1 Corinthians 1:26-31 The Message
26-31 Take a good long look, friends, at who you once 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 shallow pretensions of the “somebodies”? 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.”
The Word of God for the Children of God.
Adeste Fideles! Laeti Triumphantes! Venite Adoremus! Dominum.
Gloria! In Excelsis Deo! Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia, Amen.
Boast in the Richness of Myself or Boast in the Lord?
1 Corinthians 1:30-31 Amplified Bible
30 But it is from Him that you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God [revealing His plan of salvation], and righteousness [making us acceptable to God], and sanctification [making us holy and setting us apart for God], and redemption [providing our ransom from the penalty for sin], 31 so then, as it is written [in Scripture], “He who boasts and glories, let him boast and glory in the Lord.”
What a great way to close to this first chapter.
This opening chapter of 1 Corinthians has just talked about the power of the cross, to save us from our sins by God’s grace and calling us all unto himself.
So when we put all this together, when we try to weave only one tapestry, when we think about salvation through the cross of Christ, by the calling of God and God’s grace, do we have anything to boast about that you have done before God?
Do we believe we have anything to boast about that we have done before God?
The answer is clearly no.
There are two ways to respond wrongly to the good news of the gospel: the self-righteous response that steadfastly refuses to see a need for Christ and the self-deprecating response that stubbornly refuses to see Christ’s ability to forgive.
Both responses issue from the common root of pride.
The self-righteous response says,
“I’m actually a pretty good person. I’m not sure I need forgiveness. Maybe it’s good for some other people, but to be genuinely honest I just don’t need it.”
People who step forward to respond this way perhaps sense slight deficiencies within themselves and innocently try to make up for them with good behavior.
Maybe they will even “move themselves to go to church once or twice more to get some more “frequent attender miles” so they’ll get better seats in heaven.
But still, their place in eternity will be, they will think, reasonably secured by themselves—their “good hearts,” their “good intentions,” their goodness, their efforts to stay on the right side of the moral equation of respecting others.
The pride at the heart of this response is obvious: “it is to come to think, come to believe that we are somehow just too good, righteous to need the gospel.”
Christ’s sacrifice is a nice example of “complete” love to us but unnecessary for us as a way to be saved.
The self-deprecating response says, “I’m such a hopeless homeless mess that I don’t think there’s any hope for me. I am too terrible to deserve forgiveness. It must be great to know you’re forgiven, but to be honest I know I could never have that.”
sign handed to me by a formerly homeless man after he just bought a new house.
People who seem to automatically move, respond this way simply cannot bring themselves to believe, contemplate that Jesus could ever love and forgive them.
The pride in this response is much subtler than in the first, but just as real: we will believe we are too dreadful for the gospel, that our actions have taken us too far away for Jesus to reach us. Christ’s sacrifice is a great gesture but only for those who are better off, more visibly successful than us, but it could never be enough for us.
Whenever someone feels too good or too bad for the gospel (and Christians are not the least bit immune from this temptation), it is their unrestrained pride in themselves to know life in self, that is restraining them from coming to Christ.
Their confidence, their boasting, lies in what they have done, for good or for ill.
What pride misses, is that we can be neither good enough nor ever too far gone.
The self-righteous among us need a subtle nudge into their rib-cages, need to hear that even our best days they are 100% filled with more flaws than we know.
The self-deprecating among us need a subtle nudge in their rib cages to hear that even our absolute worst days are never beyond the reach of God’s grace.
Both responses miss the core gospel truth that Christ’s cross simultaneously knocks down our self-worth and mightily lifts you from your worthlessness.
When we are tempted to boast above and beyond about our “self worth,” then, remember that what we all most need—salvation—comes from Christ alone.
And when we are tempted to despair in worthlessness, remember that what we all most need—salvation—was only ever ours because of Savior Christ alone.
No matter what, Jesus Christ is your only source of complete confidence, your only justification to ever boast—and you can never brag about Him too much!
Will I be Boasting in “my life” or Christ’s Death and Resurrection
Ask yourselves, “Why am I a follower of Jesus, a saint sanctified in Christ Jesus?”
1 Corinthians 1:1-3 Amplified Bible
Appeal to Unity
1 Paul, called as an apostle (special messenger, personally chosen representative) of Jesus Christ by the will of God, and our brother [a]Sosthenes,
2 To the church of God in Corinth, to those sanctified (set apart, made holy) in Christ Jesus, who are selected and called as saints (God’s people), together with all those who in every place call on and honor the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, their Lord and ours:
3 Grace to you and peace [inner calm and spiritual well-being] from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
I will ask; Why have I seen in the cross salvation instead of folly or a stumbling block, while so many other people in the world see folly and stumbling block?
Why have I seen salvation?
Is it because I’m smarter?
Is it because I’m better?
It’s because I’m richer or this or that?
No, that’s the whole point, like leading up to this.
Paul just says over and over again,
“It’s not because we are the least bit wiser than others. It’s not because we are the least bit richer than others. It’s not because we have all these things. God’s actually chosen the low and despised in the world. It’s because we don’t have these things.”
1 Corinthians 1:30–31 Praises God’s Mercy
Apostle Paul goes so far as to say like,
“The only reason you and I who have trusted in Christ Jesus have found salvation in him or sanctified in him are called saints who we know that we’re going to be held to the end guiltless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ, the only reason for all of that is only because, is exactingly, is precisely because of the matchless grace of God.”
It’s the only reason.
It’s exactly because of his mercy so that the only boast we have is him, like none of us stands before God with a boast that says, “Look at what I did,” The boast that says, “Look at what I did.” Look at what I did, know the exact opposite.
The only way we can stand before God is saying, “I’m only here because of what you did, what you have done, what you are doing.”
If we are to use first Corinthians 1, verse 30 language.
“Jesus, You are my only righteousness. You are my only sanctification. You are my only redemption. Jesus, because of your matchless love for me, you are all these things and infinitely more for me so that the only boast I have is in you.”
That’s why Paul says in Galatians 6:14, “We only boast in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ,” like that’s our first and foremost reason to only boast in God.
How do we have life forever with God?
How will be held guiltless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ?
How are we called saints and sanctified in this world?
How do we have righteousness and redemption?
Only by the cross of Jesus, only by the grace of God.
1 Corinthians 1:30–31 Thanks God for His Grace
So we praise you, oh God, for your grace.
We praise you for your mercy and our lives.
God, even right now in this exact and exacting moment in my own life, I’m just indescribably overwhelmed in a fresh way by your matchless grace toward me.
There is no other explanation why I am, one, a follower of Christ; two, a lay pastor in church; three, love writing devotions every day like this, like leading others in prayer and study to “nudge the rib cages” of my neighbors, exactly like there’s no other way all of this is possible except, exactly by God’s grace.
There’s exactly nothing I can think of which I have ever done to merit even one of the very briefest of moments where I am in my life, it’s totally by your mercy.
The same is true, or at least aught to be true, for all of us who are in Christ.
We are only where we are because of your grace O’ God, and your mercy.
We are your children only because of your grace and your mercy. So we praise you, our Father, for your grace, for your mercy, and we pray use our lives to spread it to others. God, we want more and more people to know your grace.
We want to boast more and more of our Savior Jesus to people, to know your mercy through our lives, right where we live and God, far from where we live.
In the name of God, the Father and God the Son and God the Holy Spirit,
Let us Pray,
Heavenly Father, Intercessor Holy Spirit, help me to take my eyes off myself and to set the eyes of my heart firmly on the Lord Jesus Christ. Help me to recognize and reject the foolish philosophies of the ‘wise’, and the vain glories that the world may offer. God forbid that I should glory, except in the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world. In Jesus’ name I pray.
Adeste Fideles! Laeti Triumphantes! Venite Adoremus! Dominum.
Gloria! In Excelsis Deo! Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia, Amen.
Loving God, Living God, Loving Hope, Living Hope, Loving Living Life His Way! "Many things are possible for the person who has hope. Even more is possible for the person who has faith. And still more is possible for the person who knows how to love. But everything is possible for the person who practices all three virtues." - Brother Lawrence (1605-1691), Practicing the Presence of God (1692). 