Radiance Sunday Service | 10/26/2025 | Enough to Give | Exodus 20:15

Oct 27, 2025

Devotional

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“Stealing is not just the simple taking of someone else's possession, but it includes time, ideas, and even people themselves. Now to provide a little bit more context, this is what it says in the rest of Leviticus 6. If he has sinned and has realized his guilt, then he has sinned. If he has sinned and has realized his guilt, then he has sinned. If he has sinned, restore what he took by robbery or what he got by oppression or the deposit that was committed to him or the lost thing that he found or anything about which he has sworn falsely, he shall restore it in full and shall add a fifth to it and give it to him to whom it belongs on the day he realizes his guilt. In other words, you have to give back to whom you've stolen from. But watch this. And then the scripture says, And he, the one who stole, shall bring to the priest as his compensation to the Lord a ram without blemish out of the flock. Or it's equivalent for a guilt offering. Not only do you have to make restitution with the individual in which you've taken and stolen from, but here's a sobering reality. You must also make restitution with God. Because when you steal from others, you steal from God. Because to steal is to go against and distort and destroy the design in which God created society to flourish, which is that we've all been created in his image, and we are to honor that in one another.”
“What's interesting about intention and ignorance, in both cases, you're wrongfully taking what does not belong to you. And even in the cases of justified theft, it doesn't take much for us to see the devastating effects it has on us as a society. Walk through unions, the city's got plenty of money. The city's got plenty of money. The city's got plenty of money. It's just a matter of we can get out of it. You can't even find a Walgreens in the city anymore. SF has one of the highest rates of larceny theft. And aside from the business closures, I think what we miss out is the greater and deeper issue that stealing has on a society.”
“Let me ask you, do you approach it judicially? Are you thinking about the cost of your merchandise and seeing what is the appropriate legal punishment that fits the crime? No. It's deeply emotional. It hits you so much. It hits you so much. It hits you so much. It hits you so much. Somewhere deep inside where part of you feels violated. I remember when something was stolen from me, I thought to myself, man, does this person not even respect how hard I worked in order to have this? What it does, it distorts the image of God that has been placed in one another. But here's the irony of it all. The thing about stealing is it only thinks of the individual at the expense of the community. And as a result, trust is broken. And as distrust grows, the tighter society begins to grip our own possessions. Don't be open. Don't share. Because you might be a victim and you might be taken advantage of. But the irony is both the perpetrator and the victim turn inward. And it creates a society where people only look out for themselves. And as a result, we only rob us of each other.”
“There's a line in the catechism that writes, and all other unjust or sinful ways of taking or withholding from our neighbor what belongs to him or of enriching ourselves. In other words, the first two are wrongfully taking from others that do not belong to us. Ignorance is wrongfully withholding from others things that belong to them. Does that make sense?”
“In the context of this stealing, God is saying, I have built in the very fabric and rhythm of society in our lives, this ideal. This idea of being generous and giving to others. Why? To show that part of God's DNA and is designed for us is that we will be a people that give. But when we neglect that giving, we are stealing as well.”
“We live in a culture where it's all about maximizing our potential, maximizing our possessions for the sake of our own benefit. But here in God's kingdom, in his economics of society, he's saying that, look, leave a margin. Don't maximize the land. Don't take everything. But instead, leave a margin and give that margin to those who need. For when you neglect the giving the needs of others with the resources we have, we are also guilty of this commandment.”
“Tithing was completely different from a tribute or tax. Tithing was actually supposed to be a holy act of returning to God a portion of what already belonged to him. It was a holy way of saying, I trust in you to provide. That song that we sing, everything I need, my father has for it. He will provide. Tithing was a decoration of that truth.”
“But if tithing is giving back to God what already belongs to him, maybe another way of looking at this is not how much we have to give to God, but have you considered the fact that God gives 90% back to us? He's a generous God. And we must consider this because Jesus says, for where your treasure is, there your heart will also be.”
“At the end of the day, the heart of stealing is this. The heart of stealing is claiming something that does not belong to you as your own. Would you agree? Isn't that what it is? You claim something that doesn't belong to you as your own and you take it. And we justify it by calling it, we're just borrowing it forever, right? But we're claiming something that does not belong to me as our own. And what happens is when that claim becomes an action, that is what we call theft.”
“If we were to get to the heart of it, the question that I think we need to ask ourselves is, what does the scriptures call us to? What is the gospel response to a commandment like this? And I think it's this. It's stewardship. Can you all say stewardship with me? Let's turn to the next slide. If stealing is the claim to something that does not belong to me as my own, stewardship is a call to be faithful to the things that belong to him. Stealing says, what's yours is mine. Stewardship says, what's his is entrusted to me. So where stealing benefits the individual at the cost of others, stewardship gives of the individual for the flourishing others, ultimately oneself.”
“Everything that we are, our lives, our belongings, our possessions, the people, the earth, the very breath in our lungs, as believers, who do we say all those belong to? That's how I gets it. Who do we say that belongs to? God. We belong to God. We are not our own. If that's true, anytime we claim our lives or we live them, we are not our own. We are not our own. We are not our own. We are not our own. If we live them in such a way as it belongs to ourselves, then perhaps we are guilty of this commandment as well. Let me say that again. Anytime we claim our lives and what we have as our own, then that makes us guilty of stealing.”
“I think our fundamental issue is not some unhealthy attachment to our possessions or just simply taking what is not ours, but it's a refusal to see who we belong to in the first place. It's an ownership issue, y'all. If everything belongs to God, and then we are not the owners, we are called to be the stewards of it.”
“Rather than minimizing our possessions, it elevates it. Rather than creating more insecurity, it frees us so that we can bless others.”
“Stewardship reclaims our love. Augustine, Saint Augustine, once described that, every sin is theft. When the soul turns away from him to whom it ought to belong and turns itself to itself, that that is stealing. He goes on to say that theft is chasing after a disordered love, but stewardship is about actually learning and reclaiming to love rightly.”
“Stewardship elevates our time, talent, and treasure. Notice how this is not just about your finances, but this is all of yourself. And I get it. Stewardship is not the coolest, thing to hear. Would any of you click on an article that says top five ways to steward your resources? Probably not. But Scripture, what it does, it elevates what we have for it to have a greater purpose and meaning behind it. That what we have can be used to advance his kingdom. And so my encouragement for us, yes, work hard, build your influence, make a lot of money, but do it with a greater purpose.”
“Stewardship transforms our fear into trust. I think this is pretty straightforward, but as we're singing this song, we're reminded that it is God who provides for our needs. To be clear, Malachi, he's not saying some investment strategy. He's not saying if you give to God, your ROI will be 200%. This is not prosperity gospel. But the promise that God gives us is that Jesus says it like this, look at the birds of the air. If the Father provides for them, then how much more will he provide for us who is infinitely valuable in his eyes? You see, what stewardship does, it allows us to trust in him.”
“For stewardship frees us to care for others. In Ephesians, the Apostle Paul writes this regarding this same commandment. 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. John Piper says that there is a progression from an inferior way of life as Paul goes to a superior way of life. What is that progression? You can steal in order to have, two, you can work in order to have, or the superior way of living. Living is you can work in order to give. I wonder if many of us would agree with what scripture says. Blessed it is to give than to receive, right? Have you experienced the joy of when you give and you bless others and you see them enjoy that? Isn't it far a greater blessing than anything that you could have received yourself?”
“Christianity says that everything we have belongs to God and it must be used as he directs. We are trustees that must give generously as the owner directs, which is always for the marginalized and Last one is this, stewardship glorifies God. I think that's pretty self-explanatory.”
“If stealing is claiming the power of God, what is it that you're going to do? What is it that you're going to do? You're going to do something that does not belong to you as your own. Just maybe there's a part of your life in which that's the way you've been living. Maybe when it comes to your possessions, you've been living in a way as if those things belong to you. You know, even as I was preparing this as a parent, I had to check myself, even my children. Do I love them and care for them as if they belong to me? Or do I love them as if they belong to me? And I think that's a very important part, and I think that is why when you're taking care of your children, you should take care for them knowing that they belong to him.”
“Simplicity is learning to live, in the enough.”
“But what I've come to realize is all of those trains of thought subtly reinforce the lie of ownership. That again, what we have, who we are, depends on us. And here's what I found. The more you have, the harder it is to give. Anybody ever feel like that? When you're young, you could give, and you told yourself, okay, but when I get older, and I make more, then I'll give more. But let me ask you, did that really happen? Again, please, this is not because the church needs money, but it's about the heart. Kent Hughes said it like this, every time I give, I declare that money does not control me. Tithing is a decoration. It is not a transaction that we do over pushback.”
“Tithing, brothers and sisters, is a holy declaration that says, money does not control me, for everything I have belongs to him alone.”
“I want generosity to be something that we strive for, but I want generosity to not come from our margins, meaning what we have left over, because that's what I often feel like I do. I think to myself, I'll be generous with what I have left over, because you can't be generous if you have nothing to be generous with, right? But I realize my generosity is driven by the margins. Generosity was driven by our priorities, meaning scriptures has this biblical principle of first fruits offering. What if generosity was baked into the prioritization of our budget, or we said, you know what? I'm not going to do all my budgeting, and then with whatever's left over, after even my gaming fund, then I'll be generous with that. What if the way that we approached our budgets is, you know what? First fruits. God, what does it look like for me? To be consistent and generous.”
“If you feel like you'll never be generous or you feel like you can't give, let me rebuke that lie for you right now, because this is what the gospel can do for you. It can take greed. And transform it into generosity. It can take our lives of accumulation into a life of powerful giving.”
“We give not to appease guilt, but to echo grace. Not to earn favor, but to extend the favor we've already received. That we don't just have something that even the wealthiest will never have, which is enough. But because we have enough, we get to give.”
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