Introduction:

• Illustration: A bank robber gets talked into going to the bank across the street because he had his demand for money its deposit slip, and he is easily arrested.
• We feel violated when someone takes something from us.
• Often we fail to apply the "You shall not steal" commandment to ourselves as stringently as we do to everyone else.
  -Illustration: A preacher preached against stealing but his parishioners still stole logs, so he preached against stealing logs and was run out of town.
• There are many more-subtle ways to steal things from others.

Subtle stealing is still real stealing.

• Illustration: A grocery story sold more bananas "on sale" for five pounds for a dollar than at their regular price of twenty cents a pound.
• We need to examine our lives for the subtle ways that we might steal.
• Stealing from an employer is probably the most common type of theft.
  -Illustration: An elderly Japanese woman can't sleep past 4:30 a.m. because she has such a desire to get up and get busy making paper.
  - Ephesians 6:5–7
• Stealing from big corporations steals from everyone, because prices go up.
• People steal from their own children by not spending wisely for their needs.
  -Illustration: An ex-husband maneuvered out of paying child support.
• People steal other people's ideas or reputations through plagiarism.
• People even steal from God.
  -Illustration: People are "spiritual" but fail to give God his due.

What's the big deal about stealing?

• Behind this Commandment lies the idea of stewardship.

-1 Chronicles 29:11–14

• When we steal, we are circumventing God's actions and purposes.
• These things are not really ours, but God's, and we need to act accordingly.
• We should not get too attached to the things that we call our own.
  -Illustration: Jack Benny's wife's treasured ring was stolen, and she got another.
• If we hold too tightly to our things, we'll be unwilling to use them for God's purposes.
  -Matthew 25

Conclusion:

• Stealing is wrong, even if we don't get caught or no one notices.
• There are roughly four kinds of people in the world.
  -The robber, who says, "What's yours is mine, and I'll take it."
  -The miser, who says, "What's mine is mine, and I'll keep it."
  -The humanist, who says, "What's mine is yours, so I'll share it."
  -The child of God, who says, "What's mine is God's, so I'll use it wherever and however he wants me to."