Boasting in the Lord

Exeter Temple Message notes:  26^th July 2015

Bible Reading:            1 Corinthians 1:18-31

Our expectation is probably that God does not like boasting and therefore it should be got rid of.  However in the Bible if it is God or the commendable qualities of others we are boasting of it is seen as a good thing.

The Hebrew word mahalal which is sometimes translated "boast." in the Bible can also be translated as "to praise, " and is closely connected with the word rejoice. Boasting is really a bit of rejoicing for something.

"My soul will boast in the LORD; let the afflicted hear and rejoice. Glorify the LORD with me; let us exalt his name together" Psalm 34:2-3

We have a God-given desire to praise, to exalt and to rejoice. The problem comes when we seek to make ourselves the object of people’s praise and adulation, either through parading our own accomplishments before them or perhaps being a little more subtle about it.

It is very clear that God really does not like to see pride in us. In fact Proverbs 6:6-19 lists the 7 things that God hates and right there among them is pride. And it is pride that is at the heart of our boasting about ourselves.

1 Corinthians 1:31 calls for us to boast in the Lord. 

1. Realistic Assessment

1 Corinthians 1:26-29 “Take a good look, friends, at who you were when you got called into this life. I don’t see many of “the brightest and the best” among you, not many influential, not many from high-society families. Isn’t it obvious that God deliberately chose men and women that the culture overlooks and exploits and abuses, chose these “nobodies” to expose the hollow pretensions of the “somebodies”?

Why would a pastor speak this way to his congregation? 

That doesn’t seem the right thing to say to a congregation of Christians. Although Paul’s words could be misunderstood he wrote them for a reason.  The Corinthian’s seem to have been boasting about how smart they were to be followers of Jesus. Sinful pride had descended upon them like a fog over their church.

The reason God is against pride in ourselves is not that he is jealous of us. He is not trying to put anyone down. The answer is that our human boasting is always based on an illusion of self–sufficiency. And God is a realist.

Paul also urges the Corinthians to get real. The Message version of what he has to say on the matter reads like this: “That makes it quite clear that none of you can get by with blowing your own horn before God. Everything that we have—right thinking and right living, a clean slate and a fresh start—comes from God by way of Jesus Christ. That’s why we have the saying, “If you’re going to blow a horn, blow a trumpet for God.”

A businessman wrote, “It’s appealing to me to feel I am the master of my fate; I call my own shots; I go it alone. But that feeling is my basic dishonesty.  I have to get help from other people and I can't ultimately rely on myself. I am dependent on God for my very next breath. It is dishonest of me to pretend that I am anything but a man, small, weak and limited. So, living independent of God is self-delusion. It's not just a matter of pride being an unfortunate little trait and humility being an attractive little virtue.  When I am conceited, I am lying to myself about what I am. I am pretending to be God, and not man. My pride is the idolatrous worship of myself, and that is the national religion of hell”.

Pride essentially is an attitude of independence from God. It makes us feel ungrateful to God for what we have and makes us feel better than other people.

2. Honest Testimony

Understanding how to be humble and boast in the Lord is tricky.  And one of the ways we get it wrong sometimes is that we thing that somehow in order to make God look better we have to make ourselves look worse. 

Christians can say some very negative things about themselves.  Whilst recognising our sinful state, thinking about ourselves as worthless rubbish is as equally unrealistic as thinking that we are independently running the universe.

The truth of the gospel is that whatever we have become and whatever we have done God still regards us as being worth sending his son into the world to save us.

 “God demonstrates his own love for us in this: “While we were still sinners Christ died for us. Romans 5:8

If boasting in the Lord is about giving him honour, we have to ask ourselves how honouring it is to God when we disagree with him about his opinion of us.  People in the Bible did this all the time.  God calls them into his service and their reaction is to respond with, “I can’t.”  I’m not good enough. .

For example Moses argues that he is not the best choice to lead God’s people out of Egypt. He doesn’t have the gift of clear speech, he doesn’t have the qualities of a leader that inspire others to follow. How does he dare argue with God, except that he thinks that he knows better than God? That’s pride; that is to boast that he has a better plan for his life than God does.

In the name of humility we testify more about our struggles in our faith than we do about our victories.  We may not want to hear super-hero testimonies from people who never have any doubts, struggles or melt downs. It is too easy to assume that we are the only ones who fail and that everyone else is doing better than us. It is such a relief sometimes when Christians we admire shares their doubts, mistakes and disappointments.  

However we need to avoid a tendency to feel embarrassed when things are going well in our spiritual life because we do not want to appear too pious.   Yet if the Holy Spirit has given us the courage to face a fear or looking back we can see that we have overcome a temptation through applying the word of God, shouldn’t we be prepared to testify about that so that people can know that this faith thing actually works.

We do God dishonour if we don’t acknowledge the work he is doing in our lives

Another meaning of the word boast is to "speak often of" God wants us to make our boast in Him always! That’s why the Psalmist declared, “In God we boast all the day long…” (Psalm 44:8). To make your boast in the Lord is to vocalize your faith in His ability and how that ability is functioning in you.

3. Courageous witnessing

When we think about people who brag or people who boast, we think of people who like to draw attention to themselves.  We think of them like peacocks, inviting everyone looks at them with admiration.

We tend to think of humble people as being those who stand back and work quietly in the background.

But there are times when our pride means that the last thing we want to do is be noticed or looked at.  Rather we would like the ground to open up and swallow us or we could become invisible because of fear.

Humility is not the same thing as blending into the background. We are not called to draw attention to ourselves but we are called to draw attention to Christ.

God does not call us to be centre pieces but he does call us to be signposts pointing to Christ.  We are to boast in the Lord and for many in our day that means suffering as a result.

In Acts Paul gives his testimony to his Christians friends in Ephesus. “And now compelled by the Spirit I am going to Jerusalem, not knowing what will happen to me there. I only know that in every city the Holy Spirit warns me that prison and hardships are facing me. However I consider my life worth nothing to me, if only I may finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me, the task of testifying (boasting?) to the gospel of God’s grace.”

Is the challenge for us, not to shut up but to speak up, not to back off but step up? 

Every part of our life, everything we do, everything, we think, and everything we say is to bring honour and glory to God. 

God bless
Carol