We're talking about the commandment, you shall not steal, but we've tried to let that commandment bring the whole topic of our relationship to our material possessions into view. And now, is this like three or four messages, I guess? Kind of laying a theological foundation. Sometimes in our impatience, we just want God to tell us what to do and get on with it. Don't belabor the theology. But I think you know, I certainly understand that if obedience to God's commandments is going to have any sticking power, especially in the face of temptation, has to have deep roots in the nature of reality, and that means theology. And so I don't really apologize for spending time on this. So we talked about material possessions from the standpoint of creation, and then the impact of our sin upon our relationship to material possessions. And then last time, and again tonight, talking about the redemption of our material possessions, against the backdrop of God's creative work, and then man's sin and rebellion, and then the curses that God justly pronounced upon human beings, and upon the creation, and upon human labor in that creation. Nevertheless, God reveals a plan of salvation, not just for the human race, but ultimately a cosmic redemption for the whole of creation. Think about Romans 8. When the children of God are finally raised from the dead on that last day, it's going to mean the liberation of all creation in the glory of the children of God. So last time we began looking at how this unfolds with paying some attention to the socio-economic order, if you want to call it that, that Yahweh, the Lord, established among his people, particularly under the law of Moses. So that's where Israel received its most elaborate social structure. And we saw that there were many things that were involved in that provision. Talked about two foundational principles with respect to our relationship to material possessions. One of them you could call the lesson of the wilderness. and the other, the lesson of the land. One lesson learned when Israel didn't have very much, and the other when they had all they could ever possibly hope for. The one was in the wilderness, God humbled his people and led them into hunger. This is Deuteronomy chapter eight. and fed you with manna, so daily bread, daily provision, and a double portion on the sixth day, so on the seventh day there wouldn't even need to be any gathering of this bread from heaven, that he might make you know that man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord. And so Israel was taught through 40 years in the wilderness that they needed to depend upon God every single day for His provision. And that's a lesson that we often forget. But need to remember, bread is important. Man lives by bread, but not by bread alone and not by bread first of all, but by the faithfulness and the reliability of the Word of the Lord. But then the next lesson comes when they cross the Jordan and they go into the land and they begin to possess houses they didn't build and they cultivate fields that they didn't plant and they will take grapes from vines that someone else had planted, and there the lesson is, take care that you do not forget the Lord your God. When you have eaten and are full, and have built houses and live in them, and when your herds and flocks multiply, and your silver and your gold is multiplied, and all that you have is multiplied. So here's the promise of prosperity, material prosperity, but that brings its own. threat, that we will forget that man doesn't live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of the Lord. And then Moses says, beware lest you say in your heart, my power and the might of my hand have gotten me this wealth. that idolatrous self-confidence and self-reliance. You shall remember the Lord your God, for it is he who gives you the power to get wealth, that he may confirm his covenant that he swore to your fathers as it is this day. But if you forget the Lord your God and go after other gods and serve them and worship them, I solemnly warn you today that you shall surely perish. Just like the nations that the Lord makes to perish before you, so shall you perish because you would not obey the voice of the Lord your God. You would not live by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. Now, in a sense, if you could have both of those ideas clearly in mind, you wouldn't need all of the other commands. That's an exaggeration. But, see, that gets to the heart of the issue. Our dependence upon God and our distrust of our own strength, our own abilities, and so forth. And then we talked about some of the key features in Israel's redemptive society, their redemptive economy, and saw that these inculcate certain socioeconomic ideas that continue to be very, very helpful when we think about these things even today. Even if the Law of Moses isn't a blueprint for a society today or an economic system today, which is often said as an excuse for not paying any attention to what God taught in the Law of Moses, but it certainly helps us to have Ideas that reflect genuine wisdom. So again just to name them quickly first of all God allocated the land to the tribes and to the people and that just reinforces the idea that ultimate ownership of the whole earth belongs to the Lord and so it is a gift, a stewardship from God to his people. The Sabbath principle that's written throughout the law, not just in the fourth commandment, has systemic economic consequences, limitation on debt, limitations on slavery. the reversion of property to original owners. I said it's kind of like a reset on your computer. Every seven years, and then every 50th year, there was no labor in the world on the land, and God said, don't worry about it. proclaim liberty throughout the earth. And that in itself is a picture of that liberation of the planet from the bondage of futility. So God's giving every seven years and every 50th year a picture to his people of the ultimate redemption of the whole creation, as well as human beings within it. So it's a restorative, a redemptive economic order. Economic relations under the law of Moses were to be guided by more than just more than only justice or fairness, but rather you shall love your neighbor as yourself. So the impetus was always to go beyond what strict justice required and to treat one another economically and socially in light of that commandment to love. A whole society if they had been faithful to God that would have reflected this generosity, this kindness, this compassion, which has as its original the Lord God himself. Kings and with them civil governments were forbidden to follow the usual course of pagan imperial aggrandizement where they amassed more and more wealth at the expense of those who are governed so that they might make much of themselves among the nations of the earth. The Lord's command and Samuel's later warning commended, we might say, government on the cheap. They don't have a lot to do, they should be paid for what they do, and that should be the end of it. It's the opposite of the swollen imperial governments and government-controlled economies of the pagan kingdoms. And then biblical wisdom, as we see it in Proverbs especially, that encourage individuals to work diligently. It reproaches laziness. It commends thrift and saving and a generosity of spirit and reminds us that character is more important than material possessions. So if you weren't here last time, there you have it, in a nutshell. Now I want us to go on and talk about how the New Covenant develops these same themes and applies them. Now it's no longer Jews alone, but new communities that are made up of Jews and Gentiles. So now there's a deliberate, intentional mixture of those who have a long history with the law of Moses and its principles, even though they broke those commandments more often than they didn't, and now people coming out of the Greco-Roman world who have a whole different way of looking at reality, whole different set of social relations, a completely different set of economic values. Now they're going to be injected, if you will, into the new covenant people of God, and there's no single nation anymore that has that status of directly being subject to God's lordship. Now Jesus is the risen king. All the nations owe their allegiance to him, but the church is scattered in minorities among all the different people of the earth. So how does the New Covenant then, the New Testament Scriptures, carry forth this kind of kingdom economy that we've already seen established in the Law of Moses and articulated by the prophets as well? Well as I say, Israel's gone as a nation state and as a redemptive economy or society. God's people are now scattered and they can't really have it their own way. They're inserted into cultural settings and governmental structures, like the Roman Empire, where if they were going to be faithful to the Lord in these commands, it had to be within the tight community of those churches that are like pilot projects, little satellites of the kingdom. to the degree that they flourished and grew, and more and more people came consciously under the Lordship of Christ, then they would have more influence. And again, it's a mixed bag historically, but some whole nations even empires. I mean, think of Constantine and the Roman Empire after his conversion. Now Christianity had a broader influence. The sad thing is that by the time that happened, they were more willing to draw their principles about material possessions from the pagans and the way the Romans did things than from the Word of God and what had been established in the Old Testament. And still today, in most countries, the church is a minority, and so we have to think about a broader culture that does business one way, and how we're going to be radically counter-cultural in the way we behave, not only in our private relationships, but as we get out into the marketplace and are doing business and so forth. So Jesus, and then later his apostles, enjoin upon us certain values, certain practices with respect to material possessions. They reflect the teaching of the Old Testament, but then carry them forward in some ways and apply them in certain ways in light of the new redemptive setting of the new covenant. Chief among those is individual self-control, individual self-discipline. And we've talked about this in the Sunday school class about government. That's the fundamental government. God gives us a new heart. He gives us his commandments and writes them on our heart so that we can regulate our own behavior to the degree that we are free to do so. And that way we begin to express in ourselves and in our relations and in our institutions those values that are important to God. and revealed in his word. And so we are to be a generous people, a hardworking people, a loving and caring and cooperative people, both to our brothers and sisters, but just like with the Law of Moses, you can't have one standard for believers and another standard for outsiders. The same commitment has to be toward those within the covenant community and those outside the covenant community. Again, the church has often gotten this wrong. You know, you shouldn't steal from a fellow Christian, but if you want to steal from a pagan, that's okay, because after all, they're pagans. None of that in the New Testament. There's an interesting book by Gene Getz called A Biblical Theology of Material Possessions. It's a goldmine of information. And rather than reinventing the wheel, I've just picked a lot of cherries from that book this evening to just remind us of the many, many principles. He actually goes through, does the pick and shovel work, inductively looking at text after text after text in the New Testament and comes up with 126 supracultural principles regarding our relationship with our material possessions. Now you could quibble, maybe there's 125, maybe there's 137, you know, but he comes up with 126. And did we go over this book once a few years back with deacons? I remember studying it. Do you guys remember it at all? Who was I studying it with? It must've been in a different life. I'm sorry. Different light, different church, different person. But anyway, I remember the first time I went through this and I just thought, well, thank you for that. And thank you for that. And thank you for that and stuff and systematizing. So let me just quickly summarize some of these statements. A lot of these expressions will be his, Getz's rather than my own, but I think they'll ring a bell for you. First of all, the New Testament, just like the Old Testament, affirms that material possessions are the generous gifts of God to humanity, and in particular to his own redeemed people. And as such, we do not have original ownership of anything. Our ownership is derivative. And so, as we said before, it's a matter of stewardship. If God gives you something, he expects you to use it properly for his glory, first commandment, and for your neighbor's Blessing, second commandment. So that's affirmed in the New Testament as well as in the Old. We've seen in our studies of the Sermon on the Mount that Christ urges us to pray for our daily bread. right to ask for these things. They shouldn't be preoccupations, and we shouldn't fall into anxiety. We talked about all that in Matthew chapter 6. But we pray for our daily bread. And again, we're balancing those two, the lesson of the wilderness. If I'm poor, I might steal and dishonor my God. Or the lesson of the land, if I get too much and I'm rich, I might forget the Lord my God. So the daily bread is just that exact provision that will help us keep focused on the Lord and on His grace. People, especially professing believers, who put their faith in their material possessions and who abuse and misuse other people in order to accumulate more wealth are warned that they will eventually be judged severely by God himself. James sounds an awful lot like an Old Testament prophet when he writes in chapter 5, verse 1, "'Come now, you rich, weep and howl for the miseries that are coming upon you. Your riches have rotted, and your garments are moth-eaten. Your gold and silver have corroded, and their corrosion will be evidence against you, and will eat your flesh like fire. You have laid up treasure in the last days. Behold, the wages of the laborers who mowed your fields, which you kept back by fraud, are crying out against you. And the cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord of hosts. You have lived on earth in luxury and in self-indulgence. You have fattened your hearts in the day of slaughter. You have condemned and murdered the righteous persons. He does not resist you." Again, sounds like Amos. Again, when you think about things like the Industrial Revolution, vast increased productivity, people moving from farms to cities to work in factories, and the rich get rich, rich, rich, rich, rich, and the poor are better off than they used to be. But there were so many violations of passages like this by people who went to church every single Sunday and heard something from the pulpit, but they didn't hear this, at least not with any real conviction pressed forward. And as I said last time, that opened the door for someone like Karl Marx. Since the church is not the champion of the poor, then who will be? Well, let's let the humanists be their champion instead. Christians, who have a lot of material possessions, are to demonstrate humility, realizing that their only true treasures are those that have been stored up in heaven. Again, James says, let the lowly brother boast in his exaltation and the rich in his humiliation, because like a flower of the grass, he will pass away. However, We have multiplied our earthly possessions. Death is going to put a full stop to it. You can't take it with you. Who was that that told me just recently, you know, you don't see a U-Haul trailer behind a hearse? Somebody might try that. So for Christians, and here again, this is a consistent teaching of the Bible, the New Testament, the first priority is to be focused upon godliness, upon character, just like Proverbs says. Wisdom is far more valuable than gold or silver or precious stones. So godliness and contentment rather than earthly riches, which in the end cannot satisfy. Paul writes in Philippians 4 verse 10, I rejoice in the Lord greatly that now at length you Philippians have revived your concern for me. And he has in mind their financial support, their material support for his ministry. You were indeed concerned for me, but you had no opportunity. Not that I am speaking of being in need, for I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. I know how to be brought low and I know how to abound in any and every circumstance. I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. Again, those two principles, the wilderness and the land. I've learned how to be full and how to be empty, how to be satisfied, super satisfied, and how to go hungry. I can do all things through Him who strengthens me. So there's that reminder that God provides material possessions. We have a stewardship. for those possessions, but they are a temptation and a snare if we begin to love them and seek them and serve them rather than living by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. Okay, second kind of category. Christians should work hard to provide for their own economic material needs so that they won't be a reproach to the name of Christ before the broader world. When pagans look at Christians, let's say, in the workplace, and they see people that are last to check in and first to check out, and make the most trips to the bathroom rather than being at their workstation, and are always looking... I spent a lot of time in construction in my school days. and there were men on a work crew and you never saw them doing any work because they were always doing something else, but it wasn't the job they were hired to do. Well, Christians aren't supposed to behave that way. So if we name the name of Christ and then we're slacking our labor, we're going to bring reproach. Paul writes to the Thessalonians, now concerning brotherly love, you have no need of anyone to write to you, for you yourselves have been taught by God to love one another. So he's talking about our love for God and for one another. For that indeed is what you are doing to all the brothers throughout Macedonia. But we urge you, brothers, to do this more and more." And then he makes it specific. Aspire to live quietly, to mind your own affairs, to work with your hands, as we instructed you, so that you may walk properly before outsiders and be dependent upon no one. Again, that's revolutionary stuff when you think about how Christians so often approach their so-called work ethic. More specifically, Christian employees should work hard and serve their employer, whether it's a Christian or a non-Christian, a nice boss or a nasty boss, as if they are actually serving Christ himself as their employer, which, as a matter of fact, is the case. Colossians chapter three talks about that. Then flip it over. Christian employers, masters, should always treat their employees fairly in every regard. So again, when you think about labor and capital relations that have become such huge aspects of thinking about economy. These very simple principles and again you could reduce it even more. Paul says consider the needs of others more important than your own. So the boss considers the needs of his employees more important than his own and the employee thinks about the concerns of his employer more than his own. You see how these things all tie together. They're just reiterations and applications of profound principles for Christian living. And we are blind and foolish if we can't see these things and won't put them into practice. You know, worst case scenario, it's hypocrisy. But just short of that is we're so self-deluded that we think going to church and singing a few hymns on Sunday excuses us from this kind of responsibility when we're out in the broader world. Christians should work hard to make an honest living, not only to take care of their own needs, but then also to be equipped to help others. And here the advice or the commandment that God gives to the thief. 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, a thief is still a thief until he becomes a diligent, productive worker who then looks out for the needs of those around him. Now again, you've heard these verses, you've heard these points made before. But this is Christian economics. This isn't, you know, having some Christian running an organization or a government agency. This is the way we're supposed to think and act as members of God's kingdom. And then, and this is a stern warning that comes up more than once in the New Testament, Christians who can work but will not work for a living should not be given economic assistance. Paul writes again, the Thessalonians, for even when we were with you, we would give you this command. If anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat. Now, I think in a lot of Christian circles, they say, well, that's so harsh. But it's not. It's biblical. If I will not work and I rely upon you taking care of me, I'm stealing from you. Serious stuff. A third area, real quick, as Christians use their material possessions to meet one another's needs, it will strengthen the loving unity and community within the body of Christ. And here you think of the early chapters of Acts and the way Luke describes how the church in Jerusalem began to respond and grow within Jerusalem. End of chapter 4. Verse 32, now the full number of those who believed were of one heart and soul. And no one said that any of the things that belonged to him was his own. Again, not original private property, but derivative private property, a stewardship. but they had everything in common. And with great power, the apostles were giving their testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. And great grace was upon them all. There was not a needy person among them. For as many as were owners of lands or houses sold them and brought the proceeds of what was sold and laid it at the apostles' feet. And it was distributed to each as any had need. And of course, the deacons were instituted to oversee that work. But what's striking is this was never under compulsion, certainly not under government compulsion. In the next chapter, when Ananias and Sapphira sell their field, give part of it to the apostles, claiming that it was the whole mount. Peter makes it very clear, while that land remained unsold, it was your own. And after it was sold, was it not at your disposal? So the problem wasn't that they didn't give all. It's that they held back but claimed, for the sake of their public reputation, to have given all. And God took their lives from them right on the spot. So, excelling in the grace of giving. Paul wrote to the Corinthians, who bragged about the fact that they were gifted in faith, and in speech, and in knowledge, and in all earnestness. Paul says, as you excel in everything, see that you excel in this act of grace also, which is the offering that he was collecting for the saints in Jerusalem. It's God's will that all Christians excel in that grace of giving. He says we shouldn't give under compulsion, but having decided in our heart we should give cheerfully. We talk about a cheerful giver. I mean, can we genuinely be delighted with the privilege of giving? The Macedonians were that way. And Christians should be willing to make special sacrifices in order to meet the special material needs of others within the body of Christ. It's not the will of God that some Christians not be able having been responsible in their work and as productive as they can, but if they can't meet their own physical needs, when other Christians who have the means to help, again, this is right out of Proverbs, if you see someone who needs and you could help and you say, no, I don't see them, I won't do it, then we invoke the judgment of God. It is God's will that every church have an efficient system for helping to meet the true material needs of others in the body of Christ. And again, you think about the organization of the diaconate in Acts chapter 6. There should be responsible leaders put in charge of that work. Both the spiritual needs that the apostles were taking care of and the material needs that the deacons came to take care of required men of integrity, and of honesty and of public virtue. They were known to be honest men in order to take care of that work. Christians who are generous motivate other Christians to also be generous. Again, Paul cites the Macedonians who were poor, but begged for an opportunity to participate in this offering. And he tells the Corinthians that, so the Macedonian example will motivate the Corinthians who had far more resources by which to contribute. And generous Christians ultimately cause praises to redound to God and strengthen his worship. One other thing that strikes people these days as harsh, and that is that There were standards by which aid was to be administered on behalf of the church. When you read in chapter 5 of 1 Timothy about the care of widows, Paul makes it very clear that not every widow should be supported by the church. If she has a family, that responsibility falls upon them properly, first of all. And again, he quotes the Old Testament provision. And he says if a man won't care for the members of his own household, he's worse than an unbeliever. He's denied the faith. and they have to be of a certain reputation. So he says widows should not be less than 60 years old to be enrolled as regular recipients of church care. They have to have a reputation for good works. having brought up children, having shown hospitality, having washed the feet of the saints, and cared for the afflicted, have devoted themselves to good work. So they're receiving help from the church because they have themselves demonstrably been contributors. Maybe their support or their help helped other widows in turn. Young women who are widowed are encouraged to marry and to bear children and to manage their households. But the point is that it's not just I ask for help and I can live any way I want and the church is obliged to take care of me. So when deacons ask hard questions like our deacons often do when they're going to administer aid, they have a right to ask those questions. Christ commands it. And sometimes recipients of help chafe at that. It's none of your business or you can't tell me what to do with my money. Well, They may not be able to tell you what to do with your money, but they cannot add to the stockpile of money that you will use autonomously. So there's a generosity of spirit that is, again, ethically qualified. The church always has to do what is right in the sight of God. Well, as I say, there's 126 of these principles. I've given you just a few and sketched them. But you can see that if you're looking at the New Testament from a particular perspective with economic questions in your mind, there's a lot there. And we do well, now we're not all professional economists, but even as we think about the economy, as in it's the economy stupid, we need to weigh our relationship to larger, again, we can't change things from the top down, but we can certainly make decisions about what we are going to do and not do in light of these fundamental principles. And let me just close. I quoted this at length back in our sermon on daily bread, I think it was. But let's just look back and read through one more time. First Timothy six, verses six and following. Because again, kind of to sum it all up, the Christian's first priority should be to focus on godliness and contentment rather than on riches which often bring discontentment. Paul writes, godliness with contentment is great gain. And so envy and avarice and all of those things that motivate us to sin are, they're the antithesis of contentment. Godliness contentment put together mean great gain. For we brought nothing into the world and we can take nothing, can't take anything out of it. But if we have food and clothing, with these we will be content. Now we Americans want a much higher standard of living than food and clothing. Maybe we don't need as much as we think we need. But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation, into a snare, into many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. As always, sin is self-destructive. For the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil. It is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierce themselves with many pangs." Then down to verse 17, "'As for the rich in this present age, charge them not to be haughty, nor to set their hopes on the uncertainty of riches, but on God, who richly provides us with everything to enjoy.'" Again, God the Creator, providentially giving us these material blessings. "'They are to do good, to be rich, in good works, to be generous and ready to share, thus storing up treasure for themselves as a good foundation for the future so that they may take hold of that which is truly life. Years ago, there was a fellow in a previous church, maybe it was a family, receiving aid from the deacons, they truly were legitimately in need. But they tithed on the gift that the church gave them. It would have been so easy to say, well, I'm receiving from the church and I need this, but they had that generous heart ready to share. So when they got a gift from the deacons for their rent or utilities or whatever it was, they took the tithe and gave it right back where it came from because the heart of generosity, the heart of worship in financial things is not at all curtailed when we don't have very many resources. Again, that widow took her two coins gave everything that she had. And Jesus commends that attitude of faith and generosity. You wouldn't be that generous. You wouldn't take those kind of risks if you did not have faith in the God who gives us generously all of those things that we need. At any particular point in life, we may need the lesson of the wilderness. manna day by day. And at other times, God might be able to trust us with more plenty, but then we need to learn the lesson of the land where we've got enough and more than enough. And most of us here in America have, we've been living in the land of plenty and maybe have forgotten some lessons that we can only learn in the wilderness. Lord, we thank you that we can think about these things, that they're not secular, they're not outside the pale of your concern, and your concern for what kind of people we are as children in your family and as citizens in your kingdom. We thank you for the groundwork that was laid as you spoke to Moses and gave the law and the wise men who spoke the Proverbs and the prophets who denounced Israel's sin and called them to repentance. And then for Jesus and his apostles to come along and build on that foundation so that we have in the Bible so much that can guide our private economics, and to the degree that we live in a country where our votes and choices may influence economic policy, we can do that in terms of these biblical principles and not just looking out for what will be the best provision for me, who will take care of me. So thank you for these foundations and we pray that as we carry on then to think about some of the sins under the Eighth Commandment and some of the commands. They'll make more sense to us because you have taught us about yourself and your world and what you intend for us in that world, that we might live for the glory and praise of your name. Amen.