LAW HOMILY: Stealing From Tomorrow

The Law of God and the Christian Life

Now every week we go through the law of God because we want to understand what God has to say to his people. We want to understand what God would want us to do. We don't believe that we simply believe and then we live any old way we want.

We believe and we hold to the fact that now that Christ has fulfilled the law, that now we obey him because we've been accepted by him. We don't obey him to be accepted, but we obey him because we've been accepted and the Spirit invigorates that obedience in us.

So we look at the law every single week. Now today we're talking about the, I think it's the eighth commandment. I mislabeled it. It's you shall not steal. And for all of us who've never shoplifted and never embezzled, never picked a pocket, never five finger discounted on lollipop at the local grocery store.

I did that. So I'm, I'm, I'm off the list. This commandment is still for us, even if you've never done those things, because the Westminster larger catechism explains that this command goes far deeper than petty larceny.

Stewardship, Property, and the Eighth Commandment

It says that the eighth commandment requires that you and I have a lawful calling and a diligence and an endeavor by all just and all lawful means to procure, preserve and further the wealth and outward estate of others as well as ourselves.

Did you notice what that said? The Westminster divines are right. If they're right, then they're saying, it's not just about don't take, it's saying don't misuse. It's not just about don't steal. It's about don't missteward the gifts that God has given you.

And if that is theft, it changes everything because you and I don't own anything. Everything that we have belongs to God. Every atom in the cosmos was made by him, owned by him, controlled by him. You and I own nothing.

And you know, that's true, because you're one greyhound to bus, one greyhound bus away from everything being taken from you anyway. You are a trustee of resources that God has given you that belong to him, that he's given you temporarily for his plan and his purposes.

This means that God has granted you property. Your home or your new home is God's possession for you to steward for him. This means that your income, your time, your abilities, every opportunity that you have is God entrusting things to you that you would steward for his good and for his glory.

And you're supposed to cultivate those things, preserve those things and multiply those things. The original command of humanity was be fruitful and multiply, not be content and sit still. We're supposed to deploy the things that God has given us with faithfulness.

The Parable of the Talents and Faithful Use of Gifts

And he expects a return on his investment. You remember in the parable of the talents, Jesus assigns different talents to different people. And then are the master in that parable, which we know is Jesus.

When he comes back and he returns, he says, What did you do with it? Well, sir, I put your five talents to work and I made five more. Well, sir, I put your two talents to work and I made two more. Well, sir, I knew that you were a hard man.

And I knew that that you're you strike fear. And all of those who come into your contact, you you sow where you where you do not all these things. And he says, I took the money and I buried it because I didn't want to lose it.

And I didn't want to disappoint you. And he says, you wicked and lazy servant.

He didn't lose the money.

He held on to it. And he in a way he could say, I was faithful. And the master said, you could have even put it in the bank and got interest on it. What Jesus is saying there. Is that everything in our life's been given to us not to just sit on it, but to reproduce it, to multiply it.

And then if you understand that. Then when we let his gifts and his talents that he's given to us go to waste. We're stealing from God. Because this God has given us these things so that we would multiply them.

And if we do not multiply him, we're stealing interest that he could have had in the kingdom advance. That could have been if we used his gifts in service to him faithfully. But we borrowed from the present to steal from the future.

Negligence as Theft Against God, Family, and Neighbor

And God considers that theft. The same is true of your family. You squander. If you squander your gifts and your responsibilities and your times and your talents and treasures, you're stealing from your family.

If you hoard things from others, you're stealing from your neighbor. If you neglect people in your life through laziness, you're stealing from time that you could have had with them in legacy. Negligence in this sense isn't passive.

Negligence is an active form of theft. And all of us are guilty of this. All of us can look in the mirror and say, I've not used the things that God has given me for his glory and for his good to the best of my ability.

I have not done everything that I could do. I have wasted time. I have slept in. You can go through a litany of these things, and I don't say those things to make you think that, my goodness, who could be saved?

Well, we should actually think that right. But my point in saying all of that is that Jesus did die for our sins. Yes. And amen. But there is there is a moment where you realize how deep and how wide his grace is, where you say, I want to live differently.

Repentance, Grace, and Living for Christ

Charles Spurgeon said, I don't want to do the same things that I used to do because those things killed my best friend. And that motivation leads us to live differently. I say to myself a lot. I think about this all the time, actually.

There's a poem that haunts me. It's by C .T. Studd. What a great last name if you're a man, by the way. Like I'm just saying, I'm Mr. Studd. Anyway, the last line of the poem is my favorite. It says, all things shall soon be passed.

Only what is done for Christ will last. And I think about it at least four or five times a week. Lord, help me to give you more than I'm currently giving you so that I can honor you more than I'm currently honoring you so that I can worship you more than I'm currently worshiping you.

Help me to put everything on the table. Let me go to bed sleepy. Let me wake up tired. Let me be the kind of man that lays it all on the line for you because you laid it all on the line for me. And I want to live that way.

So let us because we don't live that way. Let us repent. Let us ask the word to help us. Amen.