Pastor Steve Hall preaches from 1 Corinthians 1:26-31 on the call to boast only in the Lord. Drawing from Jeremiah 9, he warns against vain glory in wisdom, might, or riches, and contrasts the emptiness of worldly pursuits with the eternal satisfaction found in knowing and glorifying God. Through the cross of Christ, we discover God’s incomparable greatness and love, calling us to live every aspect of our lives to His glory.
Transcript
The Call to Boast in the Lord
If you would open your Bible to First Corinthians chapter 1. I’m going to look at the last verse really of this chapter. I’m going to back up and read from verse 26 and we’ll read down to verse 31, but our focus particularly will be on verse 31. For some weeks with a little interlude in between, we’ve been talking about the glory of God. And we’re thinking about what the glory of God is and what it means for us to glory in God or to bring glory to the name of of of of the Lord. And so I’m going to begin reading in verse 26. The Corinthians had a problem with boasting and with taking glory in things. They were taking glory in the ministers that God out of grace had had sent to their sent to their church. And so they were identified in in certain of these, taking great pleasure and joy in the men themselves. So that’s that’s an interesting situation. Paul is addressing that. In verse 26 he says, he reminds them,
For consider your calling, 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, so that he may nullify the things that are. So that no man may boast before God. But by his doing you are in Christ Jesus, who came to us wisdom from God and righteousness and sanctification and redemption. So that just as it is written, let him who boasts, boast in the Lord.
Let’s look to the Lord and ask his blessing on this passage as we read. Heavenly Father, we come to you our Creator God, the one who is our righteousness, our sanctification and our redemption. We thank you that you are our Creator and Savior. We thank you that every good thing comes from your hand. And we thank you, Father, that you truly you are the God who deserves all praise and honor and glory. And we ask, Father, that you tune our hearts to you today. Help us, Father, to truly learn what it means to glorify you, to turn from our own foolishness to the glory and the wonder of who you are. We ask this in the name of our Savior, the Lord Jesus. Amen.
The Danger of Vain Glory
When Paul quotes that passage, he’s quoting from the book of Jeremiah. You may remember the passage when the little phrase that he quotes here is, let him who boasts, boast in the Lord, or as it says in the King James, let him who glories, glory in the Lord. In Jeremiah chapter 9, Jeremiah wrote,
Thus says the Lord, let not the wise man boast of his wisdom, and let not the mighty man boast of his might, and let not the rich man boast of his riches. But let him who boasts, boast of this, that he understands and knows me. That I’m the Lord who exercises lovingkindness, justice, and righteousness on earth. For I delight in these things, declares the Lord.
God is a God of justice and righteousness and perfection. And he’s the God who deserves all boasting. One of the interesting things that we’ve kind of reflected on somewhat is that God created us to glory in things or to glory. Actually, God created us to glory in himself. We are created in order to bring glory to the name of of of of God, to glorify him, to bring our attention and focus on him, to respond to all that he is. When several weeks ago when we first began this, we talked about, you know, the fact that God created us in his own image. And among the things that that must mean is that we have the ability to recognize particularly if you’re saved, if you’ve been redeemed and your heart’s been changed and you’re tuned back to the Lord, you have the ability to recognize the truth about God as you look at the world around us. As as we read about God in his holy word, as as something true about God is revealed to us, it should resonate in our hearts and cause us to praise him, cause us to love him more. But we tend to need this reminder. It’s kind of extraordinary to me that we need it. But in the Old Testament and in and in this passage in the New Testament, Paul is reminding, in this passage, Paul’s reminding people who belong to the Lord to boast and glory in the Lord. And we need that reminder because we can get caught up with so many small things. We live in an age that is caught up in vanity, in vain glory. If you have any doubts about that, you know, you just need to tune into the internet and, you know, log onto Instagram or one of those social media websites and see what what’s there. You know, you you see all of these beautiful curated photographs of someone’s vacation trip. You know, and things like the proud, post, smiling faces with the exotic backgrounds. When, you know, the reality was, you know, all the arguments over where to eat and dealing with the sunburns and all those things. They don’t show up in the photographs, the reality. We, you know, we we fill our lives with all sorts of things and we focus on all sorts of things. We try to find satisfaction in all kinds of things. Think of people who hoard, who who who who find satisfaction in making purchases. And when they see something, like if they’re watching the home shopping network, they have to have this thing. They just they they have to have it and and in buying that thing, they get some sort of satisfaction in making that purchase. And then, you know, later on they wonder why they have this, you know, inflatable flamingo thing that they’ve just bought, that’s occupying space in their house. But but it’s it’s not, you know, they’re trying to find soul satisfaction through things. And you can’t do that. But you don’t have to go that way. You can go exactly the opposite way. What if you want your house perfect and so everything has its place and you focus on the order of everything? You know, you spend more time decluttering than you do with using the stuff in your house. That’s a kind of pursuit that you can have. It’s a trying to find satisfaction in a place where the soul really can’t be satisfied. Or it gets, you know, we’ve been we’ve been talking about these things that are they’re kind of funny, but they’re not funny at all. The the man or woman, or the man who spends his life in the corporate world trying to to gain promotions and pursue the next level and get the titles and the and the and and the unique office on the top floor and all of that. And he spends years sacrificing family and friends and all sorts of things and finally he gets there. Howard Hendricks used to have a saying about about that. He says, they climb the corporate ladder and they find out too late that it’s that that’s leaning against the wrong wall. These things don’t satisfy. And the and the great costs that they cost are often make the the victories hollow. And we live in a time when people are pursuing these kinds of things more and more because they seem to have nothing else to live for. We live in a nihilistic age. We live in a in a in an age when people are taught that God either doesn’t exist at all or he’s of no real consequence. He’s not important. And if God is not important, then why spend any time thinking about him or focusing on him? And so you get into a downward spiral that leads to despair and you feel your life is something superficial. I I bet you that some and just about all of you know some young person, not too young, I’m talking about adults who spend almost every spare minute of their life pursuing a video game of some type. You know, they have to collect all those feathers, all 897 of them in that virtual forest. And and and when they do that, finally they feel like they’ve achieved something. They get this feeling of achievement by doing this. And, you know, we look at that and think, well, what’s the point of that? What what did they gain from that? It’s it’s pretty all of these things. That’s taking ultimate delight, finding your life’s purpose, boasting in something that’s not worth it, that’s that proves empty. When you weigh it against eternity, it proves to be fleeting and empty. I had I knew a lady who spent a great deal of time on her lawn. She has to have a perfect lawn. She wants a perfect lawn. I mean, if if a dandelion breaks out in the middle of the night, that’s sort of, you know, it’s a it’s a it’s like Armageddon or something. It’s serious. You can, you know, you seek things like this to find fulfillment. You can become devoted to all sorts of things and people do. God has and and and you and not just devoted to it. I mean, you’re enjoying the thing. They enjoy it. They they are caught up in it. And they brag about it. That’s part of the whole enjoyment is to be able to to call attention to it.
God’s Incomparable Greatness and True Glory
Well, one of the interesting things is that God doesn’t say stop glorying in things. What he says is, start glorying in me. He redirects it. He he he is the source of every good thing. He does and the cure for vain glory, Spurgeon said, the cure for vain glory is true glory. Glorying in the right things. We’re to glory only in the Lord. The Bible tells us that God is jealous for his glory. He won’t share his glory with idols or competitors. He says, my glory I will not give to another nor any praise to graven images. Israel moved him to jealousy with the graven images, it tells us in Psalm 78. When God heard this, he was angry and greatly abhorred Israel. That’s what it says, his his blessed Israel. Jesus is our great Savior and and our Creator God. And God the Father gives every good and perfect gift. And it is right and only right for us to take the great delight in the source of the gift rather than the gift. God had given to the people in Corinth many ministers of grace and some of them were gifted preachers. They were very gifted. And they began to celebrate and form alliances around the preachers. And their glory was that they know this preacher. They this is my guy. You say, I’m following this guy. And uh they were bragging about, you know, the preachers. And it was called it caused division in the church. The church was being becoming divided. God’s to be the sole object of our glory because only God’s worthy of it. We’re to continually be be growing in our ability to glory in God. We’re to be taking more and more enjoyment in the Lord himself as we get to know him better, as we learn of him, as we as we uh explore who he is, as we as God shows more of himself to us. Last week we looked at Psalm 19. And Psalm 19 is a book about revelation of God. It begins with the heavens declare the glory of God. And it breaks up into those two sections that we looked at last week, especially two sections. The first part dealing with natural revelation and what you can learn from God in the natural world. And the second part in the special revelation that comes through the word of God and how that leads to salvation. How we can come to know God in a saving way through the word that he’s given us. But we’re to glorify him by trusting him and getting to know him. As he reveals himself, we’re to reflect on on what is revealed. And as we explore who he is and learn more about him, our relationship with him should be strengthened. It is in glorying about Christ, about Christ, it is in glorying in all the nature of God that we grow in our faith. Our faith grows through glorying in God. A good biblical example of that is in Romans chapter 4 and verse 20. In that passage, uh Paul is the Apostle Paul’s talking about Abraham and he has just said in the passage that Abraham has been justified from God by faith. In the Old Testament passages, Abraham believed God and God counted it to him as righteousness. Abraham is saved through faith. And then it’s kind of interesting because in 4:20 it says,
No unbelief made him waver concerning the promise of God.
He was sure in his faith. He had solid faith. But and it goes on to say this, listen,
But he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God. Fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised. And that is why his faith was counted to him as righteousness.
Abraham was justified and saved by faith. He took glory in the Lord. When he received truth about God, he believed it. He believed God. He trusted God. One of the great ways that we trust God, and you cannot trust bring glory to God if you do not trust him, is simply to trust him. We trust him in in what he says and what he does. We trust God. And as we trust God, God accepts that as glory to him. We’re saying, Lord, I know this is true about you. You’ve shown me this is true about you. It’s so wonderful that you are the kind of God that you are. And the more you think about God, the more that we learn about God, how incredibly wonderfully he is. And why shouldn’t we glory in him? There is nothing greater in all the world than God. God is the greatest. So we’re he his glory is so great that there’s there’s no competition with it. So what a what a tragic thing when our heart shift away from him to do something silly and superficial, to take joy in something that is absolutely worthless. So our faith is strengthened by the glory of God and we need to remember and get to know God through his word. That’s the primary way for us to truly know him. We can’t truly know him apart from his word. Listen to Isaiah 40:12, that very familiar passage, just a very short couple of verses,
Who’s measured the water in the hollow of his hand, marked off the heavens with a span, enclosed the dust of the earth with a measure and weighed the mountains in scales and the hills in a balance?
That’s God. God weighs and measures the water in the hollow of his hand. You think about what that is. I mean, the metaphor is powerful. It’s a figure of speech that is absolutely overwhelming. I was about six years old the first time we went to Virginia Beach. It was the first time I’d seen the Atlantic Ocean. And I can remember it quite clearly because I’m so excited. I’m going to finally see the ocean. I’ve never seen the ocean. And I’m running through the sand and there’s a sand dune. And I run up the sand dune and there it is. And I stopped. I mean, I was absolutely stopped. I’m looking at this and it is the most magnificent thing I’ve ever seen in my life. The water that goes on forever. I couldn’t imagine it. I couldn’t imagine it. I was just overwhelmed by the size of the ocean. It’s it was overwhelming. Well, God measures the water in the hollow of his hand. You take take all the great lakes and the Atlantic and the Pacific and the Indian and the Arctic and the Antarctic and the and and all all of the all of the oceans. Take all of that water. It’s as if he can hold that. It’s just like a little little puddle in the middle of his hand. You know, God doesn’t have a hand. I mean, the Lord Jesus does, but he doesn’t have a hand. He’s spirit. And so that’s a figure of speech. It’s an anthropomorphism is what that’s called. It’s a figure so that we can comprehend it. That to think about that, to think about a giant who is so powerful that he can hold the water in his hand just gives you a tiny picture of what God is. He’s so much greater than that. That’s the point. God is far greater than that. The next picture is that, you know, he measures the sky, the the he measures the universe. He measures the sky. I have a tape measure at home. It goes about 25 feet, you know. God measures the sky, but it’s it’s it’s it’s he knows all of it. He knows every bit of it. You you think about the wonder of who he is and the wonder of his knowledge and the fact that he is so amazing. And Jesus talks about how he cares for us. He talks about how he knows the number of the hairs in our head. He knows when a tiny sparrow falls. There’s not a tiny detail that takes place in the universe that he’s not aware of. That’s the God we worship. That’s the God who deserves our glory. He’s absolutely extraordinary and wonderful in every way. And when we look to the cross of Jesus Christ, we find out more about God than we could have ever known any other way. You might know something of his greatness if you look at the universe, but only when you look at the cross do you get some picture of how much he loves us. How much he loves us, that he would enter into what was like sinful flesh, to to live a life here, to suffer on a cross in our place. It’s a sad heart. It’s a sad person who doesn’t know him, who can’t worship him. Because you were created to worship him. And if you don’t give your heart to him, if if you don’t worship him, then you will never, ever have any real purpose. We live in a time when people take joy and celebrate and brag about everything. But what they were created to bring glory and celebrate. We’re to worship him. We’re to glorify him. We’re to worship him. We’re to give glory to the Lord, the glory that’s due his name. We’re to glorify God, the scripture says, for his mercy. We’re to glorify him by trusting him, by by recognizing the truth of his word. We’re to glorify him by confessing him as our Lord, recognizing that our Savior is the Lord of Lord, the King of kings, the Lord of lords. We’re to glorify him by being obedient to what our Savior has instructed us. We’re to glorify him by bowing and submitting to his just condemnation of our sin and confessing it to him, being restored back to him. We’re to glorify him by seeking to make his name great, which means making ourselves small. We’re to glorify the Lord in in every in our daily life, in everything we do. We’re to do everything to the glory of God.
Living a Life of Glorifying God
God calls us to true glory because everything else, the wealth, the wisdom, the power, the status, is absolutely empty, it’s fleeting. You can take glory in your lawn, but the grass withers and the flower fades. Nothing endures in this world except what is truly in God himself. What nothing nothing endures if it’s not eternal. We’re to put our trust in God and celebrate him. And out of his abundant grace, he gives us salvation in Jesus Christ. Everyone who’s put their trust in him. We can truly glorify him. Paul reminds the Corinthians and Jeremiah reminded the people in Israel, don’t glory. Don’t brag. Don’t take joy, ultimate joy, in all of these things. All the stuff that God gives. Use these things. Celebrate these things and enjoy them, but give thanks and praise to God. God is the one that we brag about. God is the one that we glorify. Let’s remember to do that. Let’s pray.
Father, thank you for the preciousness of your holy word and for being able to have the capacity by the power of your Holy Spirit to glorify your name. That doesn’t mean that we add anything to you. It just means that we recognize what’s there. That you are truly a wonderful and glorious God. You’re amazing in all that you are. And you’ve showed us infinite love in Christ. And Father, when we look at ourselves, we are nothing. We are nothing. We have sinful, rebellious hearts. How we need your grace and mercy and love. Please, Father, we ask more grace today. Move our hearts to worship you. Stir our heart, Lord Jesus, to serve you, to bring glory to you. And I pray, Father, that you give us an opportunity, multiple opportunities this week, to brag about you to someone else. To bring glory to you, to to to just praise you for the wonderful God that you are, and the mercies that you’ve shown us. Thank you, Father. Thank you for all you’ve given us in Christ. We praise you in this name. Amen.