Exodus: How Stealing Shapes Us and Is In Us

Happy Valentine's Day, everybody.

If you haven't heard that yet, hopefully, if you're married, you have.

That would be a good start.

So a good feel-good message for today is Exodus 20, verse 15.

Exodus 20:15

Not very thematic at all for Valentine's Day, but that's okay.

We'll go with it anyways.

This is just the next.

We've just been working our way through the book of Exodus, which is the second book of the Bible.

If you're here for the first time.

So we've been working our way through for a few months, and so we've gotten into the Ten Commandments.

And what we've been discovering about the Ten Commandments, if you remember, if you have been with us, is that the Ten Commandments is known as a law.

It is what is right, it is what is good, it is what is holy for our lives, it sets such good, clear boundaries for societies and for people, for us.

So it guides us.

But what we've been discovering is that while it guides us, it also crushes us because inevitably we do not perform up to the perfect standard of the law.

And therefore, the law can't just guide us, or should we live just being crushed by it?

But we have to let it send us on to the grace of God.

And that's in the scriptural story, the whole Bible, that's what it's about, is this covenant of law leading us to the covenant of grace.

And we've been seeing this over and over again with each commandment.

And each commandment, what we've been seeing is that we kind of come into it with a certain thinking, like, oh, I got it all worked out, I know exactly what this means, and we've been discovering that it actually means a lot more than we initially think.

And so uh today, Exodus 20, verse 15, you shall not steal.

Exodus 20:15

Well, you can't get any more practical than that.

That's just pretty practical, but of course, we can't leave it at that, and of course, uh, there's all sorts of good implications that are in here.

So I think this morning, um maybe for the first uh half of this sermon is gonna feel a little conceptual, and then as we go, it'll turn more personal.

Um, and I think because a lot of times stealing uh at times feels incredibly uh clear, like your grill was on the back deck, and you woke up the next morning and your grill is gone.

Like somebody stole it, or perhaps somebody else's grill was on their back deck, and then one night you went and took their grill and you stole the grill, right?

Like we also are the thieves, not just the bad guys.

Um so uh we have to admit that a little bit today.

Um, and then sometimes there's other theft that we're participating in, and we don't even realize it till later, and we can have a confession now.

Is anybody um on Napster?

Does anybody just want to say I was Napstering it?

Okay, I I can remember like year 2000, Napster had come out, and up until this point, uh me and my buddies went to the Book Nook 2 in Lilburn in the back of the bookstore was the Used CDs, and back there it was like we had we thought we had hit the jackpot at that point because it was$5 CDs, and I got a Pearl Jam 10 CD, which is incredible.

So, anyways, I mean we we didn't tell anybody about it because we were scared our supply would dry up.

And then Napster came along.

I mean, this was unbelievable.

So if you're probably under 25, Napster was peer-to-peer through the computer, internet had just started up, right?

Internet was moving, and like these guys developed this peer-to-peer music sharing uh way for you to open up all your music, and everybody else could come and take your music, and we're just all stealing music, right?

Like just everybody's stealing, and nobody's thinking about it being stealing until I think Metallica and Dr.

Dre sue Napster, and then Apple comes along and provides a free uh not a free way, they provide iTunes a legitimate way uh to download and buy digital music, and then the label starts suing individuals.

Do y'all remember that?

If you were Napstering, you knew this because this rumor spread and it scared you to death.

You're like, a college kid in Des Moines got sued?

Like just like a guy, like a normal guy, and you just stopped.

You're like, I am not gonna be sued.

I'm you know 20 years old or whatever, I'm not being sued, and you just stop, but all of a sudden we all became aware that we had been stealing, and then you had to decide what you're gonna do with like your 250 burned CDs.

Um remember you'd buy the racks of empty CDs and you'd just be burning all day long, anyways.

Um of you know exactly what I'm talking about.

Or you saw your kids do it, perhaps, or something.

Uh in the scriptures, we see all different types of stealing, right?

It's not just robbery, um, it's all sorts of types.

And so we see kind of active stealing and then we see passive stealing.

So active stealing, here's some examples.

In Leviticus 6, we see embezzlement, which is the misuse of something that's entrusted to somebody.

It's a violation of trust.

We do see robbery in Leviticus 6.

In Luke 3, we see extortion, which is charging an excessive price or using someone's property or labor by force.

In Deuteronomy 24, we see kidnapping, which is still a huge problem.

You're stealing in an individual.

Passive stealing in Exodus 22, it talks in detail about negligent acts of a neighbor that causes harm to your property, and that if that neighbor doesn't restore the situation, that that's actually stealing.

Passive stealing can be a failure to repay someone.

Right?

Like you just owe somebody five bucks or fifty bucks, and you're like, yeah, I'm gonna get around to it, and you just keep thinking, and you know, you know you owe them, but at the same time, you sort of just want to let it slide, and you know exactly what I'm talking about.

Or failure to return something.

Like you borrowed a Darth Vader mask for Halloween four and a half months ago, and you still have the mask in your garage, and you know you have the mask, and you know you're gonna see your friend because you're going to lunch with him this week, but at the same time, you just sort of like having that mask for the next time you might need a Darth Vader mask or a shovel or whatever you have borrowed.

And you know exactly what I'm talking about.

It's just easy to do that.

And the scripture is saying, hey, just remember that's stealing.

And then also in Deuteronomy 24, we see that stealing is also when we withhold giving to the poor.

Right?

We forget about that one often.

If you withhold giving to the poor, you're you're stealing.

Now we can't talk about stealing without talking about ownership.

So, like I said, we're conceptual for a little bit before it gets real personal.

So when I was a little kid at Christmas, you right, you get all these presents, and you have your little pile of presents, and I would I was super weird.

I'm still weird like this.

I still do this.

As soon as I get, yeah, I still do it on Christmas.

I want to take all my stuff and put it up.

I don't like it out in the open.

I don't like the idea that somebody could slip in and something could disappear and I might not find it again.

I mean, when I was eight years old, I opened up all my presents, and then as soon as everybody else, as soon as it was over, I took everything, I went to my bedroom and I put it up.

I wanted it safe.

I want if I could lock it down, I was gonna lock it down.

Like I wanted as safe as possible.

And I still do this.

I do not like my stuff laying around.

I do not like people touching my stuff.

I like it safe.

I hate the idea of something I own uh leaving my control.

I absolutely hate it, or it being lost, or me not being able to find it.

I did I just hate that idea.

Whether you're weird like me, any weird weirdos, like weirdo, I'm that control freak.

It's what sounds worse when it's you.

It does sound worse, thank you, Heather.

Perfect, perfect.

It is, it does sound worse because I should be above such things.

All right, so when uh on one side, this is uh this idea for ownership, right?

Like that's what this is, is this like innately wired ownership thing that somehow we have in us.

On one side, it's bad when it turns into hoarding, uh, but it's real, and this commandment implies that ownership is positive.

Don't steal somebody else's stuff, which means somebody else owns that thing, which implies ownership.

And that's our first point.

Do not steal implies that ownership is in existence.

So if things are owned, and this is where it starts to get a little more like this is how our lives work, if things are owned and not just free for anybody to grab at any point, it means a process exists.

That there's just a process that exists in this world.

And for us, for a lot of us, we just take this so for granted as we were taught it when we were five years old or four years old all the way through.

But if you're in a community, a neighborhood, a society where this is not taught, there's a breakdown that occurs.

Or if we don't align with it, there's a breakdown that occurs in our lives.

And the process is this work to earn, to own, to give.

Work to earn to own to give.

Right?

You're going, yeah, that I knew that.

Of course you knew that, because you've been taught that over and over and over again.

But that is what God is implying through this commandment.

He's setting up a structure for our society and for how society can work.

It seems pretty basic to us, but when there's a breakdown in this flow, societies and neighborhoods and communities break down.

There's a quote in the handout in your bulletin sociologist and economic economist uh Francis Fukuyama.

He comments on how fevery and distrust create wasted energy in groups of people.

So listen to this, and it's pretty wordy, so kind of hang with me and listen to it pretty closely.

People who do not trust one another will end up cooperating only under a system of formal rules and regulations, which have to be negotiated, agreed to, litigated, and enforced sometimes by coercive means.

This legal apparatus serving as a substitute for trust entails what economists call transaction costs.

Widespread distrust in a society, in other words, imposes a kind of tax on all forms of economic activity.

A tax that high trust societies do not have to pay.

Okay, so hold on to that thought.

Point number two, hold on to that thought.

We're still kind of conceptual here, I know.

So hold on to that thought.

Um you thought you thought you were coming for a sermon, and like we're like in economics at this point.

So hold on to that, Fukuyama thought.

Point number two, do not steal imparts uh dignity to individuals.

See, because it implies ownership, it also imparts dignity to individuals that you have a right to own something as a human being.

And you have a right for somebody else not just to come take it.

So it implies dignity to you.

Now, Christy and I, we've been fortunate enough to live in several different uh very diverse demographically, economically diverse neighborhoods.

And probably our the most interesting and maybe our favorite neighborhood we've lived in so far was Grant Park.

And we lived there for five years and we still talk about it all the time because it was just it was an absolute melting pot of people.

I mean, it was a melting pot of types of people, of thoughts, of politics and religion and ethnicity and incomes.

And I wasn't paranoid there, even though there was stealing going on all around us.

But I tended to keep things locked down a little bit more.

We weren't paranoid, but you know what?

My grill was locked to my fence.

I'll just be honest.

Like, but I wasn't paranoid because I still trusted the neighbors immediately around me.

So the trust, let me not be paranoid, but you you were sort of more aware.

And then we lived in Buckhead, which is a little bit more uppity up, and then now we live on a nice street in Marietta.

But yet, yet, in all three, right?

In all three, we have had stealing on our street.

In all three.

And there's nothing like the feeling when you have something stolen.

I can't still I can still remember when uh I was just out of college, um, I was in grad school, I was in seminary, I was working, I was living with some a few a few friends, and uh our house got robbed during the day when we were all at work.

And if you've ever had that happen to you, you you just feel like somebody came into my home.

Like they were in they were in my room.

They went through my stuff, they took my stuff, and it wasn't just an assault on my property, it it felt like an assault on your personhood, on your dignity.

When there's a breakdown of this trust, it can easily be a breakdown of society and there can be a breakdown in the motivation to work and to earn and to own and to give.

So what Fukuyama is saying, back to Fukuyama, uh, if we can go back to him, he's saying uh that the less energy a society has to put toward protection and legality, it means it frees up energy for creativity and for investment.

And this is why God's saying, don't steal.

And you don't want your society to be a stealing society.

Because it just breaks things down.

So, like I just mentioned, there is this second sort of process that's occurring here that that this there's an implication in this commandment, and that's this that stealing is an assault on a personal property, which is an assault on people's dignity and motivation.

This past week I watched the Bernie Madoff uh two-part story.

I don't know if it's quite a documentary, sort of like a drama documentary.

Anybody watch it on ABC?

Yeah, it's so it's fascinating.

I'm fascinated with that storyline with Madoff and sort of what he did.

And so uh he stole$20 billion of principal funds.

So he was kind of the secretive hedge fund guy.

Um, everybody's just sending him money because he's just mailing out paper statements, making up 12 to 15% returns each month forever, for years and years and years.

So everybody just keeps sending them more money, and he's just stockpiling it and chased Manhattan Bait one savings account, earning 2% interest, but he's he's telling everybody they're earning 12 to 15 percent.

And uh because those returns are so great on paper, then everybody just keeps sending him more money, of course.

And so it just keeps going and going and going until uh the breakdown of the entire system.

And when everything starts to crash down, what's very clear is that his theft, uh his theft is on people's savings and fortunes, and for some people, I mean for some people it's charities and for some people it's retirements and retirement systems, not just like one person's retirement, it's generational wealth.

But what's clear is that it's more than a loss of money.

Like that he didn't just steal money, that there's there is there's when we steal things, we steal more than the things because it is a stealing of somebody's dignity.

And while you're watching this, I found myself, of course, you're asking this, like, how could he have done this?

Like, how could he have done this?

Well, and you and as you watch, you go, well, quite easily.

I mean, when your heart's in the wrong place, there's all sorts of places you'll end up going that you never planned on going.

I mean, when you just really want to control things that aren't yours.

When you really want to impress people so badly, there's all sorts of things that you'll do that you never planned on doing.

And so we see that stealing begins in the heart.

When you have a heart that is that is not being defined by what God is saying to you and who you are and the work Jesus has done for you, and that you are valued and loved and chosen and forgiven, and that's your resting place, but your heart is instead trying to work to earn the favor of somebody else, the approval of that person or this person or this group or this society, then you can end up in all sorts of places.

Paul writes a statement in the New Testament in Ephesians, Ephesians 28 about stealing.

He says this, similar as this commandment back in Exodus, uh, Ephesians 4, 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.

So we just see it again here, right?

Work to earn, to own, to give.

We just see the process there.

And what we see is if you're not giving, then the things you're owning really own you.

We talk about that a lot.

And that's a horrible life.

And when you hoard, you're actually stealing for those that you should give to.

I was reading this week, I ran across Psalm 24, verse 1.

Psalms 24:1

Uh, the earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof, so everything is his.

Everything's his.

The world and those who dwell therein.

So it seems pretty clear.

It's also incredibly freeing that it that it's all his.

And that's what within within the Christian faith, we don't just talk about ownership, we talk about stewardship.

So our ownership is a stewardship.

So we understand that we just don't own it, but we act the things that we actually are owning, we're stewarding.

Well, we'll lose it all anyways, eventually, right?

We have to let go of all of it eventually.

And stewardship's incredibly free.

Because what it means is it means that we are free and separate from our assets.

That our assets do not define us.

That they come and they go, they're stolen, or we lose them, or we earn some more, but we're secure no matter what, because we're not secure by our work.

Our ability to earn it, or our ability to own it, or even our ability to give it away, we are secure by the work Jesus did for us.

That we are beloved before God by that work.

And so ownership and stewardship, this becomes a subject matter for us that's incredibly freeing because we don't use it to create our own validity.

And so that's where this commandment takes us.

That see, holding on to things with closed fists is very exhausting.

That's an exhausting posture to live in, but to work and earn and own and give with open hands, this is a very freeing way to live.

That our lives and our identities could be formed this way.

Do you remember the great scene in Les Miserables?

Toward the end, and Jean Valjean, oh, this is the beginning.

Jean Valjean, he he steals from the bishop.

Y'all seen it?

Maybe read it?

Nobody read it, let's be honest.

It's just way too long.

We all saw it.

Somebody read it.

Ruth read it.

Thank you, Ruth.

You read it for us.

You were you, yeah, we talked to you before the test in English.

Um you told us what it was about.

Uh so Jean Valjean steals from the bishop, right?

Uh he steals silver.

And so then the police find him, bring him back to the bishop's house, and then the bishop's kind of he's he's kind of sitting back talking, and the police are saying, We found the guy, we found the guy.

And then the bishop says, Oh, uh, you forgot the two silver candlesticks.

You know, I I I gave you all of that, but you forgot these two also.

And the police just can't believe what's going on here.

And the police eventually just have to leave because the bishop's saying, hey, I gave it, I gave it all to them.

And then the bishop, and then the bishop says to Valjean, he says, Today I bought your soul.

Right?

And what he's saying is, he's saying, Grace buys the soul.

Not law.

See, he bought his soul with grace.

Grace was the thing that bought the soul.

And this is what we've been learning every week that we're all thieves.

Maybe we haven't stolen a grill or 20 billion dollars, but we all still, from the Lord, we all still honor and glory.

Every time we turn to our own work, to work our way out of our shame, to work our way into forgiveness, to work our way into validity as a human being, that is that is a stealing of glory because we are in our self-reliance, we are self-glorifying ourselves.

So we're all thieves right away.

And what we've been learning in these past sermons is we've been learning that we're all murderers, we're all adulterers, we all have hard hearts, forgetful hearts, selfish hearts, and yet the way that God restores us is not by doubling down on the law.

He says, You forgot these two candlesticks.

I I was gonna give you even more.

You forgot them.

That's the thing that turns Valjean's heart.

That's the thing that turns our heart, it's the outside word spoken to us.

In Le Miz, it's the candlesticks to us, it is the person of Christ.

And this is freedom that is not known in perfection before the law, and that can be this moral law, or that could be any law that you're signing on to in your life of attempting to be perfect before, that you will not find freedom there, but you will find freedom in honesty of your imperfection, confession of it, and receiving of the work of Christ on your behalf.

Nothing else will do it.

At the end of Le Miz, Valjean is dying in Fontaine, which she had her own story of theft that had come upon her life, and she had been a prostitution, she had to sell her hair, she sold her teeth, and she's she has already died, and she's in heaven, and she's welcoming Valjean into heaven, and she sings so beautifully, and I will not sing it, I will say it.

She sings, Come with me, where chains will never bind you, all your grief at last, at last behind you.

Lord in heaven, look down on him in mercy.

And Valjean's response is not one of merit.

He says, Forgive me all my travels.

And take me to your glory.

There's also this scene at the end of Luke, just as beautiful of a scene for a lot of us.

We've heard it so many times.

And Jesus, incarnate God, having mercy and grace manifested.

He's coming to the cross, taking all of our sin and our shame and our fevery and our hard hearts upon himself and deeming to us his righteousness for us, right?

That great exchange is occurring.

And as he's on the cross there, there's a thief next to him.

And up until this point, all we know, all we understand about this other guy is he's a thief.

He's a dirty rotten thief.

That's all we know.

We don't know anything else.

And maybe nobody has understood the mercy and the grace of God more than this guy.

Because what he understands, which is so much of difficulty for what we have a hard time understanding, is that he knows he brings nothing to the table.

And it says in Luke 23, 42 and 43, he says, this thief who just knows he has nothing, he brings nothing.

Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.

And Jesus said to him, Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise.

So my brothers and sisters, find great rest in the God who both creates a way for a healthy society for us to live and exist in, and a refuge for all of us dirty thieves to be redeemed.

Let's pray together.

God, thank you that you accept us as is.

For some of us, we have stolen.

We can think back of music and candy bars and grills.

And for some of us, we can think back on small amounts of money and even large amounts of money that we have stolen.

God, we've stolen from people.

We have misused people.

We have misused people's property.

God, we are not innocent when it comes to stealing.

In honesty, we welcome you into our hearts to shine your light because we know that we know that only in this openness toward you will we find freedom and forgiveness.

But we confess to you that we fall short when it comes to this law.

And we are so grateful that you do not use this law and you do not hammer it onto us for us to merit our way into your favor.

But as we come and confess that we fall short and we are in desperate need of your work for us, and in desperate need of your righteousness for us, and in desperate need of the work of Jesus on the cross, that it is as if we are perfect.

That we are always your beloved and you love us just right now.

And it could never be anymore.

God, we thank you that you have created a way for our world to work in a healthy pattern, a way that would guide us.

And we confess it crushes us and help it help us to be guided on and moved on to the grace that you have provided for us.

In Jesus' name we pray.

Amen.