From Him and Through Him and To Him Are All Things
September 1, 2024
Preached by Benjamin Vrbicek
Scripture Reading
1 Corinthians 4:7b
What do you have that you did not receive? If then you received it, why do you boast as if you did not receive it?
Last week we finished our summer series through the book of Jeremiah. Next week we’ll begin a long series through a letter called 1 Corinthians. It’s one of several letters Paul wrote to a young, gifted church struggling to find its way. Pastor Ron will officially start the series next week. But to get us ready for that series and to help us think rightly about our first twenty-five years as a church, this morning I’ll just grab one short verse for a short reflection. The verse asks a few simple questions, but when rightly applied, the difference is profound—it’s the kind of shift in emphasis that might get us another twenty-five years. Pray with me as we begin. “Dear Heavenly Father . . .”
Pastors typically have a lot to say. We get paid to talk. We also get paid to listen, which some of us are better at than others, and most of us find hard. This morning I would love to talk a lot and tell a lot of stories. I’m in my eleventh year as lead pastor, so I have a few stories. I remember in the early days when we were at another building, a few of my children would take turns coming early with me on Sundays. They’d play behind the tech booth while I practiced my sermon before people arrived. That’s a favorite memory.
I could tell you stories of baptisms I never expected would happen but did happen and were glorious. I could tell you about the weddings, the funerals, all of that. I could tell you the stories of those who left in a huff, those who got mad at me or mad at someone else (or both), and I could tell of those members who left so quietly that they didn’t even think they should make any noise at all.
I could give you the story of our church via the data, like how many founding members there were (the list I saw has 93 founding members), I could tell you how many people attended when I arrived (160), or when we went to two services, how many attended when we sold buildings and renovated buildings and moved buildings, or when the annual budget reached half a million, or how many people we had before Covid and how many people after, or the date when—after we planted Midtown—that the combined budget reached over a million. Those numbers are a kind of story, I suppose.
But I don’t think a moment like this is for all those stories, at least mainly. It’s a moment not just for telling stories, but to pause and think about how we tell stories. As we tell stories and we laugh and we remember and we give thanks and we cry, it can be easy to forget the One through whom and for whom all of this is for. It can be easy to forget the author and primary audience of our stories.
It almost happened to a church plant in a city called Corinth. They were so blessed and so gifted and full of so many things, including full of boasting and divisions and disorder that they might not have made it to their twenty-fifth anniversary.
1. The theme of receiving
Look with me again at 1 Corinthians 4:7. It’s a verse with three rhetorical questions, but I’m focusing on just the latter two. Paul asks,
What do you have that you did not receive? If then you received it, why do you boast as if you did not receive it?
Clearly, he is not simply asking to ask. Paul uses questions to make a point. This young, gifted church in Corinth had a challenge in front of them. Actually, as we’ll see over the next year or two, they had a lot of challenges. And so many of those challenges are ones we could have too. But the particular challenge they had that we might have this morning is forgetting that everything we have, everything we are, comes from God.
Look at Paul’s questions. “What do you have that you did not receive?” he asks. The implied answer is, “Nothing. Everything we have, we have received.” Then Paul asks, “If then you received everything you have, why do you boast as if you did not receive it?” He’s asking, “If God gave you everything you have and everything you are, then why are you boasting about you?”
We see this in athletics a lot. I don’t know how much you watched the Olympics. There were so many great storylines. One was of a sixteen-year-old sprinter. He ran on a USA relay team; now a high schooler from Maryland named Quincy Wilson has a gold medal.
People know I like track and field, so they’d bring this runner up to me. One friend sent me a text about it, and I joked that I was waiting for this young man to do an interview and talk about all the decades of work he’s put in to get where he is. The joke is that he couldn’t have done decades of work because he is not decades old. Quincy Wilson handed the baton to Vernon Norwood, who is literally twice his age (32).
I’m sure young Quincy worked very hard. But you realize, don’t you, that he’s received something that none of us have received. God gave him a special talent. I’m not sure whether Quincy knows that or not. Maybe he does.
Yet it’s common to hear athletes or businessmen or singers or artists or authors or influencers or pastors or churches talk about all that they have done to be who they are, about how they worked harder and smarter and how they have the secret sauce of success.
And maybe they do have The Secret in one area. Neither Paul nor I am actually contending they don’t. But where did they get the recipe for success? How did they get it? And why do they have it and not others? I wouldn’t want to take away from the body of work and effort that some have accumulated over the years to hone their craft. Or the work of ministry done here by hundreds of people for over a quarter of a century. I have huge respect for those who run a long obedience in the same direction.
But why did such and such an athlete have the coaches he had? Well, he sought them out. Okay, fine. Why did he not get injured more often or blow out his knee? Well, he trained smarter and stretched more or whatever. Okay, but where did the time come for all that? Why did he live in a country that allowed him the freedom to be an athlete instead of being in a country with grinding poverty or a civil war? How, exactly, did he lay in the womb so that he came out with all this speed and strength and health and athletic intuition? And did that athlete pick his parents and choose his DNA?
Do you see? We’re right here at Paul’s questions again.
What do you have that you did not receive? If then you received it, why do you boast as if you did not receive it? (1 Cor. 4:7)
Except, we’re not asking this of athletes, interesting as that is. We’re talking about us. We’re talking about a church. We’re talking about each one of us and how we tell stories. How did we make it twenty-five years?
This theme of receiving is a major theme in 1 Corinthians. Listen to these verses.
I give thanks to my God always for you because of the grace of God that was given you in Christ Jesus. (1 Cor. 1:4)
And because of [God] you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, so that, as it is written, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.” (1 Cor. 1:30–31)
Which we could paraphrase, “Let the church who boasts of their first twenty-five years boast in the Lord.”
I could show you more places throughout the letter, but I’ll just give one. Turn with me to chapter 15. This is one of the major sections in the letter.
Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you—unless you believed in vain. For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures. (1 Cor. 15:1–4)
Paul is telling them that there are many ways they have received from God, but the most significant, the matter of first importance, is in the good news story of Jesus, his life, his death, his resurrection, and his second coming.
If we are asked, “How are we saved from our sins and welcomed into the favor of God?” and we answer, “Well, we did this, and we did that,” then we don’t know God. If we are asked, “How are we saved from our sins and welcomed into the favor of God?” Christians can only say, “God did this, and God did that.” Paul wants us to tell our story the way we all will tell our story for all eternity. “When we’ve been there 10,000 years, we’ve no less days to sing God’s praise than when we first begun,” goes the famous hymn.
Think of all we’ve been through as a church, not just surviving Covid. How did we make it twenty-five years? I only know in part some of early church plant struggles … and the leadership challenges after Pastor Kevin left … and how there was a flood in the basement … and how good men were voted off the pastor-elder board so many years ago after a member meeting that lasted like three hours and was a royal rumble. I don’t know those stories firsthand.
I know a bit more about how there was an interim pastor … and then how you hired Pastor Jason … and then hired me … and then other members came and went … and how we moved buildings and sold buildings and renovated buildings … and how we sold one of those buildings while there was a sinkhole in the parking lot as big as a car and yet how that building with a sinkhole sold for over the asking price when two buyers got in a bidding war … which meant God helped us more easily buy this building.
How did all that happen? How did we make it through? If we answer, “We did this, and we did that,” then we won’t make it another twenty-five. But if our answer is, “Can you believe that God did this, and God did that?” then we might.
2. The result of receiving
Seeing God as the giver and us as receiving should lead us to humility and generosity and risk, as opposed to being prideful and stingy and safe. I’ll say it again. Seeing all of our lives as those who have received grace should change us. It should lead to humility and generosity and risk, as opposed to being prideful and stingy and safe.
If you glance at the end of chapter 15, this is where Paul goes.
Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain. (1 Cor. 15:58)
I’ve seen this twenty-fifth anniversary celebration day on the calendar for months. I was part of putting it here. And I knew I was going to stand here, and I so wanted to be able to tell you in more detail what specific shape our “labor in the Lord” might take in the coming weeks, months, and years. I’ll say it another way. When we picked the theme for this Sunday as “God’s past, present, and future faithfulness,” I wanted to be able to speak to all three. The first two—the past and present—weren’t hard. But the future is hard to speak to for reasons that should be obvious.
Of course, we all know in some sense what shape our future labor in the Lord will take, or should take. We’ll have prayer and preaching, evangelism and discipleship. We’ll do our best to cultivate genuine biblical community. We’ll do that. And I can say that over the years we’ve used the phrase that I’m only becoming more committed “to seeing the weak, wounded, and wayward enjoy the living Jesus.” We’ll do more of that. There is more future joy in Jesus to be had. But what shape will this labor in the Lord take? What will our future prayers be about?
It’s hard to say. I can tell you that it’s a somewhat strange time for me to lead us. Right now, we are not trying to hire a particular pastoral role. And we are not trying to find a new building, right now anyway. And we are not trying to plant a church, right now anyway. We are trying, by God’s grace, to pastor faithfully and serve one another and to bless our community.
Again, I so wanted to be able to give more specificity to this. Once upon a time, President Kennedy gave a speech in which he said that, before the end of the decade, the US was going to put a man on the moon and bring him back safely. That’s so specific. All summer long I wanted to get to this morning and give us a version of that for us. We’re going to move to a building that holds six hundred people, or we’re going to plant a church in Middletown or Linglestown or whatever God would have for us. But I don’t know yet. Maybe God hasn’t shown us yet. Maybe he wants us to ask him.
So, what I can say, and what I’ll invite you into, is a time of intentional praying and thinking about this, about what shape our humility, generosity, and risk might take. Would you consider helping us think and pray through what shape God’s future faithfulness might take among us?
Let’s pray and invite the music team to lead us in some closing songs. Dear Heavenly Father . . .”
