Boast Only in the Lord!
By John Piper
I hope you will agree with me that if you love something deeply, there must also be something you hate deeply. For example, if you love children deeply, you must hate any neglect and mistreatment that harms them. If you love freedom, you have to hate slavery and totalitarianism.I Corinthians 1:18-31 I start with this observation because I am about to tell you something that God hates and I want you to realize from the very outset that this hatred of His is the reflex of His love. He hates what He hates because it replaces or ruins something beautiful.
More than anything else in the world, God hates human pride. This truth is reiterated throughout the Bible. Here are just a few examples:
"Every one that is proud in heart is an abomination to the Lord" (Prov. 16:5).What does God love so much that causes Him to hate pride so much? He loves the humble heart that boasts in the Lord. The humble heart that credits God fully for what God alone can do. He loves the humble heart that recognizes its own weakness and puts its total reliance on God. When God delights in this, He delights in the deepest, most satisfying human experience possible. That's because we were made to boast in God. We were made to glorify our Creator and Savior."Him that hath an high look and a proud heart will not I suffer" (Psalm 101:5).
"The lofty looks of man shall be humbled, and the haughtiness of men shall be bowed down, and the Lord alone shall be exalted in that day" (Isaiah 2:11).
"That which is highly esteemed among men is abomination in the sight of God" (Luke 16:15).
Pride diverts our capacity for exultation from the galaxies of God's glory to the gutters of our puny achievements. It is a decorated dead end street. Therefore, God hates pride. And we should hate in ourselves what God hates in us, and wield the sword of the Spirit as best we can to slay this dragon in our souls.
Proud Corinthians. From Paul's two letters to the Corinthians, it is not hard to see that the church there has many problems. Nor is it hard to see that pride is the root of them all. The apostle attacks that problem head-on in I Corinthians 1:18-31. It comes to a climax in verse 31 with the command, "He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord." To glory in old English is to boast.
I would like to take you with me through Paul's thought process and learn how he guides a person from being proud and self-reliant into being one who exults in God. In these verses, I see at least five steps in Paul's thought. Let's look at them one at a time, not necessarily in the order he wrote them, but from the most basic premise to his final conclusion.
1. He recognizes that humans want something to boast in.
In verse 22 Paul writes: "For the Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom." Signs are the display of power; and wisdom is the display of intelligence. Some people get their strokes through power while others through intelligence.Pride can boast in itself directly, or indirectly by association. It might be your own power or intelligence, or it might belong to someone with whom you can identify. It might be a baseball team in your city that you boast about. Or it might be your alma mater, the company you work for, a friend, or even a religion or a church.
God originally created man with a deep desire to glory in God. But sin came into the world and turned everyone of us away from God. So we seek for displays of power and intelligence through gods of our own making.
The Greeks craved eloquent displays of intelligence and the Jews wanted amazing displays of power. One man says, "Show me something great with your mind," and another says, "Show me something great with your body." Apart from the Spirit (I Cor. 12:3), though, no one ever says show me God. Sin has blinded us.
2. He affirms the superiority of God.
Verse 25: "Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men; and the weakness of God is stronger than men."In other words, it is a great tragedy when your quest for power and wisdom stops short of God. Because God's treasure of power and wisdom is infinitely greater than anything in this world that excites you. Paul wants to stamp this truth on us so deeply that he risks some dangerous language about God, doesn't he? He says that when God is as foolish as He can be, He is still smarter than all the wisdom of men. And when God is as weak as He can be, He is still stronger than all the power that man can unleash.
When God stoops to hold a child on His lap, He also holds all the elements of that child's body intact by the power of His word. And when He let Himself be mocked and beaten and crucified and stabbed, He destroyed the power of Satan over His people, He covered the sins of millions of believers, and He vindicated the glory of His name.
How foolish for us to seek wisdom and power in the world and not in God when the weakness of God is stronger than any power in the world and the foolishness of God is wiser than any wisdom in the world!
3. He describes how God deals with man's love for human wisdom.
We read in verse 19: "For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent." And in verse 21: "For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe."Let me paraphrase it this way: In His wisdom, God decided to blockade all the roads that men are building to heaven by their own power and intelligence, and to put in their place one hard road and one narrow gate, namely, the Calvary road and the gate of the cross.
Double barrel. God destroys the wisdom of the wise and frustrates the cleverness of the clever two ways: (1) In His wisdom, He demolishes man's self-reliant quest for God. That's what the first half of verse 21 means: "For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God." (2) He preaches Christ crucified as the only way to God, because it is so humiliating to cast oneself on the accomplishments of a bloody Redeemer.
Look at verse 30: "But of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption."
You can easily see why the cross is the end of the line for human pride. Picture a well-respected, well-educated, well-dressed and well-groomed person being taken before a naked man hanging on the cross and covered with blood and being told, "This, sir, is wisdom and righteousness and holiness and redemption. Kneel down here and cast yourself on him for mercy." God has chosen a way of salvation that devastates human pride.
"But we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumbling block, and unto the Greeks foolishness" (v. 23). "For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness" (v. 18).
So, in His wisdom God cuts off the way of pride and frustrates man's reliance on human power and human wisdom. And then He opens a way to glory and to God that proud man cannot stand, namely, the way of the cross. Why? Because He hates pride. When God blockades the road of pride, He blockades the road to destruction. And when He routes you onto the Calvary Road of brokenness and humility and faith, He routes you to glory and to God. And in the presence of God is fullness of joy and at his right hand are pleasures forevermore (Psalm 16:11).
4. He forewarns that not many powerful or shrewd people will respond to the gospel.
Verse 20: "Where is the wise? where is the scribe? where is the disputer of this world? hath not God
made foolish the wisdom of this world?" And verses 26-28: "For ye see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called: But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath 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 nought things that are."In other words not only has God blockaded the pathways of pride and opened the way of the cross, but he is also opening the hearts of many foolish and weak and low and despised people, along with a few upper-class people, in order to put to shame those who boast in power and wisdom and class and achievement.
Why? This brings us to Paul's last step.
5. He concludes that one can boast only in God.
He first puts it negatively in verse 29, "That no flesh should glory in his presence," then positively in verse 31, "That, according as it is written, He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord."The purpose of God in the creation of man and the salvation of sinners is that we might glorify Him. This is God's will for you and me. God is speaking in these words very clearly. And what he is saying is this: Turn this very moment from all boasting in your self. Don't seek your pleasure any more in your own wisdom, or your own strength, or your own looks, or your own achievements. Look to Christ crucified and see what becomes of it all.
Paul said in Galatians 6:14, "But God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world." So I call you to come to Christ, die this morningand to live. And the promise of God is this: there is no greater life, no greater joy than to boast in Him! o
Dr. John Piper is the Senior Pastor at Bethlehem Baptist Church, 720 13th Avenue South, Minneapolis, MN 55415. Call Desiring God Ministries at 1-888-346-4700 for a free catalog of other resources by Dr. Piper.