WWUTT 1438 Boast in the Lord (1 Corinthians 1:31)

1 Corinthians 1 31 says, Let him who boasts, boast in the

Lord. We don't take any credit for our salvation. We take credit for nothing that we do. The praise belongs to God alone, when we understand the text.

This is When We Understand The Text, a daily study in the Word of Christ, for the sake of the faith of God's elect and their knowledge of the truth, which accords with godliness.

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Here once again is Pastor Gabe. Thank you, Becky. We come back to our study in 1 Corinthians 1, seeking to finish up the chapter today.

I'm going to begin by reading in verse 26 to verse 31 in the Legacy Standard Bible.

The Apostle Paul wrote to the church in Corinth. For consider your calling, brothers, 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 abolish the things that are, so that no flesh may boast before God.

But by His doing 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. It's not uncommon for me to receive criticism.

Many of you probably know that. You've heard me read some of the letters. Or if you've observed reactions that have come my way online, you've seen some of the criticism that I receive.

So anyway, it's not uncommon for me to receive criticism on a fairly regular, if not daily basis.

Now, I don't pay attention to it every day. I never get anything done. But nevertheless, the comments are there.

And of those comments that I read, the more common criticisms are that I'm full of myself, that I'm self -righteous, that I'm all about boasting in myself.

And whenever I get comments like that, I'm confident enough in the things that I preach to know that if a person is saying that, they're not really listening to what

I'm saying. Because it's not about me. I deserve nothing. I know the sinful wretch that I am.

And what I deserve from God is judgment. But I have received mercy from God.

His grace poured out upon me that I may believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. And it's by faith in Jesus, what

He's done on the cross, His resurrection from the grave, the mercy of God poured out through Christ that I have been saved, that I have salvation, that I even have a knowledge of God according to His word that I can share this with you.

But that is not virtuous in our secular Western culture today, to have confidence in that kind of message.

What they want you to have confidence in is your doubt. They want you to be confident that you don't know.

That's the only confidence this world wants to hear from you. So if you speak confidently about anything other than the fact that you just don't know, who can know anyway?

Who has the correct answer? That's the way the world wants you to sound in the message that you share.

But when you speak with confidence, when you say the truth, when you're unwavering or unmoving from that position, the world takes it very offensively.

And they perceive this, they receive this as being arrogant or cocky or full of yourself.

And so they will say that you are self -righteous, that it's all about you. It has to be your way and no one else's.

Well, it's not my way. All I'm telling you is what the Bible says. It's God's way according to his word.

There was a meme that I did not long ago with, I don't know if you've seen these memes, but you've got the lady who's pointing and shouting and then there's the cat behind the table who's just soundly giving some kind of response that makes her so upset, right?

So I took that image and I made this meme of the woman shouting at the cat, you're judging me!

And the cat's responding, I read you a Bible verse. Just what the

Bible says. All a person has to do is share the Bible and preach that confidently and a worldly fleshly people will be offended by that.

But when we preach this message, it must be in love. It is a desire to point people to Christ for it is only by faith in Christ that a person is saved.

It's how you came to salvation. Believing in the gospel, it's how anybody comes to salvation.

And as we talked about on Monday and Tuesday, even this faith that we have in Jesus is the gracious work of God.

The Holy Spirit transformed your heart to believe the message that you heard and you were convicted of heart over your sin and you turned from your rebellion and you put your faith and your trust in Jesus.

God deserves all the glory for this. It is to the praise of His glorious grace.

Consider these words from Ephesians chapter 1 beginning in verse 3. Blessed be the

God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him in love.

And this goes back to what we were reading yesterday, 1 Corinthians 1 .30. By His doing, you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God and righteousness and sanctification and redemption.

God foreordained that you would not only believe in Jesus, but you would also be sanctified in Him, that you would be transformed to be like His Son.

He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world that we would not only believe in Him but we would be holy and blameless before Him in love.

Verse 5 now of Ephesians 1. By predestining us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace which

He graciously bestowed on us in the Beloved.

It is all to the praise of His great name. Yes, we receive many good things in Christ.

Oh, how great the love is that God has for us, that we should be called the children of God, and so we are.

That's in 1 John chapter 3. We have received so many good treasures from God through the grace and love that He bestows on us through His Son.

And yet He does this. The love that He has for us is to the praise of His name. Not that we would boast in ourselves, but we boast in God.

We boast in Him alone. Coming again to 1 Corinthians 1 .31. So that just as it is written, let him who boasts let him boast in the

Lord. Consider these words from Psalm 23. You know this psalm, right? Psalm 23.

I wrote about this in my book Forty of the Most Popular Bible Verses and What They Really Mean, which

I'm rewriting. It's like the six -year anniversary because that came out in 2015. So I'm rewriting that and republishing it on the website.

I'm pulling it off of Amazon and it'll be through a different self -publisher. I'll let you know when it's done.

But anyway, I write on Psalm 23 because there's so many verses from that particular psalm.

People love and take out of context. So we look at this psalm in context. Psalm 23 beginning in verse 1, we read this.

Yahweh is my shepherd. I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures.

He leads me beside quiet waters. He restores my soul.

Now that's through the first two and a half verses there. And so far we're reading a psalm that it just sounds like God is all for me, right?

He wants to give me that which gives me peace, which lays me down, which gives me paradise.

Oh, how God is so for me. But then look at the reason or his motivation for showing us such kindness is in verse 3.

He guides me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake.

All of the goodness that God shows to us is to the praise of his name.

It's said to us in 1 John that he is forgiven you your sins for his name's sake that he would receive the praise and the honor and the glory.

Now the skeptic will look at this and they will say, well, how full of himself is God? You know, we go right back to the criticism of you're just full of yourself.

How full of himself is God to demand that we praise him? Doesn't love mean self sacrifice?

Well, yeah, the father gave his son who died on the cross for our sins. There will never be a greater sacrifice in the history of the world than what

Jesus did for us by laying down his own life on the cross as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.

That is the greatest sacrifice there will ever be. Yet the skeptic, the one who doubts

God, the one who rebels, will say of him that he's conceded to demand of us that we praise him.

But I, and I've had these conversations with people like this before, my response in this situation is, well, who do you think should get the praise?

Somebody is going to get credit for this. If God doesn't get credit, if he, if he alone is not worthy of our praise, then who is?

Who would you rather be praised? Of course, the answer to that is themselves. They want themselves to be praised.

Do you think that God should give you the glory? Is that what you think should happen? Is that the loving thing for him to do?

That he would elevate you above himself? Oh, yeah, that's exactly what you want, right?

You want to be above God. But as soon as God does everything for your sake and not his own, then he's no longer

God. He's elevated you above the place of God, which, again, in our sinful, rebellious selves, that's exactly what we want.

But then he ceases to be God. He's made you God and he is not. God is not to the praise of your glorious grace.

He is not to the praise of you. He is to the praise of his great name.

All of this has to come back to one place. I mean, there's seven billion people on the planet.

More people than that when you're talking about the history of the world. Exactly which person is

God going to elevate above himself? He's not going to elevate every single person above himself. So it's all got to come back to one place.

And it is God alone who is worthy of our praise. He is the creator of the entire universe. He alone is holy.

In fact, as the scriptures describe him, he is holy, holy, holy.

He is holy, holier, holiest. There is no one greater than God. He is perfect.

He is perfect in his judgments. He is perfect in his ways. He is perfect in his very character.

Everything about God is deserving of our praise. He alone is worthy of our worship that we give all of ourselves to God.

I mean, seriously, it is not asking anything outlandish of you to say to you that you owe everything of yourself to your creator, to the one who made you.

This should be a no -duh kind of a comment that you should give everything of yourself to your

God, to the one who made you. But the fact that we think that that's absurd, and we try to keep a little bit to ourselves, everything about that is rebellion.

That we think that we should, if God was really a loving God, then we should have enough liberty to go out and do whatever it is that we want, apart from whatever he desires of us.

Doesn't matter what my creator wants for me, I should be allowed to go do whatever I want to do for myself.

That's exactly why our behavior, our sinful nature is rebellious, because we want to go our way.

And the scripture says that in Isaiah 53, all we like sheep have gone astray.

We have turned every one of us to his own way. But God in his mercy has laid upon Christ the iniquity of us all.

What we deserve for rebelling against our holy, holy, holy creator is judgment.

We deserve judgment. We deserve to be destroyed. But he shows us mercy and kindness through his son.

And by faith in Jesus, by worshiping Christ, we have received this wonderful, gracious gift of God that cleanses us from all unrighteousness, and seats us in the heavenly places with him.

I mean, he has given us far, far more than we deserve, or we in our own imaginations could ever even ask or imagine.

Like, you want to rebel against God and go your own way, but your way would still never be anywhere near what

God promises us in Christ. No matter what pleasures you think that you could indulge in, in yourself, in the here and now, if you were given permissive license to go do whatever it is that you want without repercussion, no matter what you chose, it would still not be as good, not anywhere near as good as what we have promised in Christ Jesus for those who love him and are called according to his purpose.

God works all things together for good, for those who love God. It is by our faith in Jesus Christ that we understand what that good is.

As it says in Romans 8 28, that's the verse I just quoted to you, in verse 29, it says that we are being shaped in the image of his son.

So that is the good. Being conformed to the image of Christ is the good that God has for us, for those who love him.

And then, ultimately, we are fellow heirs of the kingdom of God. I read to you yesterday from Titus 3, verse 7, that we're fellow heirs with him.

We receive all the stuff the king gets. Everything the father has given to the son, the son gives to us.

And we are given a place to sit with him on his eternal throne. Don't believe me? Go read Revelation 2 and 3.

God means for us to be able to participate with him in the praise of his great name for all eternity.

This is what God was doing before the creation of the world. He was glorifying in himself.

That's in Jesus' high priestly prayer in John chapter 17. Now, we who are in Christ get the wonderful privilege of glorifying

God forever in that blessed union when we join him in glory after this life is gone and we go to be with him in heaven.

We will be with God forever in glory, glorifying his great name as he has glorified himself for all eternity.

And that is the greatest thing that we could ever ask or imagine. And all of this, once again, to the praise of his great name, so that just as it is written, 1

Corinthians 1 .31, let him who boasts, boast in the Lord.

Now, this is a quote. This is a quote that we're being given here, and it's from Jeremiah chapter 9.

Now, I have to pull this one up from my ESV because I don't have the book of Jeremiah in the

LSB. But here we go. Jeremiah chapter 9, this is where God is going to judge

Judah because of their rebellion against God going their own way, worshiping false gods.

And the numerous calls to repentance that they were given through a prophet of God, they ignored.

And so now the judgment of God is coming upon his people. And it is said in Jeremiah 9 .22,

thus declares the Lord, the dead bodies of men shall fall like dung upon the open field, like sheaves after the reaper, and none shall gather them.

And Jeremiah weeps because he knows of the judgment that is about to befall his fellow countrymen.

And he goes on in verse 23 to say, thus says the Lord, let not the wise man boast in his wisdom.

Let not the mighty man boast in his might. Let not the rich man boast in his riches.

That all sounds familiar, right? Sounds a lot like what we've been studying this week in 1

Corinthians 1. And then Jeremiah goes on to say, but let him who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows me.

Again, speaking the word of God, thus says the Lord, let him who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the

Lord. I am Yahweh, as it will come out translated in the Legacy Standard Bible.

I am Yahweh who practices steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth.

For in these things I delight, declares Yahweh.

Behold, the days are coming, declares Yahweh, when I will punish all those who are circumcised merely in the flesh,

Egypt, Judah, Edom, the sons of Ammon, Moab, and all who dwell in the desert, who cut the corners of their hair.

For all these nations are uncircumcised, and all the house of Israel are uncircumcised in heart.

That brings to the conclusion, Jeremiah 9, we are called as followers of Jesus Christ to be circumcised of heart, not of the flesh, but of the heart.

The Apostle Paul says in Philippians 3, 2, Beware of the dogs, beware of the evil workers, beware of the mutilation.

For we are the circumcision, who worship in the Spirit of God, and boast in Christ Jesus, and put no confidence in the flesh.

It is by the Spirit of our God that we have been circumcised of heart, meaning that we've been cut off from the world, and we've been united in our hearts to Jesus Christ.

This is what it means to be circumcised of heart. Not united with the world, but united with God through Christ.

And let him who boasts, boast in this, back again to Jeremiah 9, 24, that he understands and knows

God. That I am Yahweh, who practices steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth.

For in these things I delight, declares Yahweh. Let him who boasts, boast in the

Lord. This judgment is coming upon all the world. God will judge the world for its sin, its rebellion, its depravity.

God in His righteousness will judge justly. And we are saved from this judgment that is to come only by faith in Christ.

That we may praise His great name. We boast in the Lord alone, not in ourselves.

We boast in ourselves, we're going to be just like the rest of the world, who is going on boasting in themselves, and they are going to fall under judgment.

Do not boast in yourself. It is to the praise of His great name, to the praise of His glorious grace.

So rejoice and serve the Lord with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength.

Psalm 138 -2, I bow down toward Your holy temple to give thanks to Your name, for Your steadfast love and Your faithfulness.

For You have exalted above all things Your name and Your word.

Let us pray. Heavenly Father, we thank You for the kindness, the mercy that You show to us.

That same mercy that You show to us, may we show to one another. There is a world that is perishing, that is coming into judgment.

Give us a heart that desires to see the lost be found, the perishing saved, that they would be transformed from a child of wrath into a child of God.

And we know that this happens by faith in the blessed gospel of Jesus Christ. So give us courage to preach this message boldly, confidently, no matter what the world may say about us, we do not shrink back, for we know it is only by faith in this blessed gospel that a person comes to salvation.

The message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved, it is the power of God.

May we continue to speak it, that those whom You have elected for salvation may hear and believe and so be saved.

And all to the praise of Your great name. It is in Jesus' name that we pray.