Word of Salvation – Vol. 48 No.24 – June 2003

 

It's Difficult to Share Your Possessions

When Your Heart is with Your Money

 

Sermon by Rev M P Geluk

on Lord's Day 42 (Q/A 110-111 Heid.Cat.)

Scripture Readings:  Leviticus 25:35-43; 1 Timothy 6:6-10; 17-19

Suggested Hymns:  BoW 100; 133; 227:1,2; 226:1,2; 228:1,2; 117

 

Congregation of our Lord Jesus Christ.

We are looking at the eighth commandment which forbids stealing. Stealing is taking things that don't belong to you from others. There are many forms of stealing and we are familiar with most. And what makes stealing worse are the attempts to make it look normal with cover-ups and excuses. Like saying that it's okay to cheat on our income tax because the government is charging too much tax anyway. Or, it's okay to rob the boss because he should be paying a higher wage anyway. Or, it's okay to steal from the rich because they won't even miss it.

Why do people steal? The answer is simple. They love to possess things or want the money to acquire things. Stealing is a quick way to get it. However, as the Catechism shows, God does more with this eighth commandment than to merely forbid stealing. He also requires something of us. What is it? Well, everyone needs food, clothes and somewhere to live. There are the poor and needy who struggle to have these essential possessions, because for some reason they have no work and therefore no earning power. God wants others who do have work and possessions to help these poor and needy people. To deny the poor what they need, when we have the means to provide it, is also a form of stealing. And when people find it hard to share their possessions, then it's because their heart is with their money. As we hear the Word of God about stealing, let us see that...

1. God gives us our possessions

Should we ever start to think that we have a right to possessions and that it's too bad about other people who have none or few, then let us be reminded of what the first two chapters of Genesis say. In the beginning there was not man and his possessions but just God. And people did not create themselves but God made them, for the purpose of bringing Him glory and satisfaction. And before God created man, He made many other things first. God created the earth, then He made the light, the sky, the sea and dry land. On the land God created vegetation. In the heavens He made the sun, moon and stars. He put birds in the sky, fish in the waters and animals on the land. God made all these things first, before He made man, so that man could live in an environment that was both supportive and pleasant.

In all that, man was not the most important, God was. But God gave to man everything that He thought was beneficial to man. He even gave man the task of looking after all that He had made. That was man's work. Adam and Eve together were the crown of God's creation. Food from trees, and later, meat from animals, were given to man in order to exist. Man's very life, from beginning to end, was dependent on God.

Later on in time, one of the Psalms puts it this way, "The earth is the Lord's, and everything in it" (Ps 24:1). It means, therefore, that all we have really belongs to God - our children, our talents, our bodies, our health, the house and the things in it, the things at work, whatever grows in the garden or on the farm, and the animals in our possession. Just remember what God said in the New Testament, "We brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of it" (1 Tim 6:7).

Job had many possessions. Then God took it all away and Job was made to confess, "Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked shall I depart" (1:21). By nakedness he meant having no possessions. All this, then, teaches us that God gives us possessions, not for us to think of them as things we have gotten ourselves, or are the sole owner of, but as His gifts of which we are to be responsible caretakers.

A caretaker should do the very thing his position points to; he takes care, looks after, whatever is entrusted to him or her. Good and responsible caretaking means that you serve God and neighbour with the things placed in your care. We read in 1 Peter 4:10, "Each of you should use whatever gift he has received to serve others."

Remember also the parable of the talents. The Lord Jesus has given each of us a different number of talents, which we are to put to good use. When He comes back He will require from everyone an account of what we have done with these talents. It will not be a question of how many talents but how useful we have been with the ones God gave us. To some he gave ten, to others five, and some only received one. But it's not the number, it's what we do with them that is important.

The Bible, then, makes us see our possessions as gifts from God, which we are to put to good use for the glory of God and the benefit of others.

2. Our materialistic and consumer society is stealing God's gifts

You and I must all the time remember that God intended people to live for Him and for each other. The two most important commandments underline that, love God and love our neighbour. The way to do that with regard to our possessions is to serve God with them, and to also help our fellow man have a meaningful existence in this world. The two goals are not exclusive. To enable others to live, work, eat and have a roof over their heads is to glorify God with our possessions. And to look to the neighbour's well-being is to serve God with our possessions.

God, therefore, has given people different gifts, and with these each is dependent on the other. It used to be that the one grows grain and the other makes clothes. One baked bread and the other made furniture. People with different skills produced different things and then they exchanged their products or shared them because none had all the essential things for life themselves.

And in all this the poor people, the stranger, and the weak, who had no land to grow things and perhaps no skills to make anything, had to be looked after. In Old Testament Israel, in harvest time, the growers of crops were not allowed to go over their fields twice, or reap to the very edge of their fields. What was left after the first mowing and what grew near the edges was for the poor. But this food was not brought to the poor. No, the poor had to come and get what was there for them. That was their work. In this way their dignity and self-respect was not taken away. But if some were too lazy to come and get it and as a result had nothing to eat, then it was their own fault, and they were rebuked for their laziness.

In the book Ruth, Boaz is portrayed as a righteous man because he allowed the poor to glean the leftovers after the harvest. His generosity allowed for poor people like Naomi and Ruth to have food. But Ruth worked hard all day to gather the food, not only for herself but also for her mother-in-law who was too old to work. Now such ideal conditions do not always prevail. Because of greed and selfishness, people who have plenty find it difficult to share their possessions. It keeps them from obeying the commandment to love God and their neighbour. It means that people are stealing from God those things that He meant the poor to have.

In order to have justice and fairness instead of stealing and robbing, honesty comes into it. God regulated the buying and selling in the market place with laws designed to prevent evil. He said, "Do not have two different weights in your bag - one heavy, one light. Do not have two different measures in your house - one large, one small." In other words, when selling say a kilo of wheat, the weight on the one side of the scales must not be less than one kilo. The law said, "You must have accurate and honest weights and measures, so that you may live long in the land the Lord your God is giving you. For the Lord your God detests anyone who does these things, anyone who deals dishonestly" (Deut 25:13-16).

Buying and selling can also be dishonest in another way - pretending that an item is worth more than it really is. Proverbs pictures a situation where the intended buyer says that what he is buying is not really all that good, hoping with those critical remarks to bring the price down. "It's no good, it's no good!", he says. But once he has bought it and then tries to sell it again, he is telling a new buyer how good it is. He now "boasts about his purchase" (20:14). Buy low, sell high, is not always good business. Sometimes it's just plain stealing.

The Old Testament prophets were frequently sent by God to warn His covenant people not to cheat each other, not to rob the poor and other defenceless people like the widow and the orphans.

Our modern society no longer exchanges goods. As one writer put it, "In the society of a generation ago, life and the economy revolved around the market place and the railroad station. In fact, most town centres consisted of a station, a market, a hotel, a bank, and a church. Today the core of every major city in the world has mammoth buildings owned by various financial institutions. Basically they don't produce any goods. They deal in money."

With modern society having become much more money oriented, new forms of stealing have been invented, and unless you are very familiar with the world of finance, and most of us aren't, you don't know these new forms of theft. Money is, of course, a tremendous time saver. It is easier to sell your product for so many dollars and then to buy with that money your clothes and electrical appliances, than to have a cumbersome trading system in goods. But a monetary system as complicated as ours offers the greedy many opportunities to rob others.

Take the stock market - often only the enlightened insiders really know what goes on. The uninitiated can easily come off badly in the buying and selling of shares. Now having the know-how and using it to exploit the ignorant, is that business or stealing?

In our society today a number of people are not making money by producing goods and services and selling these to others for a fair price. The big money is in the buying and selling of money itself. With the benefit of instant global communications, the money market is one of the major industries of today's economy. The occupation of these people is dealing in money and a great deal of time is taken up with making calculations and transferring valuable transactions from one to another. Now who will be honest enough to explain when and where the stealing starts?

And in many other transactions, like real estate, cars, travel, and so on, who are the thieves who unfairly pocket money from others, even though it may be legal? It's very likely that many passengers on the same flight in an aeroplane have paid different amounts for their tickets. Prices vary, depending on how early you book, how long before you return, and there are risks and penalties involved with each deal. It's all very sophisticated but some poor fellow having to make a quick journey at short notice because his mother is dying, is exploited. He has to pay for the most expensive ticket. Now is that fair trading or is that stealing?

Our society finds it hard to share its possessions because its heart is not with the poor and needy but with its money. But just who are the poor and needy? Because our society deals mainly in money and no longer with people, very often the victims of society's greed remain unknown. Many believe that when the rich get richer, the poor get poorer. Money circulates and it has to come from somewhere. Making money often means getting someone else's money. But from whom is it taken? No one really knows because people have become statistics and percentages on the computers of government welfare departments.

The poor and needy find it hard to contribute to the economy by way of producing something, or providing some kind of service. There are up-front taxes and a multitude of expenses and conditions to meet before there is a profit. And so they are forced to stay unproductive. And yet, they too have to have food, clothes and accommodation like everyone else. But the poor and needy can contact the appropriate government department and fill in the right forms for some kind of assistance. And so people mostly deal with the bank, the company, the government department, the insurance office and the supermarket in huge shopping malls. These have become our neighbours. But they are not ordinary neighbours. They are out to make money and often their interest is not really in people but in money.

In all this you can see how society has become very impersonal. We have to do with less and less ordinary people who run small businesses and live in the same suburb as we do and may even go to the same church. More and more we are dealing with big corporations and 'big brother', the government. But God meant people to help one another with their goods and services. To provide for fair deals and have the poor adequately cared for. He wants us to have a kind of society where people are mutually dependent on each other. A system where people do not steal or take unfair advantage of the weak and helpless. A life where honesty prevails and a fair day's work for a fair wage are the norm. Yes, a society where people love God and love their neighbour.

In today's complex and impersonal society, where many people care more about money than about peoples' well-being, we need accountants, economists, solicitors, judges, and business people who are Christian and who can inform the whole community about the rights and wrongs of the market place and unfair competition. There are already enough people who know how to beat the system and make dishonesty look like honesty, and stealing like healthy profit margins. What we need is teaching from insiders who still respect God enough to show us the evils of certain systems.

When God says, "You shall not steal", then He is concerned with people and honesty. He wants us love people and use possessions as a means to love them. But those who love their possessions and use people, because their heart is with their money, are opposing His will and breaking down society.

3. Christ helps us to restore our God-given possessions to their rightful use

We who are saved by Christ from the power of sin are also taught by Him how to overcome greed. We who are pricked in our consciences because the Lord makes us see that our love for possessions is often greater than our love for people, can be helped by Christ to turn our lives around.

The Bible says, "He who has been stealing must steal no longer but must work, doing something useful with his own hands, that he may have something to share with those in need" (Eph 4:28). Notice how it says that the purpose of work is to share with those in need.

Christ wants us to get right away from that selfish attitude where you look on your work as being necessary in order to get money, which you can then spend on yourselves. Because of that attitude, people will only work when it's seen to further their own interests. And there are even those who won't bother working at all if they can steal what they want by pilfering, cheating and lying. But Christ came to turn the thief away from that attitude. Work is a blessing. It is to provide for your dependents and yourself, and is the God-given means to also help the needy with food, clothing and shelter.

Who are the needy? They are not the people who are poor because they are too lazy to work. They are not the people who are like that one servant in Jesus' parable who never tried to put his talent to good use. Obviously the lazy and deliberate unemployed need God's rebuke and warnings more than anything else. The book of Proverbs has plenty of down-to-earth comments as to what will happen to the lazy person.

But we're thinking of those who are genuinely needy and are trying very much not to be needy. They can be those not old enough for a pension but whom no one wants to employ anymore. They can be the widows and single mothers, the unemployed who try hard but can't get work. They are the sick and the weak who are temporarily without income. They are the physically and mentally disabled. They can be refugees and asylum seekers who have nothing but the clothes they wear.

We need to pray that the governing authorities do it right when trying to establish the genuine from the spurious. The real needy people must not be made to feel that they are a nuisance and a burden. But the free loaders and those who exploit the system must be turned away, for they are making it more difficult for the genuine cases.

It's the Christian faith that helps the poor keep their dignity. Christians can make the poor and needy feel that they are not last on the list. Christians have learnt from Christ who possessed all the splendour and perfection of heaven, but who let it all go and came to live amongst us whose lives were messed up because of sin. He came right down to our level, stepped into our situation and turned our lives around.

Frequently He came face to face with greedy and selfish people. He did not turn His back on them but called them to repentance and showed them the ways of the kingdom of heaven. Those who believed Him had their sins taken away and He put His Spirit in their hearts. The followers of Christ, therefore, are the best equipped to understand the plight of the needy and they know what to do. You and I have experienced Christ's compassion and we have been taught to pass it on to others.

Furthermore, Christians also discover that being generous and sacrificial towards the poor and needy helps you to find your life. We know that when it is everyone for himself, and we ignore the poor and regard ourselves as number one, that it's then that we lose our life. We are on the way to become a mean-spirited person without compassion and love. We have lost that beautiful person that God intended us to be in Christ. But it's when we are liberal with our monetary gifts, when we give of our time and energy, that we begin to discover that we have become a caring person. Yes, a Christ-like person.

The apostle Paul said, "Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus" (Phil 2:5). But He did not just say that, He also explained how you come to be like that. It's by being united with Christ, by being like-minded, having the same love, and being one in spirit and purpose with Christ. When these are there, then you and I will also have tenderness and compassion. Without those traits it will be difficult to put down selfish ambition and vain conceit. But with Christ in you, with His tenderness and compassion, you are humble and consider others better than yourselves. Then we will look not only to our own interests, but also to the interests of others (vss 1-4). Yes, with Christ in us, the temptation to steal ceases to be a problem. With Christ in us, we will do whatever we can for our neighbour's good.

Amen.