Whose cookies are they?

I'm teaching on stewardship tomorrow. Here's a story I'll include. Here's how Josh Hunt relates the story as told by John Ortberg.

This is something I read in a theological journal called The Reader’s Digest:

A traveler between flights in an airport went to a lounge and bought a small package of cookies. Then she sat down and began reading a newspaper. Gradually, she became aware of a rustling noise from behind her paper. She was flabbergasted to see a neatly dressed man helping himself to her cookies. Not wanting to make a scene, she leaned over and took a cookie herself.

A minute or two passed and then came more rustling. He was helping himself to another cookie! By this time they had come to the end of the package, but she was so angry she did not dare allow herself to say anything. Then, as if to add insult to injury, the man broke the final remaining cookie in two, pushed half across to her, ate the other half and left.

Still fuming some time later when her flight was announced, the woman opened her handbag to get her ticket. To her shocking embarrassment, there she found her pack of unopened cookies.

Whoops. Coming to grips with “Whose Cookies Are They?” That changes everything, doesn’t it?

Here’s where we are a little confused. From the age of about two on, “Whose cookies are they?” The Psalmist was very clear on this. Let’s read these words together:

The earth is the Lord’s and everything in it, the world and all who live in it. (Psalm 24:1)

The earth is the Lord’s and what in it? Everything. What’s left out of that word? Not much. God’s cookies. God’s house. God’s clothes. God’s IRA. God’s car. God’s body. It’s all God’s Stuff.

If you would like to listen to or read John Ortberg's whole sermon, go to http://www.mppcfamily.org. Find the sermons. Work your way back to 2/18/07. Find the sermon called, "Settling the ownership issue."