What am I boasting in?

1st Corinthians chapter 1, just break in toward the end of the chapter, perhaps we should read from verse 27. But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise. And God has chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty.

And base things of the world and things which are despised hath God chosen. Yea, and things which are not to bring to naught things that are. That no flesh should glory in his presence.

But of him are ye in Christ Jesus who of God has made unto us wisdom, righteousness, even righteousness, sanctification and redemption. That according as it is written he that glorieth let him glory in the Lord. Again in 2nd Corinthians chapter 10, 2nd Corinthians 10, to get the context we'll read from verse 15.

Not boasting of things without our measure, that is of other men's labors, but having hope when your faith is increased that we should be enlarged by you according to our rule abundantly. To preach the gospel in the regions beyond you and not to boast in another man's line of things made ready to hand. But he that glorieth let him glory in the Lord.

For not he that a commendeth himself is approved, but whom the Lord commendeth. We need to go back to Jeremiah chapter 9 to read the context of what Paul is quoting in these two passages. Jeremiah chapter 9 verse 23 Thus saith the Lord, let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, neither let the mighty man glory in his might.

Let not the rich man glory in his riches. But he that glorieth glory in this, that he understandeth and knoweth me, that I am the Lord which exercised lovingkindness, judgment and righteousness in the earth. For in these things I delight, saith the Lord.

So I'd like to read but we'll come back to 1st Corinthians if you open your Bibles there. It's a natural thing for any one of us to boast, at least in some measure or another. We might not even want to admit it, but likely we boast more than we're actually aware of.

We might boast about our children. I'd like to boast about my children too. I'm sure you do too.

And especially if they're achieving things, you might boast about my son has a PhD and so and so and so and so. Very interesting, but it's really not your achievement, is it? It's your son's achievement. But I'm just thinking of many things that we boast in as I read this passage.

And the idea really is that we have something that we think is to our credit or we have something that really is important to our minds that seems to be very valuable in our lives and we boast about it. One person might boast about his humility. Hard to think that people boast about their humility, but I think it's even possible.

Or they might boast about different things in life. I don't even want to go into the different objects that we can boast in, but I'm aware of the fact in my own life, and I'm sure that you can in yours, that we boast in a lot of things that we wouldn't even want to acknowledge. There are two words in our New Testament, at least, maybe more than two, that are translated glory.

One, of course, is the word that has to do with the glory of God, the glory of Christ. That's the word that we read in John chapter 1 and verse 14. The word was made flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory, the outshining splendor of his person and the one who expressed the nature of God, the person of God, the essence of God, as he moved into the scene of this world and his life here below.

He is the essence of the glory of God and God is a God of glory. And that is a word that really seems to express the it's really the word that means to see or to seem or to have an opinion. It's a thing that causes other people to have a high estimation of a person or to think highly of them and have great estimation of what they really are.

The word of God would encourage us to glory in the Lord, but this is a different word. That's what this word means, not glory in that sense, but this is the word that could be translated boast. Let him that boasteth boast in the Lord.

And I think it's very relevant to think about that because the object of our boasting really expresses and is essentially what is the most important thing to us. What we see is the most valuable, the element that really gives power and effectiveness to our life and gives importance to what we're involved with in our life here below. And it seems like there's a very definite relationship, and I believe there is, between what Paul says in 1 Corinthians 1 and in chapter 10 as well in 2 Corinthians and where he is quoting from in Jeremiah chapter 9. I think sometimes we gain a whole lot in our study of the word of God if we would look back and examine the context of the passages which are being quoted in the New Testament.

And Paul is saying very simply as he abbreviates it or condenses that expression where God says to his people through the prophet, not that not the wise man boasts of his wisdom, sorry, or the rich man, the mighty man in his might or the rich man in his riches, but he that boasteth let him boast in the Lord. It's the same idea, although in a Hebrew language. So God is interested in what you and I boast in, what we really talk about the most, what really occupies our mind and what really we think in our own thoughts is the most important, most valuable, the essential object that we ought to be speaking about.

Now my brothers closed the morning session with a word that I appreciate very much. There was a woman that boasted in the Lord. She was a woman that had a deep appreciation for the Lord Jesus.

And if you would have met her, I have no question that she would have told you the most important person to me is not Lazarus. He is the Lord Jesus Christ. And what you and I really talk about, what we really are occupied with in our thoughts, what we are concentrating our lives upon really is the most important thing to us in our life.

And the question I ask is, who, what is it? What do we boast in? You know, Jeremiah is speaking to people and they boasted in their own wisdom. And yet in chapter 9 and verse 2, he tells them, or rather verse 12, he tells them that all of you wise men have not the capacity to understand what is taking place. Your wise men don't know how to deliver you from the dilemma you're in.

Your wise men have no capability of devising a plan to escape from the enemy that was concentrated against you. He says your mighty men don't have the strength either. And Israel boasted in their wisdom.

They boasted in their mighty men. And they even had the idea that since we're in this city of Jerusalem and the walls are still standing and the temple is still functioning and sacrifices are being offered, all is well, nothing is going to bother us. And they were boasting in that.

And then you find as well that they're boasting their riches. Because there's a great problem in the nation at that time that the riches, the rich men were oppressing the poor people. And they even continued to do that when they came back from Babylon and Nehemiah has to reprimand them for it.

And so these three things, if you think about them carefully, wisdom, might, and riches are the three things that people depend upon the most. They're the things that people think are most important in their life. They're the things they go in for.

I want to have wisdom, knowledge, understanding. And there's the desire to have some measure of power and control. And there are those who would say, well, I'd like to have a lot of money, a lot of riches.

The three things that men depend upon the most, the Lord says through the prophet, He says, don't boast in those things. If you have wisdom, be thankful for it because God has given it to you. If you have might and power, then you've received it from God as a gift.

And then he says, if you have riches too, you owe them all to the one who has made it possible. So the context of the quotation is that, that here they are surrounded by enemies, or soon to be surrounded by enemies. And all of the things that they normally depend upon and trust in, he says, they're all ineffective.

The one you need to really boast in and what you need to boast in is knowing God and having an understanding of the one who is righteous, just, and holy. But when you come to 1 Corinthians chapter 1 and 2 Corinthians chapter 10, brethren, let me say that there was a similar problem that Paul is dealing with here. He's dealing with an assembly that was boasting in their wisdom.

An assembly that was boasting in their might. An assembly that was boasting in their riches. And you'll show, I'll show you this as we go through it, that you notice that these people had the capacity to, actually what was happening is that they were bringing in the wisdom of the world.

The philosophies that existed all around them. Man's way of devising how to deliver himself and how to gain the most valuable essence of life. And you know the Greek philosophers were very wise men.

And they spent their time trying to understand what is life all about? What is the purpose of life? And what is really the most important aim to go in for? And what should be our manner of regulating and understanding what we ought to be doing? And the assembly in Corinth was permeated by man's wisdom. Paul deals with that all the way through the first epistle especially. But notice with me how often he touches on it just in the first chapter.

Because first of all, you notice that when Paul comes into Corinth, he tells us in chapter two, he came first of all with fear and trembling. Lest their faith should depend upon the wisdom of man and not the power of God. He says, I could have come to you and I could have expressed my words in such a way that I would have persuaded you.

I could have convinced you of just about anything. I had the same ability to put words into in an order that would be received so readily. But he says, I made up my mind.

I made up my mind. I determined that I would not bring the gospel to you that way. He came, he says with fear and trembling.

And so when you come to chapter one, having come from Athens where the gospel was rejected, he says their wisdom was causing them to be adherents of being identified with different individuals that they thought were very important. Some of them were saying, I'm a Paul. Some were saying, well, I'm a Peter or Cephas.

I'm a Paulus. Others said, I'm better than any one of you. I'm of Christ.

And it was causing divisions among them and man's wisdom introduced into God's assembly results in divisions. The results of men identifying themselves with different in different groups and causing them to separate themselves from others as if they are better than someone else. He says your wisdom is causing you to tolerate divisions among you that are ruining the assembly.

That's what man's wisdom does. The second thing I want you to notice there is that in verse 18 through 30, where he reminds him of the way they began, he takes them back to the beginning. He reminds him, he says when I came preaching, the gospel to you was foolishness.

The message was foolishness to the wise. The Greeks seek after wisdom. But that didn't give them salvation.

They had to come to the realization that God is not choosing the wise, he says. God is not choosing the ones that are so occupied with their own manner of thinking. They need to give it up.

They need to realize that what God provides is foolishness to man. What is the wisdom of God? You know to any natural person thinking, you would understand the fact that to think that a person that has been evidently defeated, at least in our way, one that has been crucified on a cross, to a Greek mind, that was absolutely foolishness. Impossible.

That one can't be a savior. He couldn't save himself. And so the result was, he says, those who had that mindset, looked to the gospel, and they called it foolishness.

No value in that. No sense in believing that message. It does no good for me.

The Jews looked at it, and they called it an offense. Because they never could think of the Messiah being crucified, and hanging upon a tree. Made a curse in that sense of the word.

So he said to the people like that in chapter one of verse 18, he says, I will destroy, verse 19, or rather verse 18, for the preaching of the cross, the word of the cross, that's the message of the cross, is to them that perish foolishness. The perishing ones, they looked at it as foolishness. But unto us who are saved, it is not the wisdom of God.

It's the power of God. And he says, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and I will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent. Where is the wise? They were excluded.

The wise had no place in God's salvation, because they were not willing to abandon their own thinking, and come to terms and realize that what God says is always right. He says also that these people, when he came into Corinth in chapter two, I'm dropping down, he says, in chapter one, of course, in verse 26, he says, not many wise men are called. Not many mighty, not many noble.

There he's dealing with the three classes that Jeremiah speaks about in chapter nine. He says, they're not the wise men. It's not the noble men, the rich men.

It's not the mighty men. No, he says God has chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise, and the weak things of the world to confound the things that are mighty, these things. So God's way of working is contrary to what man thinks is right.

And the point that he's trying to make is that your wisdom that, that, I should say not your wisdom, but the means by which you came to know the Lord Jesus, and you were saved by the grace of God, was not attained by means of man's reasonings, man's philosophies. Isn't it true in your experience and mine, that we had to come to the realization that all of our trying to understand by natural means, all of our trying to figure it out, so to speak, all the different means by which we exerted ourselves to a great extent to try to be saved, all had to be given up. And you had to come to a simple position as a foolish person, so to speak, just to believe the gospel.

So he says the wisdom, and you can go on over through all through the epistle, and you can find that in chapter eight in verse one, he tells them that their supposed wisdom, it gave them knowledge and understanding about what idols really were, but he reminds them, he says, you have a problem because by doing so, you're failing to realize the power that lies behind the idol, and the results that it will have in your life. And chapter 12, of course, he makes it very clear to them that there's true wisdom, but a wisdom that comes from God. And so, brothers and sisters, I'm not up here to try to downgrade the importance of intelligence.

I hope we have some intelligence, at least a little measure. I'm not up here to speak against education. Any of that thing is, any of that is very valuable, but we have to be careful not to introduce man's reasoning, man's way of thinking into the things of God.

What is so important in an assembly, or is a spiritual understanding, a wisdom that God gives, a discernment that enables us to understand how to handle the scriptures, how to apply the scriptures, the importance of putting the word of God into practice in our lives, and the essentiality of guarding the assembly from the kind of thinking that pervades in this world, and that dominates the normal person as they move about life. More and more we see this, as we think of people that you try to bring them the gospel, or tell them something about the Lord Jesus, and it just seemed like it's a foolish thing to them. They don't understand it.

It doesn't seem to have any impact upon them, or have any effect upon them in any way. But he says there's another problem. He says it's not only wisdom, but it's a matter of your riches.

And he speaks about the rich people. And in chapter 11, for instance, he tells them that the rich people are despising the poor, because they were coming, they were coming for a feast before the Lord's Supper, and they were coming substantially to express their fellowship. That was for what it was for.

They were coming together to enjoy a meal together, to indicate that they are in fellowship, and enjoying a positive relationship. But the rich, he says, you're feasting to the point of drunkenness, and there comes a poor man in, perhaps late, because he's had to work more, and there's nothing left for him. So that their riches were producing a division in the assembly.

He also tells them in chapter 1 that God didn't choose the rich people to this world. He didn't choose the nobles. He didn't choose the ones that were very important.

He chose the ones that were very poor, the ones that had nothing, and the ones that came to the realization of their poverty before God. And even in 2 Corinthians 8, verse 2, you'll find there that he brings before them the example of the saints in Macedonia, who out of their deep poverty, they were more eager to donate and to contribute to the welfare of the saints. And he tells them as well in that same epistle in verse 9, he says, you know the poverty of our Lord Jesus Christ.

And the word is poverty. He became poor. He became tremendously poor, to the point he had nothing.

And you despise the poor people in this world because of your riches. Oh, he says you're despising those that are like the Lord Jesus, the one who voluntarily became poor, so that you might be rich, but right, riches in a right sense. So he shows them that the application is very valid, because they were glorying in their riches.

And they're glorying in their might too. I'm using that in terms of the abilities they had, because we find over in chapter 12, especially, as well as in chapter 1, verse 5, that they were failing to realize that every gift they had, every expression of ability that God had given them, was the expression of God's grace. They didn't deserve it.

And we find that in chapter 12, he says that it's all according to the will of God. He divided the Spirit of God, divided severally as he will, separately to every person. He says it's not for your grandeur, it's not for your exaltation, it's for the benefit of God's people.

And so he just brings before them these three things that are in Jeremiah chapter 9. He says all you're boasting, the things that you boast in, are the things that are really causing the greatest problem in the assembly at Corinth. And then when he comes to 2 Corinthians chapter 10, because I'm going to stop pretty soon, but the one he speaks of 2 Corinthians 10, it's not the assembly in general, it's his own service. He says in comparison with others, he says, I came into Corinth, I came depending upon God to do a work.

I came into that area where there's nothing ahead of me, totally new area, so to speak. He says I preached the gospel and God worked. Now here come these other men in, and they're seeking to build on my foundation.

They're seeking to bring in teaching that is contrary or detrimental to what I've been teaching you. And they're boasting in it. They're boasting in their abilities.

They're boasting in their messages. They're boasting in a sense that they want to attract you to become identified with them, so that they have an increased number that are adherents. It's the same thing that Paul deals with in Galatians chapter 6. He says they only want you so they might be boasting, be able to boast in your flesh.

They might add you to the number that they identify with and they could say, well, look at these people. They're following us. And you remember Paul goes on in that chapter to say, God forbid that I should glory, that I should boast saving the cross over the Lord Jesus Christ.

By which the world is crucified under me, and I under the world. And so these men were boasting in their work, but it wasn't theirs. They were building on the work of others.

And if you notice in second Corinthians chapter 10, that Paul repeatedly uses that word. He says in verse, in verse 8, he says, I could boast somewhat more of my authority or our authority which the Lord has given us for edification. But he's indicating that I'm not going to boast in that.

Because that's not his purpose. That's not his desire. In verse 13, he says, he refused to boast of work that he hadn't done.

His measure that he speaks about here is the sphere of labor that the Lord had called him to. And his purpose was always to bring blessing to the Lord's people. And to be help and a encourager to them to instruct them in the ways of God and not to gain adherence to himself.

And in verse 17, he says, he says in this verse, but he that glorieth let him glory or boast in the Lord. That is he was boasting of what the Lord had done. So I want to just conclude this.

These are things that have been on my mind for a period of time. Just ask your brother or sister, what do you boast in? What is really, what is really the subject of your conversation? I don't know if you ever stop to think about it, but sometimes I do after I've been a gathering of believers. And I think back, what were we talking about? What was the subject matter that we were occupied with? Might have been farms, might have been tractors, might have been cars, might have been houses, might have been all kinds of things.

Don't we boast of the things that are most important to us? Do we ever have much time to have a moment to just boast in the Lord? To give glory and honor to the Lord Jesus and to recognize that everything I have physically, spiritually really has come from him. It's the mercy of God that we have anything. But how little we stop to ascribe all honor and praise to him.

It seems like so oftentimes we're so occupied with ourselves. And if we listen to what we talk about, we might have to realize that we don't do very much so far as boasting in the Lord. I'm not being critical because I'm the same way.

It's a natural tendency. And there are so many things that we can talk about that just come naturally to our mind. They just flood in as a normal pattern of thinking, but I think again of Mary.

Mary was willing to give everything. If you think about Mary breaking that box, that box of spikenard. You know, really brother, she had nothing left afterwards.

She had poured herself out. It was not only pouring out the spikenard, but it was pouring herself out. Because she had nothing else.

She was like the woman that the Lord Jesus drew attention to that threw in the last mite, the very last one that she had. And it seems to me that if my heart is really recognizing the greatness of my Savior, and if he is the one who has given me everything that I have, and that every blessing that I receive has come through him, every ability that you and I might have really has been received by grace from himself. Wouldn't we want to talk a little bit more about him? Wouldn't it be more the desire of our hearts of what to honor him in everything that he do? I'm afraid those believers in Corinth were failing to give honor to the Lord Jesus.

And those that were coming in, you might say on Paul's coattails, they were failing to give honor to the Lord Jesus. He says, whatever we're doing, whatever we have, whatever we can enjoy, whatever we have been blessed with, it's really all because of the Lord anyway. And we can never give him thanks too much.

We can never give him praise and honor as we ought. We can never really express what he is worthy to receive. Now, would God help us, brothers and sisters, to consider what we're really thinking about, what we're really occupied with, and what really is most important.

And my thought is that the Lord Jesus, that he might be the object of our praise, our worship, our adoration, not only on certain occasions, but every day of our life. That he that glorieth, let him glorieth the Lord. There's no better object for us to glorieth.