Alright brethren, let's turn
in our Bibles to Ephesians chapter 4. Ephesians chapter 4, we're
going to read verse 28. Let him that stole, steal no
more. But rather let him labor, that
is a regular job, working with his hands the thing which is
good that he may have to give to him that needeth. Now, this
is not law, this is grace. The law that God gave at Mount
Sinai said, Thou shalt not steal. That's it. It gave no grace,
it gave no spiritual discernment, it gave no constraining love,
just only the strict command, Thou shalt not steal. Our text is not law, but an exhortation
that God gives to believers who God has saved from being thieves
through faith in Christ. who God makes to be restorers
to the needy. Not by law, but by grace. I've titled this Robbers Restored
to be Restorers. That's what a believer is. We're
robbers restored to be restorers. In these exhortations, we need
to understand the difference between law and between grace. The believer, God's elect who's
called out from among the Jew, who's called out from among the
Gentile, we're not under law, we're under grace. Not under
law, we're under grace. God's elect, His spiritual Israel,
are saved by the grace of God. It's by grace, by God giving
us what we do not deserve. By God giving us what no sinner
can obtain by the works of the law. By God giving us what You
and I could not do by the works of our hands, by God giving us
His righteousness, the righteousness of the law through faith in Christ. Now, why did God give the law
at Sinai? If we're not saved by the law,
why did God give the law at Sinai? Why did He give that law that
said, Thou shalt not steal? Well, the first thing that grace
does is to teach us that we have broken the whole law of God.
That's the first thing grace does. You notice here it says,
let him that stole steal no more. He's not saying, well, this one's
off the hook because they never stole. This applies to this one.
He's speaking to all of us. All of us. Because we all stole. We all broke that law. Now, turn
to Romans 5 with me just a moment. This is so important. Romans
5. Look in verse 17. You know that
Adam represented every child born of Adam. Christ represented
every child born of Christ. Romans 5.17 says, By one man's
offense, death reigned by one. Much more they which receive
abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness shall reign
in life by one Jesus Christ. Look down at verse 19. For as
by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so by the
obedience of one shall many be made righteous. Now, unregenerate
sinners hate the truth that we all died by the offense, by the
doing and dying of another. Unregenerate sinners hate that
message. They think it's not fair that I died, I became guilty
by the doing and dying of another. But regenerate sinners love it
because it also means we were made righteous by the doing and
dying of another, Christ Jesus. That's what that text just said.
By Adam's offense, by that one transgression, we became sinners.
But by Christ's obedience, all his people are made righteous.
So, when God gave the law at Mount Sinai, when He gave the
Ten Commandments and all the rest of the law that He gave
at Mount Sinai, every sinner in this earth had already broken
God's law. So why did God give it? Why did
He give it? Look at Romans 5.20. He says,
Moreover the law entered, that the offense might abound. that the offense might abound. God calls His law, given at Mount
Sinai, He calls it the ministration of condemnation. It's to minister
condemnation. That's what the law of Mount
Sinai was given for. It was given to teach His people
that we are condemned by Adam's transgression. God calls the
law He gave at Mount Sinai the ministration of death. Because
God gave it to teach his people that when Adam sinned, we died
in Adam. It's to minister condemnation
and death. As by one man sin entered the
world, and so death by sin. And so death passed upon all
men, for that all have sinned. Now, we broke every law of Mount
Sinai when we broke that one law in the garden by Adam's transgression. that's so of everybody, because
Adam represented everybody. And God says, whosoever shall
offend in one point, he's guilty of all the law. And when we sinned
in that one transgression of the garden, we broke all that
law that God gave at Mount Sinai. He gave to show us, you've broken
this whole law. You've broken everything in this
law. We broke the whole law. Go over to Exodus 20 with me.
Let's look at the law for a minute. I want you to see how we broke
the law. I can't go through all the commandments, but I can just
go through a few of the Ten Commandments. Exodus 20, verse 3. He says, Thou shalt have no other
gods before me. That's the first commandment
God gave. Remember what Satan told Eve
in the garden? The day you eat of this fruit, you'll be his
gods. And that's what Adam did. When he ate of that fruit, Adam
was saying, I won't have this god reign over me. I'll be my
own god. He broke this commandment. Look
at the second commandment goes right along with it. You know,
idolatry is in the heart. Graven images and things of that
nature, that comes from the heart. And when Adam sinned in the garden,
he was saying, I'll worship and serve my God, my image. That's who he's worshiping and
serving. Look at verse 7. Thou shalt not take the name
of the Lord thy God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him
guiltless that taketh his name in vain. Adam's disobedience
in the garden was cursing God. That's what it was. It was cursing
God. Look at verse 8. Remember the
Sabbath day to keep it holy. You know what was required to
keep the Sabbath day? To trust in God's full provision
for you. God said, I'll provide for you
on that day. It's to trust God's full provision
for you. And when Adam disobeyed in the
garden, He was saying, I don't trust God's full provision for
me. I don't trust it. Believers rest in Christ our
Sabbath in whom God has fully provided for us by grace. Look at verse 12. Honor thy father
and thy mother that thy days may be long upon the land which
the Lord thy God giveth thee. Adam's disobedience toward God
dishonored God his father. And you know what the result
was? He died that day. that hour he died. Verse 13 says,
Thou shalt not kill. Adam's disobedience to that one
transgression, taking that fruit in the garden, was the same as
killing God, trying to get God off his throne and to get Adam
out from under the authority of God. Look at verse 14, Thou
shalt not commit adultery. That's exactly what happened
in the garden. disobeyed God and he committed spiritual adultery
against God, to whom he was joined, to whom he was united, to whom
he was to be faithful, he committed spiritual adultery. Verse 15
says, Thou shalt not steal. Adam's disobedience to God was
robbing God of the glory due to him. Now I can't go on through
every command, but you get the point. When Adam transgressed,
that one transgression in the garden, he broke all the commandments. And you and I broke all the commandments
in him. And we've broken all the commandments
in our own heart. In our own heart. And that's
why God gave the law at Sinai. He gave it that the offense might
abound. That we might see what we've
done in him. So we know then that whatever
the law says, it says to them who are under the law every mouth
may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God,
for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. When
we thought we were keeping the law, and there may be somebody
sitting here this morning that thinks they're keeping the law.
When we thought we were keeping the law, we did not see the spiritual
depths of God's law. We didn't see it. By just thinking
that we were keeping the law, We were transgressing against
God. We were calling God a liar. We were bearing false witness
against God, because God said, by the deeds of the law, there
shall no flesh be justified, for by the law is the knowledge
of sin. And yet, by saying we were keeping it, we were calling
God a liar. He said we weren't. He said we
haven't. We had no idea all the many ways that we were stealing. We had no idea the many, many
ways that we were stealing. Let me give you a few that I
was thinking about. To know that your expenses are greater than
your income and yet you live off of your creditors. That's
stealing. That's stealing. This is how
strict God is about it. That's stealing. To slander a
neighbor. That steals from that neighbor.
It steals their good opinion from the one to whom you're talking.
And even to hear slander against a neighbor is stealing. To not
give our employer a full day's work, to kind of take the long
way down the aisle and ease around the back way to get up to the
cash register because we won't take our time getting up there
because when we get up there we have to go to work, that's
stealing. That's stealing their time. To not give an employee
a full day's wages, that's stealing. To make somebody wait on you,
that's stealing their time. That's stealing. And the law
reaches not only to the act, it reaches to the thoughts, just
to the thoughts. You remember that law that God
gave where He said you must have a just weight and a just measure
when you're buying and selling so that you don't steal from
anybody. It's got to be a just and equal weight. You remember
God said, He said, Thou shalt not have in thy bag a different
weight and a different measure. You shall not have in your house
a great and a small weight, but thou shalt have a perfect and
just weight, a perfect and just measure shalt thou have." What's
God saying by that? He's saying you can't even think
about doing it. If you think about it, you're
guilty. Have you ever looked at something, I've done this
before, you look at something and you think, you think, that
is just, that's put in the wrong place or something and you think,
that would be so easy to steal. You stole it. You stole it. Now this is how strict God is.
This is what Christ said. Out of the heart proceed evil
thoughts. Murder, adultery, fornication,
theft, false witness, blasphemy, and these are the things that
defile a man. You see, that's our nature. That's
the fountain of our old man. It's evil thoughts. And that's
what makes us defiled. That's how far-reaching God's
law is. And you know, the worst of all stealing is this, is to
steal God's glory that belongs to Him in His Son in salvation. For me to think, for me to entertain
this thought in my heart and say, you know, God chose His
people in eternity. because he saw something good
in us. That's to rob God of His glory
in sovereignly electing a people by His grace, apart from our
works, apart from any good or evil in us, that salvation might
be all of grace. That's to rob His glory. For
me to think Christ died for all men and only made salvation possible
So that I give the sinner the glory of making Christ's blood
effectual by his decision rather than saying Christ accomplished
the work, Christ redeemed His people, Christ by Himself purged
the sin of His people. To do so is to rob Christ of
His glory. For a man to think, I had a part
in making myself born again. That's to rob God the Holy Spirit
of His glory. To effectually, irresistibly
give life where He will. That's His glory. For me to think,
for me to entertain this thought that a sinner can be saved who
doesn't believe on God and who doesn't persevere in faith to
the end. That's to rob, that's to steal
God's glory who gives faith to His people and preserves His
people by His own power until the end. for me to believe in
my heart that a man sanctified by the works of the law, by his
flesh, that's to rob Christ who is the sanctifier and the sanctification
of his people. It's to rob God the Father who
separated his people and made us holy, choosing us in Christ.
It's to rob God the Son who is our sanctification and our sanctifier.
It's to rob God the Holy Spirit by whom we're separated into
Christ and kept there by his grace. It's to rob God. To not
believe on Christ is to rob God of the glory that belongs to
Him. Christ said, He that believeth on Him is not condemned, but
he that believeth not is condemned already, because he has not believed
in the name of the only begotten Son of God. Now what I'm trying to do is
show you how far reaching God's law is. I'm trying to show you
we, when He says here, let him that stole, He's talking to me
and He's talking to you. He's talking to every one of
us. That's how far reaching God's law is. And the first thing grace
does is teach us, I'm guilty. You're guilty. That's what grace
teaches us. Do you realize it? Do you realize
you're guilty? In myself, in yourself, we were
guilty in Adam. and by our own deeds. Now look
here, here's the second thing grace teaches. It teaches God's
child that Christ alone fulfilled the righteousness of the law
and that He did it for His people. When He says here to each believer,
let him labor, working with his hands the thing which is good
that he may have to give to him that needeth. First thing we
need to understand is Christ did this for His people. Christ
did this. God requires not only that the
law be kept, that's our reasonable servant. God requires we keep
the law, that it be kept perfectly in righteousness, in thought,
word and deed. It has to be kept perfectly.
But not only that, He requires that the man who has stolen from
anyone must restore that one. He must make restitution to that
one above and beyond what he robbed him of. Let me read this
to you if you want to turn there, Leviticus 6 verses 4 and 5. This was God's law. It says, It shall be because
he hath sinned and is guilty, that he shall restore that which
he took violently away, or the thing which he hath deceitfully
gotten, or that which was delivered him to keep, or the lost thing
which he found. Finders, keepers, losers, weepers,
not according to God. Not according to God. He says,
verse 5, or all that about which he hath sworn falsely, he shall
even restore it in the principle and shall add the fifth part
more thereto and give it unto him to whom it appertaineth in
the day of his trespass offering. Now we robbed God and we robbed
ourselves. Those are the two victims of
our robbery. We robbed God and we robbed ourselves. Christ Jesus never stole anything. He never stole a thing. He came
here because His people stole. He came here because His people
were robbers. And he came and made restitution
to God on behalf of his people. Remember Psalm 69 and verse 4? Christ said, I restored that
which I took not away. I restored that which I stole
not. By glorifying God in his heart, in his life, in all his
thoughts, words, and deeds all his days, He made restitution
to God, restoring Him above and beyond the glory that belongs
to God. By Christ establishing God's
law perfectly for His people, He made restitution to God. He
restored that which we should have done in the first place,
what His people should have done in the first place. And by justifying
His people from our sins and declaring God just and the justifier,
He made restitution of God above and beyond. Above and beyond. He eternally, forever glorified
God above and beyond what Adam ever could have done in the garden.
Christ did that. Christ did that. Adam was in
a perfect environment with one commandment. Christ came into
a sin-cursed earth surrounded by sinners with all these commandments,
with all this law, and yet served God faithfully, perfectly, saved
his people, glorified God, and will present his people to God,
holding without blame one day. He's glorified God above and
beyond what Adam ever could have done, against more obstacles
than Adam ever thought about having. And then get this. Now here's the amazing part.
This is the best part. We robbed God. You and I robbed
God. We were the robbers. You know,
the law said the robber, he's the one, he must restore to those
from whom he's stolen. We're the robbers. We rob from
God. We rob from each other. Do you
know what Christ did? He not only made restitution
for His people to God, He came to me and you who were the robbers
and restored us what we had stolen from ourselves and above and
beyond. He made restitution above and
beyond what we stole from God. Isn't that amazing? By making
us righteous and holy before God's holy law, He made restitution
to us. We stole that from ourselves.
By sanctifying us, by creating a new man within us in righteousness
and true holiness, He restored us better than we were before. And by making us eternally alive
to God, He made restitution above and beyond. Because now, God
says, because this work of our eternal Redeemer is eternal,
He said now we can never be separated from the love of God which is
in Christ Jesus. Never. We can't fall. We can't be separated from God
because of what Christ did. Now how did He do this work?
Look at verse 28, Ephesians 4, 28. It says, Let him labor. That's how Christ did this work.
Christ's work was a tiresome labor when He walked this earth.
Here's God, the Son, in human flesh. But because He became
a real man, we read scriptures like this. When He came to Jacob's
well, it says, Jesus therefore being wearied with His journey. wearied with his journey, sat
on the well about the sixth hour. It was a real labor. It was a
real tiresome, weary labor. In the Garden of Gethsemane,
you know why his apostles slept? They had been with Christ the
whole day, and they had been traveling and preaching and going
everywhere, and they were just dog-tired, and they fell asleep. Christ didn't. He didn't sleep.
He was striving against sin. The Hebrew writer said, You've
not yet resisted against blood, striving against sin. And in
the garden of Gethsemane, Christ did. He shed great drops of blood,
striving against sin. This was a labor that He entered
into. And Christ did this for His people.
Look at verse 28. Working with His hands the thing
which is good. When He came, He said, My meat
is to do the will of Him that sent Me and to finish His work. God gave Him a job to do. And
He said, My meat is to finish that work He gave Me to do. He
said, I must work the works of Him that sent Me. The night is
coming when no man can work. You and I couldn't do it. And
then, He said, I have glorified thee on earth. I have finished
the work which thou gavest me to do. Do you believe that Christ
finished the work? Christ finished the work. There
is nothing left for the believer to do. Christ finished the work
that God gave him to do. And Christ did this for his people. Look at verse 28. That he may
have to give to him that needeth." That's
us. We're the one who needed. We're
the one who were in need. We're the poor. We're the needy.
We're the bankrupt. We're the robbers. And because
Christ labored working with His hands, Christ has all spiritual
blessings to give freely to His people. all the storehouse of
grace. Remember Joseph? Joseph was,
he was made, he was raised to the right hand of Pharaoh. He was Pharaoh's right hand.
He was Pharaoh's, he was in charge, put in charge by Pharaoh. God
has raised Christ to his right hand. He's put him in charge
and Christ has the charge of the storehouse. When that famine
came, and you and me are in a famine in Egypt, and when that famine
came, they would come and they would need corn, they needed
sustenance, they needed provision. And Pharaoh said, don't come
to me, go to Joseph. And God says, don't come to me,
go to Christ, go to Him. He's got the storehouse, the
key to the storehouse. And He provides His people and
He gives it freely. He gives us everything we need
for salvation. He gives us the gospel. That's
where it's going to begin. I can't press upon you enough
how important it is to hear the gospel preached. You know, men
will get upset, folks will get upset about some little trivial
thing. I'm not going to go there anymore
because I'm offended at so and so whatever. If you were sick
and you needed to go to a hospital, would you refuse to go to the
hospital because there's somebody in that building you didn't like?
Probably not. Well, this is so important that
everything, everything ought to be discarded and disregarded
for the gospel we need the gospel he gives the gospel he gives
the gospel he gives life he gives a new holy heart he gives what
we need he gives us righteousness free justification so that that's
the only way God's gonna receive us brethren that's the message
that's the only way God's gonna receive us is if we are righteous
and holy as God is and that's what Christ makes his people
by His work. He robes us in the garment of
His righteousness and His holiness. He makes us the righteousness
and holiness we have to have to enter into God's presence.
And He gives that to His people. You can't work for this. You
can't do anything to obtain it. He gives it to us. And He does,
He gives us constant protection from all our enemies. He gives
us, one day He's going to give us a new glorified body, immortal,
And in that day, He's going to give His people the joint inheritance
of everything that is His in glory. He's going to give that
to us. He said, I've given you a land for which you did not
labor. He did all the labor. He did
all the work. It's because He labored, working
with His hands, the thing which is good that He may have to give
to him that needeth. So then now, grace gives me and
you a motive the law never gave. It gives us a motive, a new heart,
a new discernment that the law never gave. He says, the love
of Christ constraineth us, because we judge thus. We have spiritual
discernment to understand this, that if Christ died for all His
people, it's because all His people were dead. And in that
we live, we should not from this day forward live any more to
ourselves, but unto Him that loved us and gave Himself for
us. You're either living for your belly, your senses, what
you want, what your carnal desires and your carnal pleasures are,
you're living for Christ. There's no middle ground. It's
one of the two. The unregenerate man is living, he's like a cow
out in the field. He don't have any sense other
than just to eat what's right in front of His face. He's living
for His belly. But the believer is living for
Christ because we see His love constrains us. Now, in light
of what Christ has done for us, let's hear this exhortation and
let's hear the reason that He gives. He says, Now, let him
that stole steal no more. But rather let him labor, working
with his hands the thing which is good that he may have to give
to him that needeth." Look at Colossians 3. I'm going to be
very brief on this point. Because by now, seeing how we
were the thief and seeing how Christ restored us, it ought
to be the strength and the motivation and the constraint to heed this
exhortation. Now look here. In Colossians
3, let me give you this first. This
is what he says in Romans 12. Because we have this good news,
because we see what Christ has done for us, this is a light
and easy yoke now. He says, be not slothful in business. That's our job. Be not slothful
in business. Fervent in spirit, in your heart,
serving the Lord. serving the Lord. Verse 13, he
says, distributing to the necessity of the saints. That's the reason.
Just so we can distribute to the necessity of the saints,
to the needs of the saints. Look at Colossians 3, verse 22. He says, servants, obey in all
things your masters according to the flesh. not with eye service
as men pleasers, not just when they're looking, but in singleness
of heart, fearing God. and singleness of heart toward
God, fearing God. And whatsoever you do, do it
heartily as to the Lord, and not unto men, knowing that of
the Lord you shall receive the reward, and here's the reward,
the inheritance. For you serve the Lord Christ. That's who we're serving. See,
believers have a whole new motive for working. We're working for
Christ now. We're serving Him. And we have
a whole new reason why we're doing it. We're doing it so we
can provide for the needs of the saints, for needy and for
needy sinners. Look at Colossians 4.1. Masters,
give unto your servants that which is just and equal, knowing
that you also have a master in heaven. What did our master in
heaven give to us? That which is just and equal.
Justice, because of his work, justice demands we be given righteousness. because we've been made righteous.
It's just an equal for Him to do so. Brethren, it's a blessing
that He's given us to be able to give to the needs of, to provide
for the needs of those who are needful, in need. That's a blessing
God's given us, to be able to imitate Christ in that, to be
able to follow Him and be willing to follow Him in that. Whenever
Paul was speaking to the church, he was speaking of what he saw
in Christ. Listen to this. I've showed you
all things how that so laboring you ought to support the weak
and to remember the words of the Lord Jesus how he said it's
more blessed to give than to receive. So God says to us, for
whom Christ labored, don't forget to do good and to communicate
because with such sacrifices God is well pleased. He was well
pleased with Christ's sacrifices when Christ did this for us.
He's well pleased to communicate to us everything we need in salvation
and in this life. And he's well pleased with those
who do the same for those who are needy. because we're moved
by grace. Now, whosoever has this world's
good, the scripture says, and sees his brother has need and
shuts up his bowels of compassion from him, how dwells the love
of God in him? That man, it manifests he hasn't
seen what Christ has done. He doesn't know what Christ has
done. But God's people do. We see what he's done. We move
by him. We're constrained by him to provide
for needy. And there's one last thing about
this. This provision should be sacrificial. It should be sacrificial. And this provision chiefly, number
one, is in the preaching of the gospel. This number one, you
know, this is our motive for working. This is the believer's
motive for everything. Why am I married? Why am I working? Why am I, you know, everything
that the believer does in his life. This is our motive for
the furtherance of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. That's
our motive, to provide for the needy. This is how the needy
are going to be provided for, through the Spirit coming, through
the preaching of the gospel. And if they need a coat, if they
need food, whatever they need, provide it for one another. The
purpose is, we're trying to keep, you know, when you need, you
can't eat because you're out of a job and you need to eat.
You can't focus on Christ because your heart's turned aside to
all of these needs you got. So by brethren providing for
one another, we're taking that burden off of each other so that
you don't have to be distracted by that and you can keep focusing
on Christ. That's the whole point. That's
the whole point in all these exhortations. It's not so that
now I can stand between you and Christ and go, now look at me,
look what I did for you. No, it's so we're all looking
to Christ. That's the purpose. And so it
should be sacrificial because here's the point. If we don't
do anything sacrificially, if it's not a sacrifice to us so
that we have to trust God, it's not really, we haven't really
done anything. Because the point of the matter is we're to trust
that God He didn't spare His Son. He gave sacrificially. And because He did not spare
His Son, He promises He will provide His people with what
we need. He will see to it we have what
we need to serve Him faithfully in this earth. Just write that
down and trust God on that and just let that be settled because
that is the truth. And so, he says, when you do
anything, do it heartily. Do it sacrificially. Do it with
everything that you can do it with, because God's going to
meet your need. He will. And he says, Therefore,
my beloved brethren, be you steadfast, unmoving, always abounding, abounding
over and above in the work of the Lord, for as much as you
know that your labor is not in vain. Lord. For God's not unrighteous
to forget your work and labor of love which you've showed toward
His name. That's the key. It's to Him.
It's to His name. And that you've ministered to
the saints and that you do minister. And we desire that every one
of you, riches to the poorest. Those Pharisees who looked like
they were given a lot, they didn't give a lot. That widow who gave
everything she had, she gave a lot. It's not based on how
much you give. It's based on what you got left
over. That determines how much you've given. And he says, we
desire every one of you to show the same diligence to the full
assurance of hope until the end. So this is why we sleeve off
stealing. This is why we get a job and
work so we can give to them that need. Amen. All right, brethren, let's stand
together. Father, we thank you for this day. We thank you for having so much compassion and
grace and love towards just robbing, thieving, stealing, conniving
sinners like we are. We thank You that You restored
us fourfold in Christ our Redeemer. We thank You, Lord, that You've
given us hearts now to be restorers. Make us so, Lord. Make us to
see that everything we need is provided, everything we need,
the strength, the substance, the faith, everything. The storehouse
is open to us. Just come to Christ and He'll
give it freely. Forgive us, Lord, of our sins. Forgive us of our stinginess. Forgive us of our thieving from
Your glory. We pray it in Christ's name.
Amen.