans. If something was still tentative,
you would write it with a pencil in case something changed and you needed to go
back and erase it. But once something
was firm, you would write it in pen—signifying it would not change.
God has His
plans for us too. And of all His plans,
the Ten Commandments must surely be permanent.
The Ten Commandments were written—not with pencil or pen, but—by the
very finger of God on stone tablets as a permanent record of God’s instructions.
The Commandments were placed inside the
most sacred object in ancient Israel, the famous Ark of the Covenant. They were given to the Israelites and handed
down through the generations to us today to teach us how to live a good life,
pleasing to God in a healthy community of faith.
There has
been much debate about the 10 commandments in recent years. Christians and secularist argue whether the
Commandments should be displayed in public places like schools or
courthouses. Lost in all this
controversy is the sad fact that most people in our country—including the
Christians who are most zealously in favor of displaying the Ten
Commandments—don’t even know the commandments.
All summer,
I have been challenging you to memorize the Ten Commandments. Do you know them yet? Let’s see how you do. Can you fill in the blanks in the list below? Let’s try.
The Ten Commandments:
1. Do not _______ any God except the Lord.
2. Do not ____ _____ of any kind.
3. Do not ______ the ____ of the Lord.
4. Remember to _______ the _______ ___ and keep it holy.
5. Honor your ______ and ______.
6. Do not ______.
7. Do not commit ________.
8. Do not _____.
9. Do not _______ _______ against your neighbor.
10. Do not _____.
Today we will look at
the Eighth Commandment as found in Exodus 20:15
15 “You must not steal.”
A Straight Forward Comamndment
Reputations
What about stealing someone’s reputation? Well, that’s a great question. Proverbs
22:1 – "A good name is more desirable than great riches; to be esteemed is
better than silver or gold."
A person’s
reputation is—their good name—is very valuable.
The Bible says it’s more valuable than silver or gold. Now, unless you are a thief, you probably
wouldn’t think of stealing someone’s silver or gold. However, if you talk bad about someone behind
their back you are damaging their reputation.
If you gossip, you are damaging their reputation. By damaging their reputation, you are
stealing one of their most valuable assets.
It’s like you have broken into the home and cracked open their safe and
stolen some of the gold or silver jewelry.
How
many have ever gossiped or talked about someone behind their back? You probable didn’t think of it as stealing,
but in a sense that’s what you were doing.
What does that make you? What do
you call someone who steals? A thief.
If that seems a little harsh, consider Romans 1:29, where it describes
how wicked people are. It says, “Their
lives became full of every kind of wickedness, sin, greed, hate, envy, murder,
quarreling, deception, malicious behavior, and gossip.” Notice it lists
gossip in the same company as greed, hate, and murder. If you gossip or slander or talk badly about
people behind their back, you are a thief who steals the most precious asset a
person has and you are breaking the Eighth Commandment. Stop!
Stealing from God
Here’s another great question--do we ever steal from God? Yes.
Sometimes we do. We steal from
God when we money when we do not give a proper offering to God at the church. Listen to what Malachi
3:8 says, “Should people cheat God? Yet you
have cheated me! “But you ask, ‘What do
you mean? When did we ever cheat you?’ “You
have cheated me of the tithes and offerings due to me.”
John Wesley, the founder of the Methodist movement, said
it this way: “Do you not know
that God entrusted you with that money (all above what buys necessities for
your families) to feed the hungry, to clothe the naked, to help the stranger,
the widow, the fatherless; and, indeed, as far as it will go, to relieve the
wants of all mankind? How can you, how dare you, defraud the Lord, by applying
it to any other purpose?”
We must
always remember that the money we have is not really ours to do with as we please. It belongs to God, along with everything we
have and even our lives. The basic
financial principle about giving throughout Scripture is that you should give
10% of your income to God through the church.
This is the same principle Jesus taught his disciples to follow. Really, if we are Christians and have given
our lives to God, we have already chosen to give up everything for him. So we are not giving just 10%, but 100%. Fortunately, God allows us to keep 90% for ourselves
and place 10% in our offerings at the church.
However, according
to research in 2012 by the Barna Group[i],
only 12% of born again Christians in America qualify as tithers. (That is, the total amount they give to the
church divided by their household income was 10% or more). That means out of every 100 Christians, only
12 are actually tithers. The rest are
stealing from God.
And what
is the result of this? Churches all over
America are anemic, weak, underfunded, under maintained, and do not have the
resources they need to do all the ministries God wants us to do.
And we
really have no excuse. We live in one of the
most prosperous nations in the world.
According to UN reports[ii],
nearly half the world’s population lives on less than $2 per day. The median US household income is around $138
per day (or $50,500 per year) and yet we still think we cannot afford to give a proper tithe as God
asks.
Conclusion
Now,
I command you, in the name of the Lord, to stop stealing! Ephesians 4:28 says, “If you are a
thief, quit stealing. Instead, use your hands for good hard work, and then give
generously to others in need.” James 2:10 says, “For the person who keeps all of the laws
except one is as guilty as a person who has broken all of God’s laws.”
When we think we are righteous or better than others, the Ten
Commandments point out that we are all guilty of breaking God’s law. In our hearts, we are murderers, adulterous,
thieves. We are sinners. And Romans 6:23 says, “The consequences of
sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our
Lord.”
So let me end by inviting you to stop, turn away from your sin, and ask Jesus to
forgive and save you. Take hold of the
power of the Holy Spirit that you might live a new life according to God’s
will.
