The New Testament compares the church to a bride and God to the bridegroom. All through our New Testaments we see a familiar image to help us understand and appreciate the significance of the church. Yet, there are dangers to the church. Real dangers that may cause the bride to run from the bridegroom.
There are three dangers that threaten the building of God’s church. Last week we saw the first danger: defective builders: Church leaders who build with inferior materials on the foundation of the cross. There is only one foundation for the church: the cross of Jesus Christ. Yet, some church leaders build with inferior materials, shortcuts if you will. Yet there are two other dangers to God’s church: deceived believers and destructive ministers (next week). Today I want to identify two ways in which we are commonly deceived: self-sufficiency and insecurity.
“Let no one deceive himself. If anyone among you thinks that he is wise in this age, let him become a fool that he may become wise. 19 For the wisdom of this world is folly with God. For it is written, “He catches the wise in their craftiness,” 20 and again, “The Lord knows the thoughts of the wise, that they are futile.” 21 So let no one boast in men. For all things are yours, 22 whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or the present or the future—all are yours, 23 and you are Christ's, and Christ is God's.” (1 Corinthians 3:18-23)
Today’s Big Idea: Be Careful What You Praise
One of the many things that continually deepens my confidence in the Bible as God’s Word is its ability to lay bare the complex workings of the human mind and heart. The psychological wisdom of the Word of God is inexhaustible. It is always more relevant and up to date than the newest paradigm for interpreting emotional disorders.
1. Become a Fool in Order to Become Wise.
Thinking we already know sets up obstacles to our growth. It’s necessary that you admit how little in order to become wise. This is the second danger the Bible identifies for the church— the deceived believer.
1.1 Don’t Boast in Church Leadership
You remember the main problem in Corinth that Paul was dealing with is boasting in men (1 Corinthians 1:12, 29, 31; 3:4, 21). One of the chief ways the church is in danger is that people continually want to place church leaders forward as noteworthy. In order that these leaders would get the praise of men and that their followers could hop on the bandwagon of some noteworthy teacher to enjoy his praise vicariously. In our day of opinion polls and surveys, the church is affected by the times.
Time magazine ran an article entitled, “Time’s Person of the Year: You,” on December 13, 2006. Instead of choosing economist Ben Bernanke, as they did in 2009, or the American soldier, Time choose YOU. Their choice was the millions of anonymous contributors to websites such as Wikipedia, YouTube, Facebook, etc., was a recognition of user-generated content. Time wasn’t alone in their choice. ABC News listed bloggers as their “People of the Year” award for 2004. And CNN Money choose “You!” as number one in a list of fifty people on their list, WHO MATTERS NOW. YOU were chosen just above the creators of Goggle and the CEO’s of Qualcomm, Apple, and Toyota. CNN Money said YOU were chosen because the consumer was the creator. In their rationale on WHY YOU MATTER, CNN Money said:
“They’ve long said the customer is always right. But they never really meant it. Now they have no choice. You … the collaborative intelligence of tens of millions of people … continually create and filter new forms of content… You do it on it websites like Amazon, Flickr, and YouTube… In every case, you’ve become an integral part of the action…”
Each of these has rightly identified a change within American culture where… Like never before… Demand determines supply. The Bible saw this problem coming. The Bible is deftly afraid that the church will make a signal mistake – where the pulpit follows the empowered person in the pew. Where the demands of the people will determine what the leadership supplies. This is what the Corinthians church is attempting to do – the proverbial tail that wags the dog. Yet, the fear that the person in the pew will run the church is not a mechanism of self-defense. Here the people want to lift the leader to a place where he doesn’t belong. The fear that you might determine the church’s agenda isn’t a disguised attempt to protect the pastor’s job.
Instead, if you run the agenda of the church… The Bible say that you will then you cheat yourself from the full range of resources God has provided. Watch carefully how this is possible: “Let no one deceive himself. If anyone among you thinks that he is wise in this age, let him become a fool that he may become wise” (1 Corinthians 3:18). Paul returns back to his contrast between the foolishness of the outside world and what God considers wisdom from chapter one.
Verse eighteen is full of irony where he retills the ground he covered earlier in the letter. When Paul asks: “If anyone among you thinks that he is wise in this age” in 1 Corinthians 1:18, the answer is of course they do. And that’s the problem, as they think of themselves wise. They think they arrived at knowledge: “If anyone imagines that he knows something, he does not yet know as he ought to know” (1 Corinthians 8:2). They think they are spiritual: “If anyone thinks that he is a prophet, or spiritual, he should acknowledge that the things I am writing to you are a command of the Lord” (1 Corinthians 14:37). This precisely their problem: they think they have arrived. There is an arrogant self-confidence in our day that is misplaced. We breathe in the air of self-congratulation. We love to congratulate others and place a spotlight on the achievements of others. This is problem inside a church. When people congratulate themselves on their spiritual maturity, there are much less likely to hear God’s fresh truth for their lives. There is an avalanche of people who are self-deceived about their status of already mature.
Self-deception is rampant as people think they are fully mature. The Bible warns us that each person must guard against falling victim to self-deception. Fights emerge because of an innate sense of superiority and self-importance. Strife and jealousy emerge rend the unity of the church. This is always what happens when sin enters the picture. When Adam first desired to self-reliant rather than God-dependent he choose to blame his wife Eve for the problems they were in.
1.1.1 Don’t Boast in Church Leaders Because All Things Are Yours
Suppose you are standing in the hall bragging about your Sunday School teacher and putting another teacher down, and I walk up to you and say (trying to paraphrase Paul’s argument here): “Why do you feel the need to talk like that? Don’t you know that everything in this universe is yours? Don’t you know that every teacher in this church belongs to you—and the world and life and death and present and future?”
Fights had emerged in the church at Corinth; the people had formed as “groupies” around certain leaders. Smugness appears as people think that particular churches, certain leaders, and other denominations have nothing to offer them. The man behind the pulpit is nothing and he isn’t impressive. Yet the guy down the street or on TV is seen as someone much like we see an athlete of a movie star. What we fail to see is that when we align ourselves by only one leader, we cheat ourselves. You’ll cut yourself off from the supply of resources God has for you.
Remember… Become a Fool in Order to Become Wise.
Socrates’ maxim was that the recognition of one’s own ignorance was the starting point for the acquisition of wisdom. What is your attitude toward ministry? Do you select favorites that confirm what you believe? Do you refuse to be challenged? Are you refusing to be challenged by the entire arrange of ministers God has assigned to teach you? Don’t cheat yourself out of all the full resources God has provided for you. If you selectively sift the people you list to because you know best, then ministry becomes nothing more than an instrument of self-affirmation. The cross cannot challenge you when you breathe the air of self-congratulation.
Our hubris cuts limits our supply of God’s blessings. God has set leaders in the church to act as managers to meet the needs of the community.
“So let no one boast in men. For all things are yours, 22 whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or the present or the future—all are yours, 23 and you are Christ's, and Christ is God’s” (1 Corinthians 3:21-23).
The problem is that they don’t realize the massive —and I mean massive — security of belonging to Christ. Why stoop to boast in men when all things — absolutely all things — are yours?
“For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:38-39).
All these things are instruments God uses to fulfill His purposes.
1.1.2 Don’t Boast in Men Because of God’s Actions
In verse nineteen, Paul quotes Job 5:13: “He catches the wise in their craftiness.” The word “catches” in verse thirteen is used only one time in the entire New Testament. It literally means, “to out forth one’s hand and capture.” It pictures a hunter stalking prey and capturing it. God catches the crafty with their own craftiness. He uses their cunning to ensnare them. God has a firm grip on slippery operators. To prove the point, Job 5:13 is quoting Eliphaz whose own “wise” counsel to Job is ultimately discredited. This is divine irony! Then Paul quotes Psalm 94:11 “and again, ‘The Lord knows the thoughts of the wise, that they are futile’” (1 Corinthians 3:20).
The best possible schemes fail because they are constructed by humanity’s best possible thinkers. Yet, these thinkers are still human and consequently, fallible.
1.2.3 Don’t Boast in Men because Men are Foolish
“For the wisdom of this world is folly with God” (1 Corinthians 3:19). In 1 Corinthians 1:18-25 the Bible tells us that what God does looks foolish to the world. The wisdom of the world is foolishness in God’s sight. Here the tables are turned. What the clever think and do looks foolish to God. The Cross reverses everything. The cross has “fooled” wisdom. What seems foolish to common sense is God’s wisdom. The Gospel isn’t common sense. Wisdom is folly; folly is wisdom. Weakness is power; leaders are servants.
God’s people are nobodies; God’s people possess everything. God’s people must abandon confidence in the securities of this present age. You must trust God’s folly. The cross and resurrection are evidence that everything has been reversed. The cross makes this visible. Part of what it means to follow Christ is to side with God’s values in this great reversal. The great reversal means quit lining up behind your favorites.
Instead, all godly men who serve Christ’s church are yours: “So let no one boast in men. For all things are yours, 22 whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or the present or the future—all are yours, 23 and you are Christ's, and Christ is God’s” (1 Corinthians 3:21-23).
The church is not the property of the leader. The leader is the property of the church. When you boast in men, you rob God of His rightful glory. God is the solar system of the church and not a man. In the end Jesus Christ will hand over the kingdom to the Father and God the Father will be all in all (15:28). “From him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory for ever and ever” (Romans 11:36).
Human pride is rooted in two kinds of self-deception. One is the deception that I can handle my own problems. And the other is the deception that nobody can handle my problems. Or to put it another way, there are two ways for the pride of man to dishonor Christ. One is to feel no need for Him. And the other is to feel your need is so great He can’t meet it. The one says, “I don’t need a crucified Christ to help me.” The other says, “a crucified Christ can’t help me.” The one looks strong. The other looks weak. Both are demeaning to the grace of God.
This text is designed to help us avoid two dangers. One is the danger of shifting our boast off of God and onto the building. Don’t let the bride run away from Christ by boasting in its leaders. To begin to glory less in Christ and more in architecture. To that danger the text says: boasting in human achievements is a dead end street.
To the Self-Sufficient
If you forget that you exist for Christ, and that your boast should be in him alone… then your new sanctuary will be nothing but a monument to human folly. Do not be deceived. What is exalted among men is an abomination to God.
To the Insecure
The other danger we face is the paralysis of fear. The disabling thought that there is too much against us and we can’t do it. Money is against us. Time is against us. Inflation is against us. Fatigue is against us. Result: the paralysis of hopelessness.
To the Self-Sufficient
To the self-sufficient he says: “Your wisdom is folly. Give it up. Become a fool. Unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of God.”
To the Insecure
And then to the fearful and insecure and threatened he says: “Boasting in men is a cheap substitute for inheriting the universe. Don’t you realize that God has made all things to serve your joy?
• Every teacher exists for your benefit.
• The whole world in all its secular corruption conspires in vain against your soul, for Christ has overcome the world (John 16:33).
• The sting of death is gone; your last enemy unwittingly must serve your entrance into glory.
• Nothing present and nothing future can separate you from the love of God.
• Those whom he justified he will glorify.
• “He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all, will he not with him freely give us all things.”
