CORINTHIAN ISSUES – MESSAGE 4
July 6, 2003

“Boasting That Unifies”

1 Corinthians 1: 26 – 31
1 Corinthians 3: 18 – 23
1 Corinthians 4: 6

We’re doing a study of 1 Corinthians, a letter the Apostle Paul wrote to the church in the city of Corinth.  He brought the Gospel of Jesus Christ to Corinth.  Many people responded and became followers of Christ.  Paul helped them establish a local church.  He stayed at the church for one and one-half years.    

About three years after leaving Corinth, Paul learned by word of mouth and by letter that the church was having problems   Many serious issues had come up in a very short time.  Paul addressed those issues in this letter. 

The first issue had to do with divisions, and it covered four chapters.  I think the reason Paul spent considerable time on this particular issue is that it would affect all the other issues he needed to address.  The divisions came about as a result of people picking different spiritual leaders and teachers that they would listen to and follow over others.  As a review, let me read verses 10 through 12 of Chapter 1:  “I exhort you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ that you all agree that there be no divisions among you, but you be made complete in the same mind and the same judgment.   For I have been informed concerning you, my brethren, by Chloe’s people that there are quarrels among you.  Now, I mean this, that each one of you is saying, ‘I am of Paul,’ and ‘I of Apollos,’ and ‘I of Cephas’ (Peter), and ‘I of Christ.’”  The church had divided into four groups that were quarreling with each other.  There was strife over which spiritual leader or teacher they would listen to and follow. 

Last week, we started to look at how Paul handled this.  We saw that this would be a sensitive issue for him because he was a leader who one of the groups had chosen.  Paul might have liked that, and he might have been tempted to encourage it, but he did not.  There was no self-promotion whatsoever – he offered no encouragement to the people who had chosen him. 

Second, Paul communicated to them a really good understanding of the ministerial roles that he, Apollos, and Peter had.  He very clearly said that they each had a part to play and they each were valuable.  He did not play the competition game.  He tried to focus attention away from himself and the other two men and onto Jesus Christ.  He reminded them that they should focus on the Lord, since it was He who sent them and did the work in their lives.  Then, not subtly, Paul reproved the Corinthians.  He clearly let them know that what they were doing was wrong.  He did not play the game.  Today, we’re going to look at some of the other things Paul said in dealing with the problem of divisions.

Boasting before God – boasting that divides  

There was a young pastor whose preaching was a cut above the ordinary.  As the number in his congregation swelled, so did his head.  One Sunday, after he had delivered his latest barnburner of a sermon, one of his loyal parishioners shook his hand and said, “Pastor, you’re becoming one of the greatest preachers of this generation.”  Later, as he got into his car with his wife and children, he couldn’t resist sharing with them what this woman had told him.  “You know, Mrs. Franklin told me she thought I was one of the greatest preachers of this generation.”  There was silence in the car.  Nobody said anything.  He really wanted some affirmation, so he said to his wife, “I wonder how many great preachers there are in this generation.”  Unable to resist the opportunity, his wife quietly said, “One less than you think, my dear.”   

Chuck Swindoll wrote about an experience he had with an arrogant, boastful person at a conference.  He said, “I got nauseated last week.  It wasn’t from something I ate, but from someone I met.  This individual was a widely traveled, well-educated, much experienced Christian in his fifties.  He was engaged in ministry that touches many lives.  You got the distinct impression that when the two of you were together, the more important one was not you.  The attitude of a servant was absent in this man’s conversation.  It was highly important to him that everyone knew who he was, where he had been, how he had done, and what he thought.  While everyone else much preferred to be on a first name basis, this man demanded, ‘Call me Doctor.’  His voice even had a professional tone when he said it.  I confess that as the conference went on, I was tempted to short-sheet his bed one night.  I even thought about ordering a Schlitz in his name and having it brought up to his room, or to ask the desk clerk to give him a call around 2:30 a.m. and yell, ‘Okay buddy, out of the sack, rise and shine.’  But I didn’t.”

Self-pride is the only disease known to man that makes everyone sick except the one who has it.  Arrogance and boasting are very serious problems.  We have all experienced them, either on the receiving end or as the arrogant and boastful one.  Arrogance is an attitude, a way of thinking.  The Scripture, when it talks about arrogance, uses the word from the Greek language that means to be puffed up or inflated.  It’s when you think that you are better than others, and you think so highly of yourself that you look down on others.  Boasting is the expression of an arrogant attitude, when we actually let people know how highly we think of ourselves.  We begin to brag and draw attention, usually in a way that makes the person listening sound and feel small by comparison.  That’s what arrogance and boasting are all about:  making yourself look big and others look small.

The Corinthians had a problem with their own arrogance and boastfulness.  As we look through Paul’s letter to them, the problem is evident.  I think that is why he began by addressing the problem of divisions.  The divisions had come into the picture because of boasting and arrogance, and it was affecting other issues.  Notice several references in 1 Corinthians.  First, verse 7 in Chapter 4:  “For who regards you as superior?  What do you have that you did not receive?  But if you did receive it, why do you boast as if you had not received it?”   Chapter 4, verse 18:  “Now some have become arrogant as though I were not coming to you.”  We’ll look at the context of that statement next week.  Chapter 5, verse 2 reads,  “And you have become arrogant….”  Here, the arrogance was spilling over into another issue – immorality.  Chapter 8, verses 1 and 2:  “Now concerning things sacrificed to idols, we know that we all have knowledge.  Knowledge makes arrogant, but love edifies.  If anyone supposes that he knows anything, he has not yet known as he ought to know.”  Here again, the implication was that boasting and arrogance had crept in, and were infiltrating other issues the Corinthians faced. 

Then, in Chapter 13, we have the “Love” chapter, which we’ll study in a couple months.  Paul described Godly love to the Corinthians this way (verse 4):  “Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant.”  I think the implication was that the Corinthians were arrogant, and they were boasting.  Paul tried to help them understand that Godly love was not expressed in that way.    

Boasting and arrogance always divide.  There is something about them that puts a wall between people or between groups.  For example, within a group of Christians you might have some baseball fans who are loyal to the Minnesota Twins, while others prefer the Cleveland Indians.  If they get arrogant and boastful about their favorite team to the point of quarreling and strife, pretty soon they will build invisible walls.  You can also have a group of Christians with different political views.  Boasting and arrogance are commonplace in the political arena.  If Christians don’t handle their political differences correctly but allow their views to lead to arrogance and boasting, the resulting divisions can cause serious problems.

Tim Blomberg and I took our boys to Quarterback Camp a couple weeks ago.  As I followed my son’s group around to the different rotations, another father was doing the same.  Regrettably , he kept bragging about his son.  For four hours I heard about what a great quarterback this ninth grader was.  I kept hearing about all the money the father had spent sending his son to different camps, and how his investments were paying off in making the boy Number One.  His boasting did not bring us together that day.  I did not feel united with that man.  The more he boasted about his son and about himself, the further apart we became.  His bragging was designed to make me feel insignificant.   

What Paul said about boasting and arrogance and the divisions they cause is simple and easy to understand.  Here’s a summary of today’s message:  In verse 29 of Chapter 1, Paul said that people should not boast about themselves before God.  In Chapter 3, verse 21, he said that no one should boast in men, which is what the Corinthians were doing.   In the last verse of Chapter 1, he said that we should boast in the Lord.  It’s as simple as that.  We should not boast about ourselves or other people before God, but we should boast in the Lord.  That’s the message.  Let’s see in greater detail how Paul presented it.

We’ll start at 1 Corinthians 1:26 – 29:  “For consider your call, brethren, that there were not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble; but God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things which are strong, and the base things of the world and the despised, God has chosen, the things that are not, that He might nullify the things that are, that no man should boast before God.”

Here, Paul reminded the people that there were not many among them who were mighty, wise, or rich.  Nonetheless, God had chosen them, intervened in their lives, and brought them salvation.  Verse 30 says, “But by His doing you are in Christ Jesus….”  You weren’t powerful enough, wise enough, or rich enough to do it.  God did it.  He brought salvation, forgiveness, redemption, and righteousness.  He brought you to Christ.  So, Paul told the Corinthians that they should not boast in themselves.  You should heed the same message.  Don’t lift yourself up as though you somehow achieved what you have in Christ on your own.    Don’t boast in yourself before God.

Have you ever been involved in a group project and, when it’s finished and people report on how it went, one person speaks up and gives a glowing report, making sure everyone knows that he or she was responsible?  “Because I did this or because I did that, I deserve the credit.”  You’re thinking, “He didn’t do a thing.  I tried to get him involved, but he didn’t do anything.  I did all the work.”  You have to listen to that person boast and take the credit.  If you have had that experience, you might understand in a small way how God might feel, every time you and I sit around, take credit, and lift ourselves up for things that He really did from start to finish.

That’s what Paul warned the people about.  They had become so arrogant in their divisions that they started boasting about themselves, taking too much credit, thinking far too highly of themselves, and letting people in the other groups know about it.  Paul told them to remember where they came from.  They had nothing to boast about.  It’s by God’s doing that they were even in Christ. 

That’s the way God wants it, and it’s what Paul said about salvation in Romans 3:27:  “Where then is the boasting?  It is excluded…. by a law of faith” – faith in Jesus Christ alone.  It’s none of our work, none of our doing.  So, if that’s true, where’s the boasting?  It’s excluded.  There is nothing to boast about because it’s not our doing.

It was made even clearer in Chapter 2 of Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, verses 8 and 9:  “For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, that no one should boast.”  That’s the way God wants it.  Salvation is all about His grace to people who don’t deserve it.  It’s all about the work that Jesus did on the cross to pay for our sins.  It’s about God drawing us to Himself, and us responding by faith.  It’s about Him giving us the ability to exercise faith in Him.  It’s not of ourselves.  None of us can boast when it comes to our salvation.  The Corinthians, like all other believers, were where they were because of what God had done, not because of what they had done. 

Boasting in the Lord – the boasting that unifies

The alternative to boasting in yourself and boasting in men comes at the end of Chapter 1 where Paul said, “…just as it is written, let him who boasts, boast in the Lord.”  If you are going to think and speak highly of someone, if you are going to draw everybody’s attention to someone, if you are going to put someone on a pedestal, and if you are going to lift someone up as better than anyone else, let it be the Lord.  You can never think too highly of the Lord.  We could never talk about the power of God and say, “Be careful, you’re giving Him more credit than He deserves.”  Could we ever talk about the love of Jesus Christ, and say that we had better stop before we give Him more credit for loving us than He deserves?  No!  He is the best – better than any other alternative.  So, Paul says that’s who you should put on the pedestal and draw attention to.    

In your Bibles, you’ll probably have a note to help you understand that Paul was quoting Old Testament Scripture when he said, “Let him who boasts, boast in the Lord.”  He was quoting from Jeremiah 9:23 – 24:   “Thus, says the Lord, ‘Let not a wise man boast of his wisdom, and let not the mighty man boast of his might, let not a rich man boast of his riches; but let him who boasts boast of this, that he understands and knows Me, that I am the Lord who exercises loving kindness, justice, and righteousness on earth; for I delight in these things….’”   God takes delight when we boast about Him.  He tells us, “Don’t boast about your wisdom, don’t boast about your riches, don’t boast about your might.  If you’re going to boast, boast about Me.  I’m the only One you should boast about.” 

Paul ended his letter to the Galatians by saying that the only thing he would boast in was the cross of Jesus Christ and what Jesus did for him on that cross.  It’s a great example for us. 

That’s the only boasting that will draw us together as Christians.  No matter what else or who else we boast about, it’s going to eventually divide us.  But when we as Christians choose to boast in the Lord, that is what brings us together.  When we choose to boast about His power, His work, His love, and His wisdom, that boasting will unify us.  All other boasting will eventually divide. 

 I think this is still a message for us today, because Christians continue to be tempted to become arrogant and boast about themselves, and sometimes to pick favorites and boast about others.  The Bible says it’s good to appreciate and be grateful for those who God uses to lead us and help us along in our Christian life.  It’s even okay to express that appreciation to them.  It says so in 1 Thessalonians 5.  But we don’t want it to get to the place where there is competition and we’re picking teams, viewing some people more highly than they should be viewed and putting them in positions where they don’t belong.  We must not compare with others and look down on them because of who they follow, and we must not debate and divide over who best leader and spiritual teacher is.  We need to boast about the Lord Jesus Christ and bring attention to Him.  We need to talk highly about Him, what He has done for us, who He is, and Him being the best.  If we’re all doing that, it brings us together. 

Are you a boastful person?  It’s okay to be one if you are boasting about the Lord and how great He is.  Honor Him.  Praise Him.  Let’s practice it.  Let’s be boasters for a while. 

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