You Shall Not Steal
The eighth commandment, “You shall not steal,” is another simple, straightforward commandment we’ve all heard before. It’s the same kind of universal law as “Do not murder” and “Do not commit adultery” — of course we know do not steal.
But then, like we’ve been finding with this second table of the Ten Commandments, each of these commandments look simple — but they’re like the little stray thread on your jacket that when you start to pull it, it just keeps going and going.
In their broader, fuller, and truest sense each of these commandments are rooted in foundational truths that create all kinds of implications for how we live, and by that they envision the best possibilities for humanity, and by that they display the wisdom of God.
God is wise in how he tells us to live, and that’s especially the case in the eighth commandment: “You shall not steal.”
And this morning we’re going to look at five things the Bible teaches us in relation to this commandment, and since there are five things, the outline of the sermon is sort of like a play: there are five different acts that I want us to see. Each of these five acts are connected and tied together, and as a whole they give us a vision for how to think about our relationship to goods and wealth. Because that’s the main theme of the eighth commandment.
This commandment is ultimately all about our relationship to goods and wealth, and our responsibility in that relationship to be just and generous. That’s the big, over-arching, main idea of “You shall not steal” and before we get into it more, I’d like to pray again for God’s help.
Father, in this moment please send your Spirit to open wide our hearts and help us to receive what you have for us today. Your Spirit must be our teacher. In Jesus’s name, amen.
ACT 1: Respect the reality of property ownership.
Before this commandment is going to really make sense to us we need to establish the foundational truth beneath this commandment: it’s that humans can own things. The eighth commandment presupposes the right to private property, which means, there is a distinction between what belongs to you and what belongs to someone else.
Now the caveat here is that everything, in its most ultimate sense, belongs to God. God is the ultimate owner of all created things and he has the ultimate authority over all created things. And God has given us each distinct and personal ownership of created things for which we are individually accountable — and we’re going to come back to this — but in short, we need to know that God has made a world where humans really own things.
Here’s an example: Everyday I walk around in a pair of shoes that, under God, are my shoes. Everybody hear that? These are my shoes. God has made the world such that I can honestly say that. Under God, these shoes are my shoes. I can give them to you; I can loan them to you; but you cannot just take them because they are not yours, they are mine.
Now again, ultimately, everything belongs to God, including my shoes, but under him, also, our shoes and other things can actually belong to us. And if that wasn’t true then the eighth commandment would not make any sense.
“You shall not steal” means do not take things without the owner’s consent, and that of course requires that there is such a thing as owners and those owners have authority. This is foundational. We need to establish this from the start. It seems simple, but it’s important. There is such a thing as private property. Under God, humans own things.
ACT 2: Recognize the stewardship required of owners.
So to say that humans own things is true of every human.
The eighth commandment in its narrow sense is about goods and wealth, but in a broader sense this is about personal responsibility. To be human is to be a responsible agent. It means you’re an owner, first of yourself, of your character and behavior, and then of the things outside of yourself that have been given to you — and that’s our main focus this morning.
We’re talking about the things given to you, and I’m saying “given” on purpose, because that’s how we come to own things. Ultimately everything we own has been given to us, no matter how hard we worked for them.
At a functional, superficial level, the most just societies in the world are meritocracies. That means that the harder you work and the more skilled and competent you become, the better you do and the more ownership you earn. That’s how things are set up, except that’s only part of the story, because there are a thousand things that go into your work and skill that are simply given. Such as the heartbeat in your chest that’s required for you to do the work to earn what you own. You can’t get very far in life without a heartbeat, and for every single one of us, heartbeats are given.
Or even just the fact of your existence. The fact that you are alive is a gift. Everything we have, ultimately, is given by God. And this is why the apostle Paul said he worked harder than anyone he knew, though in the ultimate sense it wasn’t him, it was the grace of God that is with him (1 Corinthians 15:10). By that same logic, Paul asks a question 1 Corinthians 4:7 we should never forget. He says:
What do you have that you did not receive? If then you received it, why do you boast as if you did not receive it? (1 Corinthians 4:7)
In other words, the more you dig, the deeper you go, the rock-bottom of your life is grace! And when you find that rock-bottom of grace, guess what? That’s grace. It’s grace that you know it’s grace. And then, it’s grace that you know it’s grace that you know it’s grace. And then that also is grace. And it just keeps going and going.
The deeper you go the more grace you find. It’s all a gift. Because that’s how God has set it up, and therefore we can’t boast in ourselves. Instead, the foundational emotion, our starting point response to reality, is gratitude. We should be mainly thankful. Because that’s what you do with gifts, no matter how hard you worked for them. The harder the work, the more the grace, the more the gratitude. And that’s how you own things.
We are all owners of things. Some people might own more and better things; some people might own less and simpler things — but it doesn’t matter, because both are owners, and as owners we are all morally responsible for the care and use of those things we own. That’s what stewardship means. It means to have a responsibility. Stewardship is required of owners; we’re all owners; so stewardship is required of all of us.
That’s what makes the poor widow in Luke 21 the same as the rich man in Luke 12.
These are two individuals in the Gospel of Luke coming from very different places. The poor widow is poor; she lacks monetary wealth. The rich man is rich; he has so much wealth that he has to build newer, bigger barns to store it all. These are two very different people and situations, but they have the same kind of responsibility.
They are both owners and therefore they both are accountable for the stewardship of what they own. Whether it’s two copper coins or two hundred barns full of stuff, both humans, owners, stewards, have to answer to God for their stewardship. They have to answer to God for how they care and use what they own.
To be human is to be an owner is to be a steward. And we all need to recognize this because it goes for every single one of us in here. We’re all responsible for something. We’re all stewards.
And now this leads to ACT 3. The first two ACTS here establish some foundational truths: there is such a thing as private property — humans are owners — and each of us has a stewardship responsibility of the things we own. And where there is responsibility in a fallen world it means there will be failure. So it needs to be said.
ACT 3: Do not take things that are not yours.
That means, “You shall not steal.” To steal is to defy the foundational truth of ownership, and it’s to abandon faithful stewardship. Which means, to steal is to make a mockery of the world as God has made it. So don’t do that. Don’t take things that are not yours. But then the deeper question is why would you?
Where does the drive to steal come from? Well I have one big answer, but first two little answers. I’ll just mention these quickly.
The first little answer is that someone might steal because they or someone else is desperately hungry but they can’t afford food. In that case it’s still wrong to steal, but Proverbs 6:30 says that we should not despise such a thief. And we think of people like Jean Valjean. Or we think of Robin Hood. We don’t tend to despise that kind of thievery.
The second little answer is that someone might steal just for the meanness of it. This was case for Augustine as he tells the story in his Confessions. When he was a kid, he and a group of his friends stole a bunch of pears from a neighbor’s tree. And he said it was emphatically not because they were hungry or even wanted the pears. Augustine writes, “My desire was to enjoy not what I sought by stealing but merely the excitement of thieving and the doing of what was wrong.” This is just for the sake of sin. Some people steal only for the sinfulness of it.
But then the bigger answer, and I think the more fundamental reason someone might break the eighth commandment, is because they have a lack of contentment. And whether any of us ever steal or not, a lack of contentment is something we all should beware of. In the same way that anger is on a trajectory to murder, lack of contentment — which often means covetousness — it is on a trajectory to steal. And again, lack of contentment is not the same as stealing, but it’s in the family. It’s on the spectrum.
That’s because, at large, we will never take things that are not ours unless we want things that are not ours, and the problem here is that our whole economy is built on our wanting things that are not ours.
And the economy, of course, impacts society around it, and that society becomes the social air we breathe, and that air in our day is consumed with a perpetual lack of contentment. That is our social imaginary. Everything around us in this world is meant to tell us that what we have is never enough.
The first step is to make us feel the insufficiency of what we own, and then that leads to the second step of us wanting to own more, and then that leads to the third step of us doing whatever we must to enable us to own more — which is the slippery slope of stealing.
And maybe we won’t literally steal goods and wealth, but if we are pining for more we are going to have to take something from somewhere to create more means to get it. And another word for this is greed (or also called the love of money). And it starts with a lack of contentment, and in fact, the way the Bible tells us to stand against greed is by contentment. Not the lack of it, but actually having it. Being content. Listen to Hebrews 13:5: “Keep your life free from the love of money, and be content with what you have.”
That is to say, the way to break free from this hamster wheel of always wanting more and doing more to get more, is to be content. Come to that place where you know you don’t need anything more to be happy, and the reason why, says Hebrews 13:5… be content with what you have, for [because] God has said, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.”
The grounds to our contentment is the presence of God. It’s that God is our God. He is with us and for us. God is our helper. So unravel the logic:
Because God is our God, because he is with us and for us, we’re going to be okay, we’re content;
And that means we are not chained to greed; we don’t lose ourselves in trying to get more;
And that means we’re not going to break the eighth commandment and steal. Because we don’t need to.
So, because you don’t need to, do not take things that are not yours.
ACT 4: Do not misuse things are not ultimately yours.
This is also part of our stewardship responsibility: We don’t take what does not belong to us, and we don’t misuse what does not ultimately belong to us.
At this point we need to step back and remember what we’ve already talked about. Everything we have is given by God, and ultimately, God owns it and is over it. These are my shoes, but they are God’s shoes, and therefore, I’m accountable to him for what I do with them. Stewardship requires faithful use of what we own, because it ultimately belongs to God. Or the negative way to say this is: do not misuse what is not ultimately yours.
Or one way to put it in a question is: What are you doing with your money, I mean, God’s money?
Goods, wealth, assets, money — let’s keep all that in view.
Over the last several sermons we’ve been referring to the Westminster Larger Catechism and its exposition of the Ten Commandments. It was written back in 1647 and I think it again gives us some helpful insight here. In Question 141, the catechism lays out a list of duties required for the eighth commandment and one of those duties goes like this: Endeavor, by all just and lawful means, to procure, preserve, and further the wealth and outward estate of others, as well as our own.
In other words, and we should get this clear: there is more than one way to misuse our money — I mean, God’s money.
One kind of misuse is a reckless spending that tries to fill the gaping hole left by our lack of contentment. Another kind of misuse is digging holes in your backyard to bury all your cash. There is a kind of insecure scrimping that is unfaithful stewardship, and therefore dishonors God.
And this is where we have to be very precise and careful.
The problem with money is not money, but it’s the love of money — and the love money can be expressed as much in frugality as in prodigality. In the story of the prodigal son in Luke 15, I think the prodigal son and the older brother both had greed issues.
The right use of our money (I mean, God’s money) is not to never spend it, but to spend it well; and to grow it. It is a good thing to increase wealth — as the Westminster says: “to procure, preserve, and further the wealth and outward estate” is good, both of others and also ourselves.
This means we should want all of our friends to get raises, to buy houses, to receive inheritances. These are good. These are gifts. We should aspire toward all these things when it comes to our money … I mean, God’s money … and actually that’s the key. It is a good thing to build wealth, and to aspire to build wealth, when we really understand that it belongs to God.
And the whole genius of the tithe is to help us remember this.
In case you’ve ever wondered, this is that moment at Cities Church when we talk about tithing.
A tithe means to give a tenth of someone’s income or produce. We first see this show up in the Bible in Genesis 14 when Abram meets Melchizedek, and as a way to honor the king-priest Melchizedek, Abram gives him a tenth of everything he has (see Genesis 14:20). Then again we see this tenth amount show up in Genesis 28 when Jacob meets God at Bethel. God promised to bless Jacob, and Jacob pledges to give God a full tenth of his wealth (see Genesis 28:22). These both are examples of tithing before the law of Moses, and then in the law of Moses the tithe is confirmed as the standard for giving:
A tenth of Israel’s seed, fruit, and flocks were given to Yahweh (Lev. 27:30–32; Deuteronomy 14:22–24; cf. 2 Chronicles 31:5–6; Nehemiah 13:5, 12).
The people gave a tenth to the Levites to support them (Numbers 18:21–24; cf. Nehemiah 10:38; 12:44).
The Levites, in turn, gave a tenth to the chief priest (Numbers 18:25–28).
So the tithe became part of the law of Moses, required under the law of Moses, and this was so set for the people of Israel that to not give the tithe was to steal from God.
That’s exactly the way God puts it in the Book of Malachi, chapter 3. Speaking to Israel, this is what God says: Will man rob God? Yet you are robbing me. But you say, “How have we robbed you?” In your tithes and contributions. (Malachi 3:8).
The people’s question is: how have we robbed God? The answer is: by not giving your tithes and contributions.
According to Malachi 3:8, under Mosaic law, not giving God ten-percent of your income was stealing from God. And the big question for us is: Is that tithe still required of Christians? If we don’t tithe does that mean we are stealing from God?
Here’s the thing: we are not under the law of Moses, and therefore the tithe is not binding on us like it was for the people of Israel who were under the law. And although there are instances of the tithe that show up before the law, they are not commands for us and nowhere in the New Testament is there the command to tithe.
So no, I do not believe that we as Christians are required to tithe. But what does God require of us? The answer is everything.
God’s wants all of us, and when it comes to how much we give to him of our goods and wealth, we consecrate all of it to him, and in terms of actual giving, I think ten-percent is a fine benchmark. It was the expectation of people who lived in the shadows, but we have received a new and better covenant, we upon whom the end of the ages has come, we who are filled with the Holy Spirit, we who are spiritually raised from the dead with Jesus and seated with him in the heavenly places, we who have been given the task of evangelizing the nations — ten-percent is a fine benchmark, and perhaps just the starting place, because in the New Testament there isn’t a set amount we should give, there’s an attitude of the heart we should have in giving, and that attitude is cheerfulness. God doesn’t require your tithe, he wants you to give as much as you can give cheerfully.
ACT 5: Give to God as cheerfully as he has given to you.
To be clear, I did not say: “Give to God as much as he has given to you” because that’s impossible. Any idea of “paying God back” for his grace is demonic. You can’t. Don’t try. When it comes to grace, we receive grace and give thanks. That’s all you can do.
The key word for us in giving is cheerful. That’s the word that Paul uses when he talks about giving in 2 Corinthians 9. For the context in 2 Corinthians, Paul has been taking a collection for impoverished Christians in Jerusalem, and so he’s been teaching on giving. He says in 2 Corinthians 9:7, “Each one must give as he has made up his mind, not reluctantly or under compulsion.” This is the same idea he has mentioned before, that giving should be willingly, not as an exaction. God does not tax you. And if giving to God feels like a tax, then don’t do it.
Instead, give whatever you’ve purposed in your heart, as much as you can, “not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.” That’s 2 Corinthians 9:7. Give cheerfully, from the heart! — because God loves that, and he is able to make all grace abound to you so that you can give. God is able to give you grace in abundance so that you abound in every good work. Give to him cheerfully!
And this is where I can’t imagine anyone could give cheerfully to God unless they really know that God has given cheerfully to them. God loves a cheerful giver because he is the cheerfullest of all givers. That means God is happy to save you. He is happy to bless you. God’s grace in your life is not begrudging.
Do you believe that? Or do you think that somehow, in some way, it pains God to give you grace? Deep down here — I want us think — do you believe that the grace in your life had to be pried out of the hands of God?
Because if you do, I want you to know that’s not the truth of grace. It is God’s delight to give you grace. God is cheerful in his goodness to you. He is lavish in his love! That is the message of the gospel.
And we see this just a chapter over in 2 Corinthians 8. On the topic of giving, Paul takes us to the heart of Jesus. Paul says, 2 Corinthians 8:9: “For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor; so that you by his poverty might become rich.”
That is the truth of grace! The only way we ever give cheerfully is to know how cheerfully God has given to us. As one writer puts it, “Gaze upon Christ long enough, and you’ll become more of a giver. Give long enough, and you’ll become more like Christ” — the cheerfullest of all givers, who for the joy set before him endured he cross, despised the shame, and is now seated at the right hand of the throne of God (see Hebrews 12:2).
Respect the reality of property ownership.
Recognize the stewardship required of owners.
Do not take things that are not yours.
Do not misuse things are not ultimately yours.
Give to God has cheerfully as he has given to you.
And that is the eighth commandment, “You shall not steal.”
The Table
And it brings us to the Table. Here at this Table, with the bread and cup, we remember the death of Jesus for us, and we receive afresh the abundance of his grace. Jesus loves you. Jesus died for you. All by grace, and so let us give him thanks. If you trust in Jesus and would give him thanks this morning, we invite you to eat and drink with us.
