 So the outline, the title is caught red-handed, you shall not steal. Exodus 20, verse 15. The outline is, we're gonna cover, one, your guilty of stealing before God. Two, Christ saves thieves. Three, your call not to steal, but to work. So one, your guilty of stealing before God. Two, Christ saves thieves. And three, your call not to steal, but to work. A few years ago in 1993, there was a George Barnard did a survey about stealing. And he began in the survey, they asked who considers themselves to be a thief, or who considers themselves to be guilty of stealing. And 86% of the people said were innocent of stealing. 86% said, I'm not a thief. Now I think at the end, I would ask you to consider that again, the same statistic, because what we're gonna go over tonight is what is stealing in the eyes of God. And I think that you'll find that much more than 86% of us are guilty of stealing, let alone innocent of it. Let's go ahead and we'll read in Exodus 20, the commandments of God. Exodus chapter 20, I'll read verses 12 to 17. Honor your father and mother that your days may be long upon the land which the Lord your God is giving to you. You shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal, you shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. You shall not covet your neighbor's house, you shall not covet your neighbor's wife, nor his male servant, nor his female servant, nor his ox, nor his donkey, nor anything that is your neighbor's. Okay, let's consider the context of Exodus 20. You remember, the book begins with the deliverer being raised up, and that deliverer has spends time in the land of near Sinai being prepared by the Lord. Being prepared by the Lord. And the Lord raises him up, and his name is Moses, to deliver the people from bondage in Egypt. And through a mighty work in which the Lord does where he brings in the 10 plagues, the people of Israel are delivered by God's mighty hand. The people of Israel are delivered through the crossing of the Red Sea in chapter 14. In chapter 15, they give praises to God for his deliverance. But at the end of 15, they begin to complain about not having water. In 16, they begin to complain about not having food, and God brings reigns manna from heaven. In chapter 17, God gives them water from a rock, and gives them victory over the Malachites. In chapter 18, they get counsel from Jethro about how for Moses to rule over the people of God. And in chapter 19, the people of God come to the Mount Sinai. And in Mount Sinai, they are here at the mountain in which they've been delivered for this purpose to come to this mountain. If you remember when Moses first comes to Pharaoh, he's asked for the people to be delivered so that they may go and worship at this mountain. The deliverance is for the purpose of receiving the law of God and being worshiping at this mountain. You see how this can be even a bigger event in Exodus than the crossing of the Red Sea. They come to Mount Sinai, and God, in chapter 19, and God begins to tell the people to prepare themselves. And in verses three to six, he begins to explain it. So you saw what I did to the Egyptians, how I bore you on eagle's wings. And he begins to prepare them to tell them, I'm gonna give you a covenant. I'm gonna give you if you obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be a special treasure to me above all people for all the earth is mine. So the people begin to prepare. And as they do so in verse nine, behold, the Lord says, behold, I will come in a thick cloud that the people may hear when I speak with you and believe you forever. And so in verse 10 to 13, the people begin to consecrate themselves. They begin to get ready. And they're told not to touch the mountain, not to come near it, and that the trumpet will sound when the time comes for them to hear. In verse 14, so Moses goes down from the mountain and the people sanctify themselves. They prepare themselves, they wash, they don't go near their wives. And for three days, they begin to prepare thinking about the law that's going to be given. And on the third day as it prepares, they begin to get ready to get next to the mountain and they see the mountain covered with funders and lightnings and a thick cloud. And the sound of the trumpet was very loud so all the camp trembled. In verse 18, now Mount Sinai was completely in smoke because the Lord descended upon it in fire. Its smoke ascended like the smoke of a furnace and the whole mountain quaked greatly. And when the blast of the trumpet sounded long and became louder and louder, Moses spoke and God answered him by voice. Then the Lord came down upon Mount Sinai on the top of the mountain. And the Lord called Moses to the top of the mountain and Moses went up. When God comes to Sinai, the people tremble. And when God speaks from Sinai, what does he say? He says, you shall have no other gods. You should not make a carved image. You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain. You will remember the Sabbath to keep it holy. You will honor your father and mother. You shall not murder. You shall not commit adultery. You shall not steal. You shall not steal. You shall not steal. So in context, you have to take this commandment and tremble at it. You need to take this and think about how it's given in context with Mount Sinai on fire, with God himself coming to the mountain and God himself speaking. And when he speaks, it reveals his character and it reveals our shame in the law. And you must meditate on what he says here. And when you do so, it will show you the character of God. It will show you your sin. It will show you your need for Christ and it will show you how to live righteously. These are things we desperately need. Okay, so when he says you shall not steal, he uses the word ganab, which is defined that when you take what belongs to another without consent, you can do it by stealth. You can do it by deceiving. You can do it, it's theft, it's robbery to take what is someone else's. Now when each of you think about it, have you ever been talking to somebody by the gospel and you ask them, have you ever stolen something? And what's very common, what's very typical is a person says yes, I remember when I was young, I took some candy from the store but I have never done that again. Now, there are a number of children here tonight, right? And if I were to ask your children, would you remember a time when you have taken something from your brother? Have you taken something from the store? Have you taken something that does not belong to you? Do you remember when you have done that? Adults, do you remember the shame? And children, do you remember the shame when you're caught? Think now about what is stealing before God? What is stealing? Stealing is when you just take something, straight theft, like Adam takes the fruit from the garden. You just take what is not yours. In Psalm 3721, when you borrow and you don't give back, when you borrow and you don't give back, it is stealing before God. When you fail to clear yourself from debt, when you have the ability to work for it, not paying your bills is stealing. Not paying your bills is stealing. When you are employed by your employer, particularly by the hour, especially so by the hour, when your employer says, okay, for this time I am giving you this amount of money to do this work and you are not diligent. You end up talking, you end up goofing around. Have you ever had it at work, whether you're employed by the hour or not? When you're talking to somebody and the supervisor walks in and then you get back to work. You know what, why you do that? Because you're stealing. That shame is the shame of stealing that you've been caught. When you use work time to talk about the gospel, you're stealing from your employer. You know, people think that as long as I steal from somebody who has money, then it's okay. You know, I'll be Robin Hood. I'll steal from the rich and I'll give to me, the poor. And we think, yes, Robin Hood, he's a Gallant fellow, he's a, you know, Obstanzis and I want to be like him. You know, he steals from the prince. The prince has got lots of money. Prince John. So it's okay. It's okay to steal, right? Cause he's got lots of money. But God doesn't give care about that. God doesn't care about whether the person has lots of money. God doesn't care if you steal from the government. If you take what is not yours, whether the person's got a lot of money or a little, it's stealing before God. It's stealing when you don't pay a fair wage, James 5-4. When you don't pay a fair wage or you hold back and you should be paying your employees, it is stealing before God. Exodus 21-16, 1 Timothy 1-9 says kidnapping is stealing before God, stealing someone and selling them into slavery. Cheating on your taxes is stealing from the government. When you don't report your income and what you make and you make that money and you don't report it to the government, that's stealing, you're stealing taxes from the government. The Bible has a lot to say about false weights and measurements, false weights and measurements. For example, in Amos 8, false weights and measurements is when you pull a fast one. You know the car that you're gonna sell has got this problem. And you know I just will not say anything about that problem. I'll just let them look over the car. Oh, do you like it? Very good. Okay, you can buy it and you know it needs a new transmission. You know it needs this and you are quietly thinking if I don't tell them, I will get more money from them. You're stealing. Stealing. It's kind of like when you go to the supermarket and you pull up a bag of chips, right? And it's the big bag. The big bag and you go home and you open the big bag and you're like, there's only a little amount of chips in the big bag. The false weights and measurements. You know that when you get, you feel that defrauded, right? You pour it all and it goes, all fits on one plate. You feel kind of defrauded, right? Do you pull a fast one on somebody else? Do you sell the lemon car? Plagiarism is stealing. Cheating in class. My wife grades papers at a university and she has this program where she can put in the paper and then it'll search the internet for how much the material is cut and pasted from the internet. I don't know if she's ever had a series of papers handed in where there wasn't somebody who is stealing off the internet and you just cut and paste, here's my paper. That's stealing what is not yours. Stealing what is not yours. The FBI says about stealing in the internet. It says, there's an age old crime. This is from the FBI's website. It says, but it's not picketing a pocket or holding a bank. It's robbing people of their ideas, inventions or creative expressions. What's called intellectual property. Everything from trade secrets and property products and parts of movies and music and software. It's a growing threat, especially with the rise of digital technologies and internet file sharing networks and much of the theft takes place overseas where laws are often lax and enforcement more difficult. All told, intellectual property theft costs U.S. businesses billions of dollars a year and robs the nation of jobs and lost tax revenue. Preventing intellectual property theft is a priority of the FBI's criminal investigative program. We specifically focus on the theft of trade secrets and infringements on products that can impact consumers' health and safety, such as counterfeit aircraft, car and electrical parts. Key to our success is linking the considerable resources and efforts of the private sector with law enforcement partners on local, state, federal and international levels. The FBI's concerned about it. Are you? The FBI's concerned about it. Shouldn't you be stealing music off the internet? Pirated movies, music, stealing before God. The U.S. Commerce Department says that they reported from Christian Victory, the publication, has given some figures which are astounding. These figures are a few years old. They say about four million people are caught shoplifting each year. But every person caught, 35 go undetected. It is estimated. If the estimates are accurate, that means 140 million shoplifting incidents occur in a nation of 215 million people. Most people, and according to that, if you're gonna go one for one, most, there's enough shoplifting for more than half the people in the U.S. The result of shoplifting tends to rise prices and people are forced, the prices are forced up because of anti-shoplifting devices that merchants buy and may increase the overhead. Only 70% of shoplifters are from the middle income. 20% are from the upper income and only 10% are from poorer families. Most of the shoplifting is coming from people like us. Middle income, excuse me. Stealing from God is straight theft. Stealing from God is plagiarism. Stealing is misusing your employer's time. Stealing is stealing from God. Malachi three, verses eight to 12. Now I remember talking to some people who used to be part of our church and they said, well, we don't believe in tithing. And so if when I look at the track that we have, and I hand out the track, it talks about tithing and the stealing from God and I feel guilty about when I evangelize somebody, listen, even if you don't believe in tithing, does the New Testament require you to give? Does the New Testament require you to give above and beyond 10%? Okay, so then if you're not giving, what God tells you to give, whether you have a 10% number or not, you're stealing from God. You're stealing from God and what he tells you to give and if you don't give it to him and you are not a cheerful giver, you are a thief from God. Stealing is charging excessive interest. Stealing is gambling. When you agree with two people, two people agree, okay, we're gonna try and steal from each other. Casino says, okay, I'm gonna try and steal from you. You come in and say, I'm gonna try and steal from the casino. And it's like a duel. We're gonna agree to try and kill each other. Is the duel, if somebody murders the other person in a duel, is it still wrong? Yes. So then agreeing to steal from one another is wrong. You have to covet in order to gamble. You understand how that works? You have to look at what somebody else has and say, I wish that was mine. I wish it so much, I'm gonna play a game and I'm gonna put down some of my money in an attempt to get your money. I'm gonna put some of my money at risk in order to try and steal some of your money. Implied, think you've been, implied here now stealing, you can steal someone's good name. You can steal someone's purity. You could steal the hearts if you're a divisive person. The hearts like Absalom did. You can steal false teachers, God refers to false teachers stealing his words. You can steal by when God gives you spiritual gifts and you don't use them. You steal from God. And you can steal from credit from others when you take the credit for what you've not done. Think with me now, why is it so sinful? When I thought about this commandment, you know what I thought? I like, you know, I got the commandment to preach that's not that convicting. It's, you know, who thinks stealing is that bad? Rob, you got Robin Hood, you got games where you steal, you got, you know, like video games called theft, I like Google theft, I put theft in, you know, you do that when you're preaching. You put, you Google your topic in and see what comes up. And you put in theft and a popular video game comes up called theft. Why is stealing so sinful? Why, those are, I explained some ways people steal. Why is it sinful? It's sinful because stealing is belittling. It is, it is belittling to one another. It is when, it is belittling God. God is the one who owns the world and stealing is rebellion against his stewardship, what he's ordained for you to have. You're saying to God, what I have is not enough. What you've given me is not sufficient. Stealing is sin before God. Because God has made personal property sacred. You understand, in the commandments of God he makes family sacred, honor your father and mother. He makes marriage sacred, don't commit adultery. He makes life sacred, you shout out murder. And now he makes personal property sacred. What you own is an extension of you. What you own is an extension of you. Have you ever had your house broken into or your car broken into or your thing stolen? You feel violated. Where does that feeling of violation come from? Have you ever wondered and thought about that? Why would I feel violated and abused when someone breaks into my home? Because personal property is an extension of you. You are personally being attacked with a sin of theft. So now stealing, in order to do that you must have greed. Stealing is evil because it's centered in self love. Stealing is sinful because it comes from a discontent heart. Stealing is sinful because it comes from an envy. Stealing is like a parasite that seeks like a leech that seeks blood, like a mosquito that should be squashed. Stealing is parasitic. You are like a parasite when you steal. It is not clever, it is not something to laugh about. It's not something that you've got over on somebody and you were never caught. Let's laugh about it. No, it's shameful. It should be repulsive to the Christian. It is an abuse of the hands that the Lord has given you. It is abuse of the intellect that God has given you. It is an abuse of the logic God has given you. And it is a result of laziness. Stealing and laziness go together. Hard work and Christianity go together. Stealing and laziness go together and heathen dump. And if you continue to steal, 1 Corinthians 16 says, 10, describes that you are not going to the kingdom of heaven. You must think about stealing and think about how it is violating somebody else and it must become wicked in your eyes. Do you hear me? Do you hear what I'm saying here about the law of God? The law of God, it reveals God now when you think about this commandment. Look, in order to steal, you gotta show hatred for somebody else. Hatred, hard-hearted, self-love. When you think I'm better than somebody else, I deserve their stuff. But God in this character is compassionate and he shows love for others by giving this command. We break this command and it shows discontent. But God keeps this command and it shows he's content in himself. We break this command and it shows us to be lazy. He keeps this command and it shows him to be a worker. We break the command of theft and it shows us to be arrogant. God keeps it and it shows him to have true humility. We break the command of theft and it shows us to be impatient. But our God is very patient. We break this command and it shows us to be deceitful. But he keeps this command and he's always truthful. We break this command and we're hypocrites. But he keeps this command and he's genuine, pure integrity. Stealing is evil in the eyes of God. And you are a thief. You are a thief. You are guilty and you're not just guilty, you're guilty before a holy God who has given the commandment not to steal. Look with me now in Luke 19. We've considered what God has said about not to steal. Think now how this commandment and your guilt before him should drive you to the Lord Jesus Christ, the one who saves thieves. Let's read verses one to seven. Then Jesus entered, passed through Jericho. Now behold, there was a man named Zacchaeus who was a chief tax collector and he was rich. And he sought to see who Jesus was, but could not because of the crowd for he was of short stature. So he ran ahead and climbed up into a sycamore tree to see him for he was going to pass that way. And when Jesus came to the place, he looked up and saw him and said to him, Zacchaeus, make haste and come down. For today I must stay at your house. So he made haste and came down and received him joyfully. But when they saw it all, they all complained saying he's gone to be a guest with a man who is a sinner. What I want you to see here is Christ comes purposely to pursue a thief. Christ comes purposely here to pursue a thief. Consider the context. Jesus is on the way to Jerusalem. He's on the way to Jerusalem to die. And he is in the region of Pariah. If you look on your Bible maps, he's on the east side of the Jordan. And he's making his way to Jerusalem. He is within a day of the Passion Week. He is going to Jerusalem to die. And he's got his eyes fixed on that event. But he's got to stop along the way. And some of the last people to be converted in his ministry. Some of his last ministry outside of Jerusalem, he stops at the town of Jericho. He forwards the river just north of Jericho where people who are pilgriming, getting ready for Passover, would ride the Ford together and they float across the river Jordan. And he comes to the town of Jericho. This town was a well-known, beautiful town. And in that town, it was called the City of Palms. It was a place where they had gardens. It's a place where Herod set up a palace and a theater. It was considered, it was a warmer environment. It was a lower altitude than Jerusalem. And it was considered one of the beautiful places in Israel. And he goes there for the salvation of blind Bartimaeus. And he has, in particular, he's going there for a man named Zacchaeus. He pursues a sinner named Zacchaeus. So when he enters in verse one, when he enters in Pastor Jericho, now behold, there was a man named Zacchaeus who was the chief tax collector and he was very rich. There was three principal cities in Israel that had tax centers. One was in Caesarea. And one of the three tax centers was here in Jericho. In order to be a tax collector, there are chief tax collectors and there are lower tax collectors. Matthew, remember, was a lower tax collector. Zacchaeus is one of the chief tax collectors. He's someone who buys a franchise from Rome. Rome sells, okay, one of these chief franchises. He is a very rich man and a very despised man. He's a very little man. And he has enough money to buy one of these franchises. And Rome requires a certain amount of money from taxes and he gets to keep the rest. So he becomes a defrauder. He becomes, by practice, a thief, stealing what is not his. When the crowd comes, in verse three, he sought to see who Jesus was, but could not because of the crowd for he was a short stature. So ever since you're a kid and you hear this story, do you remember the song, Zacchaeus was a wee little man and a wee little man was he? He climbed up in a sycamore tree to find out what he could see. Do you remember that song as your kid? So Zacchaeus, he thinks about where is Jesus coming and he plans out, okay, the crowd is coming, he's gonna cut off the crowd, he's gonna run ahead of the crowd, I know Jesus is headed this way and he climbs up in a sycamore tree. A sycamore tree has like an oak tree with a wide base and low hanging limbs. So little Zacchaeus can kinda scamper up and get in the tree easy and he can get a view. He can get a view of this Jesus. Is it curiosity? Maybe? Is it guilt of sin? Maybe? We don't know. But he wants to see Jesus. And he climbs, so he runs ahead in verse four and climbs up in a sycamore tree and when Jesus comes to that place, he particularly pursues Zacchaeus. And he says, Zacchaeus, make haste and come down. For today I must stay at your house. Here in the must is the word, Greek word day. There's the divine necessity. The divine necessity. It is God's plan. I must stay at your house, Zacchaeus. He has an irresistible call for Zacchaeus. I'm coming for salvation to your house. So Zacchaeus hurries up. He climbs down and boy, Zacchaeus happy. Zacchaeus is happy. But the people, the people, Conguzzo. You're a church who's heard John 6, right? This is not just Conguzzo here in verse seven. This is Dia Conguzzo. This is even a harder grumbling that's happening in John 6. The little prefects is making it even like very, very, very grumbling. And why are the people grumbling? Because they don't see themselves as thieves. They don't see themselves as thieves. So they grumble that Jesus would go with a thief. Do you see yourself as a thief tonight? Do you see yourself as a thief tonight? If you do, then you can rejoice how Christ pursues to save thieves. But if you're not, then you'll be a grumbler when salvation comes to someone else. And you'll sit in a church thinking, why am I in a church not saved when somebody else is? Because you don't admit your guilt before God. So now we see how Christ purposely pursues thieves. What do we learn about holiness? How to live in light of this commandment? Because the commandment instructs us how to live. Instead of stealing the opposite and the testament is that we're called to work and give to others. You may sit there and think, you know, I'm righteous, I don't steal. You know, I don't take pirated music off the internet. I don't embezzle in my company. I'm a hard worker. My supervisor, I get paid a salary so I can have the freedom. I'm not guilty of any ways of stealing. Well, let me ask you, the new testament requires you not just to not steal, but to work hard and give to others. The person who's prideful about their not stealing, well, are you generous towards others? And you surely can grow in that. Learn about righteousness here from Zacchaeus, verses eight to 10. We have the next scene. Then Zacchaeus stood and said to the Lord, look, Lord, I give half my goods to the poor. So suddenly we've changed scenes. Suddenly we're not at the sycamore tree anymore. We're in Zacchaeus's house. And a conversation has happened between Jesus and Zacchaeus. What do you think happened in that conversation? If you turn back a chapter, there's a rich young ruler. Perhaps Jesus went through the law like he did with the rich young ruler. And the rich young ruler, when he asked the rich young ruler to sell everything, give what he has to the poor, well, how does the rich young ruler respond? Thanks, but no thanks. This cost is too high. What if Jesus had the same conversation with this? This rich man. Let's see what happens. Then Zacchaeus stood and said, Lord, look, I give half my goods to the poor. And if I've taken anything from anyone by false accusation, I restore fourfold. Do you see the heart which he has? He has heard about his sin and his need for Christ. He understands the gospel. We see the fruit here of the Lord's ministry. You can see how he calls Jesus the Lord. He acknowledges who Jesus is. You can see the repentance in him that he says, and from a genuine heart, I give half my goods to the poor and I've taken anything from anyone by false accusation, I restore fourfold. Well, the law requires that if you've stolen, and he speaks about this in Exodus, if you've stolen by fraud, then you gotta give back and you gotta give one-fifth. Back what you stole and one-fifth. If you stole, but you're able to give it back, like you stole an animal in the law, you gotta pay that back and another animal. You gotta pay back 200%. So fraud, steal back, you pay back 120%. You steal an animal, possession, you gotta pay back 200%. You steal and that animal dies, that animal's not able to be paid back. You know what you gotta pay back? 400%, fourfold. You gotta pay back fourfold. Zacchaeus has been stealing by fraud. The law doesn't require him to give back 400%. What does he say? I'll restore fourfold. You see that his heart and his desire is here's the law of God, where the law says I see the law as good and right. I'm gonna go beyond it and I'm gonna care for the people I've stolen from. Do you see the heart of a repentant thief? And Jesus says today salvation has come to this house because he is also a son of Abraham. Do you see what Jesus is saying here? What if somebody would read this and say, look, Zacchaeus is saved by works. Is he saved by works here? No, Jesus says today salvation has come because he's a son of Abraham. This has happened, what Zacchaeus is doing here with his giving has happened. Not that doesn't make him a son of Abraham. No, he's doing that because he is a son of Abraham. Do you see that distinction? He has true faith and true repentance because he is a true Jew. Do you remember in Romans two, it says there's not everybody who is by blood a Jew, but when you have the faith of a Jew, you're a real Jew. It doesn't matter if you're descended from the line of Abraham, it matters if you have the faith of Abraham. And so now Jesus says this man, he has been a Jew all his life, but now he is really a son of Abraham. And because of that true faith, he now has that repentance that he will give and turn from that. You see for the son of man has come to seek and to save that which was lost. Look in Ephesians four. Ephesians four describes this to the church what happens in Nicodemus. In the area of putting off sin and putting on righteousness where you put off the old man and put on the new. In Ephesians four, 28, he covers the idea of theft. He's covering the law of God in this section of Ephesians. And he covers the commandment of not to steal. He says, let him who stole steal no longer, but rather let him labor, working with his hands what is good, that he may have something to give him who has need. Let him give to him who has need. Do you see your theft as making you lost? Do you see that the thieving and the stealing you've done makes it so that you need a savior? When you think about your life and you think back at the times where you've stolen and the shame that it should bring in your life and the shame that it should bring you then it should reveal that you don't just steal. You're not a thief just cause you steal but you're a thief at heart. Spurgeon talked about the idea of what it means to admit that you're lost. And he spoke about people who are in a shipwreck and they get in the lifeboats at sea. And they get the lifeboats and they have some water with them. They have some supplies and they're there in a lifeboat and they don't feel themselves as truly lost at sea. Instead they think there's hope. There's hope. We have water. Certainly somebody will find us. They will know that the ship won't show up on time. They'll come searching for us. All hope is not lost. When they ate all their food, surely all hope is not lost. We still have water. They begin to drink their water and ration it out. There's still hope. There's still hope. They see a ship in the distance and they scream out. They stand up, they try and row towards the ship but the ship sails away and doesn't see them. All hope is not lost. We're not out of water yet. Spurgeon goes on to say when they run out of water, when they run out of energy to row, when there's no wind at sea, when they're lost at sea and they have run and they lay it out in the boat and they begin to realize we're gonna die. He says, that's more when you realize you're lost at sea. When you think about your sins before God, you have to get to the point where you see I am lost at sea and I have no hope. I can't trust in what water I have, righteousness I have but I am hopelessly lost. I'm gonna die. It is there. It is then that you see the savior who comes to save wretched thieves. So I say to you, beloved, admit that you're a thief before God. Let that drive you to Christ. Let it you see the holiness of Christ and his giving of this commandment and his pursuing thieves and turn from theft to be giving to one another. This commandment will teach you how to live righteously with the stewardship the Lord has given you. You own rightly when you labor for what you have, you own rightly when you have what you have by, by law, labor or love. You own rightly when you have because someone has loved you and given it to you, you own rightly when you labor for it, you own rightly when the law has given it to you. Do not steal from one another. Let's thank the Lord for how he pursues us as sinners. Dear God, we thank you for this commandment is holy and right. It reveals our sin and your holiness. Help us to meditate on what it means to be a thief. Help us not to laugh about stealing and think it to be a trivial, a light thing. Lord, help us to take away these a wicked laughter about when someone laughs about them, the stealing that they've done. Please take that away from our minds and instead fill us with the shame, the truth Lord, help us to rejoice in you and how you purposely pursue thieves to save them. Lord, thank you for purposely pursuing us. We love you Lord for your redemption. We love you Lord for your irresistible grace. We love you how you take the initiative to love us, to show us that we're lost. Lord, help us to live righteously now. Help us to give to others who have need. Help us to work hard so that we may give to others so we can rightly obey your law, amen.