A Word in Season: Who Makes You Differ? (1 Corinthians 4:7)

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There's a classic British comedy called Hancock's Half Hour, starring a comedian called

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Tony Hancock, in which he plays this much -put -upon man who simply cannot understand why the world doesn't recognise his worth.

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In a statement of a classic sense of entitlement, he might say something like,

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That sense of entitlement, then, is not new, and whether or not we smile at Tony Hancock or we mourn over the real expression of it in so much of life, it is the way that so many of us think.

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And it's that spirit of entitlement and how it breeds resentment or pride that the

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Apostle Paul addresses in 1 Corinthians chapter 4 and verse 7. For who makes you differ from another, and what do you have that you did not receive?

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Now if you did indeed receive it, why do you boast as if you had not received it?

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The Corinthians, it seems, were inclined to pride. They lived with this sense of entitlement, and sadly they seem to have transferred it from before their conversion into their post -conversion spiritual experience.

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So that they had spiritual gifts, they were forming into particular factions, lining up behind the great men of the day, as they saw it, and squabbling and wrestling with one another, and basically indulging in this gross kind of ecclesiastical one -upmanship.

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And here Paul cuts it all down to the ground. And who could say this better than the

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Apostle who had received so much from the hand of his Master, and yet had also been granted and trained to remain content with much or with little, and to understand that he himself was but a servant?

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Who makes you differ from one another? The instinct of pride, the spirit of entitlement says, well, that's me.

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This is my victory. These are my blessings. These are the things that I have, and that I have accomplished with what

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I have. And Paul says, you have it, yes, but what do you have that you did not receive?

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What do you possess that you have not been given? And if you've received it, why are you boasting as if that were not so?

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Why do you speak and think as if what you have is yours, that you've somehow merited it or earned it, that it belongs to you by dint of your great labor and great gifts, forgetting that a gift is just that.

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It is something that has been bestowed upon you. And that Corinthian spirit is just as common today as it has ever been.

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This sense of entitlement, that I am a great person and I have my great gifts, and therefore

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I ought to be appreciated and applauded. No, you ought to be thankful and you ought to be humble.

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For if you have natural gifts, strength of mind or body, if you have something to offer to others, perhaps even more so if you have spiritual gifts, things by which you can bring glory to God and do good to men, it is not yours to boast.

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We ought not to be puffed up on behalf of one against the other.

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Maybe not even for ourselves, but to line up behind our big names today, the big cheeses and say, well,

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I am of this man or I am of that man, and see what he's accomplished and how many books he's written and how many conferences he speaks at and how many people have been converted.

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Paul says, really, don't you understand that whatever blessing a man has received and whatever blessing a man is made to bring to others, it is all a gracious gift of the

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Most High God. So whether it is our instinct to boast for ourselves or our instinct to line up behind and boast of somebody else, there really is only one question, one answer to the question, who makes you differ from another?

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And it is God. Whatever gifts you have, whatever has been entrusted to you, whatever opportunities you've been given, whatever blessings that you have received or whatever blessing you have been to somebody else, you did simply receive it.

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It was God's kindness to you and through you. So let us not boast as if we had not received it.

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Let us not think of ourselves as men and women of great calibre, entitled to applause and appreciation, but as humble servants of God who've received gifts for ministry.