All Things Are Yours

Scripture Reading

New Revised Standard Version: Updated Edition Psalm 50

1 The mighty one, God the LORD,

speaks and summons the earth

from the rising of the sun to its setting.

2 Out of Zion, the perfection of beauty,

God shines forth.

3 Our God comes and does not keep silent;

before him is a devouring fire

and a mighty tempest all around him.

4 He calls to the heavens above

and to the earth, that he may judge his people:

5 “Gather to me my faithful ones,

who made a covenant with me by sacrifice!”

6 The heavens declare his righteousness,

for God himself is judge.   Selah

7 “Hear, O my people, and I will speak,

O Israel, I will testify against you.

I am God, your God.

8 Not for your sacrifices do I rebuke you;

your burnt offerings are continually before me.

9 I will not accept a bull from your house

or goats from your folds.

10 For every wild animal of the forest is mine,

the cattle on a thousand hills.

11 I know all the birds of the air,

and all that moves in the field is mine.

12 “If I were hungry, I would not tell you,

for the world and all that is in it is mine.

13 Do I eat the flesh of bulls

or drink the blood of goats?

14 Offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving,

and pay your vows to the Most High.

15 Call on me in the day of trouble;

I will deliver you, and you shall glorify me.”

16 But to the wicked God says,

“What right have you to recite my statutes

or take my covenant on your lips?

17 For you hate discipline,

and you cast my words behind you.

18 You make friends with a thief when you see one,

and you keep company with adulterers.

19 You give your mouth free rein for evil,

and your tongue frames deceit.

20 You sit and speak against your kin;

you slander your own mother’s child.

21 These things you have done, and I have been silent;

you thought that I was one just like yourself.

But now I rebuke you and lay the charge before you.

22 Mark this, then, you who forget God,

or I will tear you apart, and there will be no one to deliver.

23 Those who bring thanksgiving as their sacrifice honor me;

to those who go the right way,

I will show the salvation of God.”

Common English Bible Chapter 3

3 Brothers and sisters, I couldn’t talk to you like spiritual people but like unspiritual people, like babies in Christ. 2 I gave you milk to drink instead of solid food, because you weren’t up to it yet. 3 Now you are still not up to it because you are still unspiritual. When jealousy and fighting exist between you, aren’t you unspiritual and living by human standards? 4 When someone says, “I belong to Paul,” and someone else says, “I belong to Apollos,” aren’t you acting like people without the Spirit? 5 After all, what is Apollos? What is Paul? They are servants who helped you to believe. Each one had a role given to them by the Lord: 6 I planted, Apollos watered, but God made it grow. 7 Because of this, neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but the only one who is anything is God who makes it grow. 8 The one who plants and the one who waters work together, but each one will receive their own reward for their own labor. 9 We are God’s coworkers, and you are God’s field, God’s building.

Common English Bible Chapter 3

21 So then, no one should brag about human beings. Everything belongs to you—22 Paul, Apollos, Cephas, the world, life, death, things in the present, things in the future—everything belongs to you, 23 but you belong to Christ, and Christ belongs to God.

WWTW

Me

How do I struggle with this?

The Kracken Hat

A few years ago, I got to officiate at the wedding for a former youth.

They had moved to Seattle Washington, but came back for the wedding here in Pittsburgh.

And it was a lovely wedding!

Because they knew I was a big hockey fan and a hat guy, they gave me this gift of a Seattle Kracken hat.

And this thing is super super comfortable!

I wear it any time I go to the gym or a whole bunch after rides, because it’s just a cozy hat.

(Also why it looks like it’s been through war)

So a few months ago, the boys signed up to do the Pittsburgh Marathon for kids.

It’s a one mile race, and a parent usually “runs” with the kids.

So Sarah and I got in the queue with the guys, and as luck would have it we were right up at the front of the line, right at the start.

And they had all kinds of folks up there.

Cheerleaders from some local sports team

The Pirate Parrot.

A politician or two.

And Chad Ruewhedle, who is a defenseman for my beloved Pittsburgh Penguins.

Chad went down the line and fist bumped all the kids and parents, and the boys thought it was super cool that we got to meet a Penguins.

But only when he gave me what I interpreted to be a weird look did I realize…

I was wearing the Kracken hat.

How could this be?

Me who was and is an absolute ride or die Penguins fan, who would likely bleed black and gold if I fell over during the run (always a possibility), who has watched this team both at their highest Stanley Cup winning highs and their lowest “can’t fill the arena” lows…

How could I show up and get to meet one of my tribe while I was seemingly proudly wearing the banner of someone else’s team?!?

I was super embarrassed.

(I mean, chances are he didn’t even notice and it was all in my head, but still…)

We

How do we all struggle with this?

Labels can be a killer, can’t they?

Different labels we all wear.

Your favorite sports team, sure

But what about the label of Mom, or Dad?

What about the label of “republican” or democrat?

What about the label of Christian, or atheist, or seeker?

Labels can be good.

One of the chief goals and objectives of our culture today is to be able to own a sense of belonging.

You want to know that you’ll be safe in a group that you belong to.

You want to know that someone will have your back whenever you need them too.

You want to know that you have a place to call your own.

This is why church is so important.

We don’t say we’re members of Beulah Presbyterian Church because we have a cool jersey to wear.

Though, maybe not the worst investment we could make…

We say we’re members of Beulah Presbyterian Church because it gives us a place to belong.

It gives us a place to know we can be loved fully and deeply by God and by a rich family of faith.

It gives us a place to find peace when the world has gotten just a bit chaotic.

It gives us a place where we can be challenged, but not necessarily judged.

Labels can be bad.

When you wear a label, it has a tendency to make everyone without that label a bad guy.

If I wear the Penguins label, the Flyers are the enemies no matter what.

Which is funny for hockey…

But gets a bit more serious in other areas of life.

If I wear the Democrat label, I could be predisposed to believe that Republicans must clearly hate America, right?

If I wear the White label, then I might be predisposed to look down my nose at people of color.

If I wear the Christian label, then I am predisposed to be suspicious of people of other faiths.

If I wear the label of “us,” there will always be a “them,” and labels are designed to make “them” an enemy.

God

Paul, Apollos, Peter

Paul is writing to this church plant in Corinth.

And as is often the case in Church plants, they have a bunch of different leaders who have come along to be a part of things.

And as is also part of human nature, the church starts to divide itself up to follow different leaders.

1 Corinthians 1:12 “What I mean is that each of you says, “I belong to Paul,” or “I belong to Apollos,” or “I belong to Cephas,” or “I belong to Christ.””

They’re wearing their chosen leaders like a label.

1 Corinthians 3:4 “For when one says, “I belong to Paul,” and another, “I belong to Apollos,” are you not all too human?”

And this is creating huge division in the church.

So Paul has an interesting solution to consider.

All things are yours

1 Corinthians 3:21–23 “So let no one boast about people. For all things are yours, whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or the present or the future—all are yours, and you are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s.”

Paul, Apollos, and Peter

Look, we’re all on the same team here!

Paul planted the seed.

Apollos watered it.

Who cares who did which job, because we’re all invested in seeing God’s growth in the church!

Imagine how far we as humanity could go if we didn’t care who got the credit!

So take the best from each of them!

If you’re on team Apollos, and Paul says something profound, take it! It’s yours!

If you’re on team Peter, don’t view folks one team Apollos as an enemy, because all things are yours!

In fact, better yet, just don’t have teams!

It’s all yours!

But not just these leaders!

The whole world (That’s a leap!)

If it’s out there in this world, it’s available to you!

One of my favorite series we’ve done here, and will do again this summer, is finding God in the Music.

Last summer we looked at bands like Coldplay, and U2, and John Coltrane, and OK GO, and Marvin Gaye.

I’m already dreaming a bit about volume two, so we might hear from bands like The Beatles, and Death Cab for Cutie, and Dave Matthews.

None of the songs we listened to were explicitly Christian.

If we stuck to that label, we wouldn’t have been able to use any of them.

But those of us who preached that series came to see that those songs point to Christ.

And if they point to Christ, then they’re fair game.

Because all things are ours.

Life or death

This life that you’ve been gifted with, it’s yours.

You can make of it what you want.

Does your life point to Christ?

Will tomorrow morning be just another Monday, or will it be an extraordinary moment to offer praise?

Would I know that you were following the Way of Jesus just by watching your life, your coming and going?

Or is faith constrained to Sunday mornings?

And death, while often we think of it as unpleasant, is often another thing that points us to Christ.

When I was in seminary, a professor told me that he would rather do 1000 funerals than do a wedding.

And us inexperienced future pastors were aghast.

But the reality is, when you gather with people to celebrate a life well lived, and when you remember that Christ gave us the freedom to celebrate where our loved ones are going when they die, then actually death is part of pointing to Christ too.

I can’t tell you how many funerals I’ve done where I felt like I should take my shoes off while I’m preaching, because it felt like I was standing on Holy Ground.

The present or the future.

Just to make sure he covers all his bases, Paul makes sure we understand that this is for now, and and it’s forever.

The future is a pretty big place!

And truth be told, a lot of us think about the future not with celebration, but with trepidation, and worry, and anxiety.

I read a book this week that had a great story in it.

A surf instructor was working with a high power CEO type, trying to teach the CEO how to surf.

For weeks and weeks it was a struggle, and the guy wasn’t able to get up on the board.

It kind of looked hopeless.

But then a few weeks in, the CEO started to get it, and actually got pretty good.

The surf instructor’s friend paddled out to him one morning and said “How’d you do it? How’d you get him to surf?”

And the instructor said “I got him to stop worrying about stuff that wasn’t happening!”

If all things are ours, then the future is not something to be feared.

Let’s not spend our time worrying about stuff that isn’t happening.

Let’s enjoy the potential our future holds to point us toward Christ.

It belongs to you, and you belong to Christ.

There’s accountability in that.

You can’t do whatever you want if you’re held by Christ.

This is not permission to use whatever we can get a hold of as a weapon to beat people over the head with.

If it isn’t loving, then it isn’t of Christ.

If it isn’t patient, then it isn’t of Christ.

If it’s advancing our own kingdoms rather than the Kingdom of God, then it isn’t of Christ.

But if it can advance Christ…then All Things Are Yours!

You

What should you do about this?

Christian is a noun, not an adjective.

Back in the day, remember the Family Christian Bookstores?

I think Amazon kind of ate them.

But when I was a teenager, this was a great place to hang out and know that you were able to buy Christian music or movies or books.

But eventually, my friends and I started playing a game.

What’s in here that doesn’t need to be Christian?

Do we really need a Christian box cutter, for example?

Can’t the Husky box cutter from Home Depot do just as good a job proclaiming the Lord when I open my Amazon packages?

Or how about a series of breath mints called “Testa-mints?”

Why settle for Altoids when you can have the Christian variant?

Or perhaps you’d like a toaster that burns an image of the cross on to your toast every morning?

These are all real products I came across in the Christian bookstore.

And I think the reason they hit me wrong is a pretty straight forward grammar lesson:

The word “Christian” appears 3 times in all of scripture.

Acts 11:26, Acts 26:28, and 1 Peter 3:16 if you want to check me.

And all three times, it is used as a noun, not an adjective.

There’s no such thing as Christian music.

There’s no such thing as Christian movies.

There’s no such thing as Christian box cutters.

There’s no such thing as Christian toasters.

There are just Christians.

There are people who have given their lives over to Jesus

There are people who have recieved the grace of Jesus Christ.

And there are people who walk the Way of Jesus in response.

Care more about belonging, not labels

In the same vein, we should probably care a little less about the labels we apply to other people.

Whether they are Presbyterian or Baptist or Catholic or Evangelical, they are a child of God.

Whether they are white or black or hispanic or Asian or Israeli or Palestinian or Russian or Ukranian, they are a child of God.

Whether they are a democrat or a republican or an independent, they are a Child of God.

Whether they are a 49ers fan or a Chiefs fan or a Swiftie, they are a Child of God.

You will never ever look into the eyes of someone who is not a child of God.

So perhaps we should care more about belonging, and not labels.

Perhaps we should be more interested in making sure that everyone belongs here, rather than what label they wear.

Perhaps we should be more interested in who we’re including than in who we’re excluding.

Perhaps we should be more interested in spreading the good news of grace and forgiveness than the bad news of judgement and anamosity.

Because all things are ours.

And and we are Christ’s.

And so are “they,” whoever “they” might be in our minds.

We

How can we all live this out together?

We are a place where everyone belongs, regardless of labels

We practice the Way rather than wearing a label.

We offer Grace, no matter what label people wear.

We are grateful for both the good and the bad in life, because all things are ours.

We are strong advocates for justice, because even though all things are ours, all things are not distributed equally.

We act not as a fight club, but as a grace club where we debate ideas and love people.

We do it all because this is the Way.