WWUTT 1651 Our Cause for Boasting (2 Corinthians 1:12-14)

You know, it is okay for you to boast. Yeah, you can boast. Boast all you want.

As long as the boasting is not in yourself, your boasting is in God who raises the dead.

When we understand the text. Many of the

Bible stories and verses we think we know, we don't. When we understand the text is committed to teaching sound doctrine and rebuking those who contradict it.

Visit our website at www .wutt .com. Here once again is Pastor Gabe.

Thank you, Becky. We come back to our study of 2 Corinthians chapter 1, picking up where we left off last week.

So I'm going to begin by reading verses 12 through 24 out of the Legacy Standard Bible.

This is the word of the Lord through the Apostle Paul writing to the church in Corinth. For our boasting is this, the testimony of our conscience, that in holiness and godly sincerity, not in fleshly wisdom, but in the grace of God, we have conducted ourselves in the world and especially toward you.

For we write nothing else to you than what you read and understand, and I hope you will understand until the end, just as you also partially did understand us, that we are your reason for boasting, as you also are ours in the day of our

Lord Jesus. And in this confidence, I intended at first to come to you, so that you might receive grace twice, that is, to pass your way into Macedonia and again from Macedonia to come to you and by you to be helped on my journey to Judea.

Therefore, was I vacillating when I intended to do this? Or what I purpose, do

I purpose according to the flesh, so that with me there will be yes, yes, and no, no at the same time?

But as God is faithful, our word to you is not yes and no.

For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, who was preached among you by us, by me and Silvanus and Timothy, was not yes and no, but has become yes in him.

For as many as are the promises of God, in him they are yes. Therefore also through him is our amen to the glory of God through us.

Now he who establishes us with you in Christ and anointed us is God, who also sealed us and gave the pledge of the

Spirit in our hearts. But I call God as witness to my soul, that to spare you

I did not come again to Corinth. Not that we lorded over your faith, but are workers with you for your joy.

For in your faith you are standing firm. Remember once again that the theme of this letter is joyful, enduring ministry in the midst of affliction.

Paul with joy is doing all he is doing for the sake of Christ, who is the cause for his boasting.

And he does it also for the sake of the Corinthians, which he says here, they are also the cause of his boasting.

As he says to them, we are the cause for your boasting. We don't boast in ourselves, we boast in the

Lord. And that goes back to his previous letter. I mean, we read that in the first chapter of 1

Corinthians. So we consider some of those things here as we've seen them come up in this particular section.

Look at verse 12. For our boasting is this. What is our boasting? The testimony of our conscience.

Now Paul is establishing that here at the beginning because he's going to make a confrontation against some false teachers that have come into the midst of the

Corinthians. And surely you know what I'm referring to, those that Paul sarcastically calls super apostles.

We get to them in chapter 11. They have a guilty conscience because what they preach is not from the

Lord. It is from themselves. It's from their own flesh. So Paul establishes the genuineness of his ministry early before he makes a confrontation of those false teachers.

Our boasting is this. The testimony of our conscience. We have done this in the sight of God, who is our witness.

That our intentions toward you have been, the motivation has been nothing but love.

And you are very dear to us. We're not asking, we don't take anything from you.

We're not asking anything of you in this gospel that is declared to you, but rather you're our cause for boasting before the

Lord. So that we might say to the Lord, here's the fruit of my labor. I preach the gospel to these people and they came and believed and have grown in fruitfulness as a result of the word of Christ, the doctrine of Christ that was proclaimed to them.

So our boasting is this. Clear conscience before God. The testimony of our conscience.

That in holiness and godly sincerity, not in fleshly wisdom, but in the grace of God, we have conducted ourselves in the world and especially toward you.

So it's by the grace of God that we have a clear conscience. That we have had the success in ministry that we have had.

Paul is not boasting in himself. It is boasting in the Lord. And of course, Paul says, we boast in you as well.

But notice that the object of our boasting is never ourselves. Paul's not boasting in himself, though he certainly had more cause to boast in himself than you and I have, right?

So the cause of our boasting is not going to be in what we have accomplished. It is in what God has done, what he has accomplished.

And this, as I said, goes back to Paul's previous letter. In 1 Corinthians 1, verse 27, let me start reading there, 1

Corinthians 1, 27. We saw this in the first chapter of 1 Corinthians. 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 abolish the things that are so that, this is verse 29, no flesh may boast before God.

No one is able to boast in their wisdom and their knowledge and their accomplishments before God.

He has chosen what is weak to shame the strong. And Paul includes himself in that as well.

We're going to see that as we go on here in 2 Corinthians. In chapter 10, verse 10, he talks about how weak in his oral delivery he is.

So that the Corinthians, the Greeks really weren't all that impressed with him. They loved Apollos because he was a great orator and Paul was not.

So Paul there talks about how he's weak. Later on in chapter 12 says, I'm going to boast all the more in my weaknesses for where I am weak.

There he is strong that he may boast in Christ and not in himself. No one is ever going to have any cause to boast before the

Lord. You think you're a great orator? Yeah, right. You're not anything compared to what

Jesus was. And especially the voice of God from Mount Sinai. Try to beat that one.

So there's never any cause for boasting in us. I've got a great radio voice.

That's something I inherited from my dad. He sounds as radio as I do because he did radio for over 50 years before he eventually retired from it.

And now it works at a nursing home and loves working for those folks, driving them to and from events, spending time with them on a daily basis.

That's what he does now. He's not in the nursing home. He just works with them there at the nursing home.

But anyway, did over five decades in radio, particularly Christian radio.

And because of that particular work, he's got this fantastic voice. He passed that on to me.

A couple of my brothers have the same voice as well. But I have no cause for boasting in this.

I didn't do anything to get this voice. This is something that God has granted me with. And may

I use this gift for his glory? Not for me. There's no cause for boasting in this from me.

What would be a real shame is if I were to take this voice and use it for myself, to glorify myself instead of glorifying

God. But I know that he has given me this opportunity. The things that I have learned in the years that I spent in radio where I grew up, you know,

I don't have anything to do with my upbringing. That was God that put me in that particular situation. And so I take those things that I have learned, those gifts, and I apply them to this service to the

Lord that I do as a pastor. But I also have this, you know, this extra ministry that I have online of walking you through text and understanding the scriptures that we may know the will of God according to his word and walk in these things.

And this is all to the glory of God. I am not boasting in myself. It is God. I appreciate a good attaboy every once in a while.

I'm sure we all do. But that's not what motivates me. It's not what drives me to receive glory unto myself.

My desire for my church is not that they would congratulate me on a great sermon or Bible lesson every Sunday. My desire for my church is that they would see

God through the teaching of his word so that all the glory is his and there's no boasting in myself.

And if I'm going to boast about anything before the Lord, it is going to be here are here are those that you had entrusted to me that I may teach them your word.

And they have come into glory because of what God has done through the opportunities that he gave to me.

So there's going to be my boasting. It's not going to be in myself. But the cause for boasting is in something else outside of myself.

Verse 30. I'm still in first Corinthians one, by the way. So then verse 30. It is by his doing that you are in Christ Jesus who became 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. You can't even boast in your own faith. It is not you who did it, but God.

It is by his doing that you are in Christ Jesus. So we remember also Ephesians two, eight and nine, which talks about this.

For by grace, you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing. It is the gift of God, not a result of works, not of your works.

So that no one may boast. And so Paul says here, our boasting is not in ourselves.

It is in the grace of God that he boasts. It is by the grace of God we've conducted ourselves in the world in this way.

And especially toward you, he says to the Corinthians. Verse 13. For we write nothing else to you than what you read and understand.

And I hope you will understand until the end. Just as you also partially did understand us that we are your reason for boasting, as you also are ours in the day of our

Lord Jesus. So I kept reading on there because I went to the end of the sentence. But look again at verse 13.

We write nothing else to you than what you read and understand. In other words,

Paul is not wandering off into the weeds. He's not giving himself over to fanciful thoughts or or his own crazy ideas.

This is what has come to them by the spirit of God. What they read about in these letters.

And if you'll recall, as we did in our introduction to 2nd Corinthians last week, there are four letters here.

And this is the fourth one, not the second. We call it 2nd Corinthians because it comes next in canon.

But 1st Corinthians was really letter B and 2nd Corinthians is letter D. That's how

I heard one pastor do it one time. So you don't get confused by the numbers you're calling the letter before 1st

Corinthians. You know, you're calling that 1st Corinthians. Well, then that gets that gets confusing. So we have letters

A, B, C and D. We have letter A, which is gone. You know, we don't have any record of that particular letter.

That's talked about in 1st Corinthians 5, 9, where Paul says, I said to you in my previous letter,

OK, so we know there was a letter that preceded 1st Corinthians. We're calling that letter A. And then 1st

Corinthians is letter B. And then there's a severe letter that Paul talks about in this letter.

We're calling that letter C. And then 2nd Corinthians, which we're reading here is letter

D. We're going to we're going to read about that severe letter, I think, next week. I don't think we get to that this week as we're going to remain here in chapter one.

So I'm finishing up chapter one. So once again, we write nothing else to you than what you read and understand.

Now, remember that what we read there in verse 12 looked a lot like some of the things that Paul said to the

Corinthians in 1st Corinthians one. What he says here in verse 13 looks a lot like some of the things that Paul said to the

Corinthians in 1st Corinthians two. So it's almost like we're getting some summaries of that previous letter in canon.

1st Corinthians one in verse 12, 1st Corinthians two in verse 13.

We write nothing else to you than what you read and understand. And I hope you will understand. Paul talked about understanding in 1st

Corinthians chapter two. And that understanding comes not from ourselves, but from God.

So, again, boasting is not in ourselves. It's it's in the Lord. Paul says our boasting is in the Lord in verse 12.

And then in verse 13, this understanding we have that is also from God. Just as it is written, 1st

Corinthians two, nine, things which eye has not seen and ear has not heard and which have not entered the heart of man, all that God has prepared for those who love him to us,

God revealed them through the spirit for the spirit searches all things, even the depths of God.

This is 1st Corinthians two, 11. Now, for who among men knows the depths of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him, even so the depths of God, no one knows except the spirit of God.

Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the spirit who is from God so that we may know the depths graciously given to us by God.

These things that we're reading about in the Bible. These are the depths of God. That have been freely given to us by God, graciously given to us by God.

There, there, Paul mentions it's by God's grace again, second or sorry, 1st Corinthians two 12. Now I'm getting confused by 1st and 2nd

Corinthians, but once again, 1st Corinthians two 12 by the spirit who is from God, we may know the depths graciously given to us by God of which depths we also speak, not in words taught by human wisdom, but in those taught by the spirit, combining spiritual depths with spiritual words.

And then here's a verse I quote often 1st Corinthians two 14, but a natural man does not accept the depths of the spirit of God for they are foolishness to him.

And he cannot understand them because they are, they are spiritually examined.

But he who is spiritual examines all things. Yet he himself is examined by no one for who has known the mind of the

Lord that he will direct him. But we have the mind of Christ. Now, when it says there in 1st

Corinthians two 14, a natural man does not accept the depths of the spirit of God for their foolishness to him.

And he cannot understand them because they are spiritually examined. But he who is spiritual examines all things.

This does not mean that God speaks to us through, you know, esoteric voices or something that we hear that is outside of scripture.

Like something comes to my mind and, oh, it must be God because I asked God to speak to me in this way.

So therefore I have this thought that must be God that's speaking to me. That's not what Paul is saying there. Paul is saying that when the word of God has been given to you through the apostles who write to you through the prophets that we have in the

Old Testament scriptures, when God has spoken through his word, you understand it because you have the spirit of God to understand it.

Those who don't understand it are naturally minded and they don't get it. This verse has nothing to do with hearing voices in your head and believing that that comes from the

Lord. And you're able to discern that because you have the Holy Spirit of God. That's not what that's saying at all. It's saying you can understand the written word, this word of God that has been given to you because of the

Holy Spirit that is within you. And once again, our boasting is not in ourselves. Our boasting is in the

Lord. We get to know deep spiritual things by the grace of God, not because of our works, but because of his grace.

And Paul says, coming back to 2 Corinthians 1, 13 again, for we write nothing else to you than what you read and understand.

Remember back in 1 Corinthians that Paul also said to them to not go beyond what is written.

Remember that? So this is the same thing Paul is saying here. They're not even going beyond what

God has given to them to write to the Corinthians. What they are writing is from the

Lord. We write nothing else to you than what you read and understand. We're giving to you the mind and the wisdom of God in these letters that have been written.

Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ, speaks what Christ has given to him. And he says,

I hope you will understand until the end. Peter said, 2

Peter 1, 13. Well, let me go back one. Let me go back to verse 12.

I will always be ready to remind you of these things, even though you already know them and have been strengthened in the truth which is present with you.

I consider it right as long as I am in this earthly dwelling to stir you up by way of reminder, knowing that the laying aside of my earthly dwelling is imminent.

In other words, Peter saying, I'm eventually going to die here as also our Lord Jesus Christ is indicated to me.

That was at the end of the Gospel of John. And I will also be diligent that at any time after my departure, you will be able to call these things to mind.

So Peter is saying, I'm going to write these things to you again, that you may know them and you may understand them. You may call them to your mind, that you may grow in the grace of God.

Continuing on 2 Peter 1, 16. For we did not make known to you the power and coming of our

Lord Jesus Christ, following cleverly devised myths, but being eyewitnesses of his majesty.

For when he received honor and glory from God the Father, such an utterance as this was made to him by the majestic glory, this is my beloved son in whom

I am well pleased. And we ourselves heard this utterance made from heaven when we were with him on the holy mountain.

And we have as more sure the prophetic word to which you do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts.

Know this first of all, that no prophecy of scripture comes by one's own interpretation. For no prophecy was ever made by the will of man, but men being moved by the

Holy Spirit spoke from God. And even right here, as the apostle Paul is writing to the

Corinthians, he is moved by the Holy Spirit to speak from God. And again, consider 2

Peter 1, 19, where Peter said, pay attention to these words as to a lamp shining in a dark place until the day dawns and the morning star arises in your hearts.

In other words, follow these words until the day of Christ. Continue in this.

You didn't just hear it once you meditate on them over and over again, and you grow in your faith and your nearness to God.

And so likewise, Paul also says in 2 Corinthians 1, 13, I hope you will understand until the end.

Verse 14, just as you also partially did understand us that we are your reason for boasting as you also are ours in the day of our

Lord Jesus. So on that day, when we stand before Christ, the Corinthians would be able to say, Paul is our reason for boasting.

He sent the gospel to us. And then Paul says that the Corinthians are his reason for boasting.

He's able to say before the Lord, these are the ones who believe because of the word that you gave to me.

And so once again, our boasting is not in ourselves. It is in God who raises the dead.

That was previously in verse nine, Paul saying, indeed, we had the sentence of death within ourselves so that we would not have confidence in ourselves, but in God who raises the dead.

So over and over again, we come back to this message of humility and this boasting and relying in the

Lord, not in ourselves, but in God who has saved us and called us to this calling.

And he will keep us to the very end so that all the glory is Christ's and not ours.

Continue in faithful service to your Lord Jesus Christ and give all the glory to him in all you say and do.

Heavenly father, we thank you for this goodness, this righteousness that you have granted to us by grace.

We are saved through faith. We have come to a knowledge and an understanding of your word. What we need to do to be in obedience to God, to do what you desire.

We know this from your word and we've been given this understanding by your grace. So may we continue in it, continue to understand it, that we may grow in holiness and in closeness to you, our heavenly father.

It is in Jesus name that we pray. Amen. Thank you for listening to When We Understand the

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