"18 Let no man deceive himself. If any man among you thinks that he is wise in this age, he must become foolish, so that he may become wise. 19 For the wisdom of this world is foolishness before God. For it is written, “He is the one who catches the wise in their craftiness”; 20 and again, “The Lord knows the reasonings of the wise, that they are useless.” 21 So then let no one boast in men. For all things belong to you, 22 whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or things present or things to come; all things belong to you, 23 and you belong to Christ; and Christ belongs to God."
I Corinthians 3:18-23
Good Morning Beloved,
Welcome to worship today!
We're so glad you're here, thank you for joining us.
Today, in the ongoing of our study of the marvelous epistle on this, the third chapter of I Corinthians,
we come to the end of the chapter, verses 18-23. In this rich text, we've been blessed with for our study of God's Word, we find ourselves in the midst of a section on division in the church at Corinth.
And, I must confess, that I’m grateful I don’t have to preach this with a great division in mind, but as a message of warning and of prevention. It is my prayer, that’ll be a blessing to you to see what God will teach us from this great passage.
Remembering what we’ve already learned within these first three chapters of this letter to the Corinthians, is they were deeply divided, and they were divided over two areas. The root of their division is most easily defined as carnality and worldliness. Meaning, those who were the spiritual generators of the problem. However, the secondary cause of their problem, was that they were, and I believe was certainly one of the most severe, was they were exalting human wisdom; and their exaltation of human leaders. And in so doing, they had created a great division.
First, let's bow our heads in prayer.
Heavenly Father,
Thank You for our time we've been given today to study Your Word, for giving us revelation and insight into the truths You have for us today. May we take to heart, and apply them in our own lives. May the result be manifest and bear fruit, for the benefit of Your church. Lord, we pray that we do not deceive ourselves, so that we may not be swept away in judgement. All for Your glory.
in Jesus’ Name.
Amen.
Today's Message: It's All About You! Who Are You Kidding?
Open your Bibles with me to the book of I Corinthians chapter three. Here we see, the Corinthian church was experiencing great problems. And, they have asked Paul to help. So, in this passage of Paul's letter, he provides the answer to them to a specific problem. Paul tells them the root cause for the trouble they were having. It was pride—pride in who they were and what they knew.
First, I'd like you to remember, that Corinth was a center for intellectual pursuit and culture. And, like some today, they thought pretty highly of themselves. Too highly. They saw themselves as smarter, more educated and more cultured than others. They openly professed to possess a worldly wisdom like no other. They professed to know more than most, therefore, this same attitude had carried over into the church.
They were convinced that they knew more about Scripture and the ways of God than most others. They believed that they were wise enough to judge the value of different church leaders. Full of pride, full of themselves, they believed they had the ability to judge the truth. So, they criticized the ways certain men preached and ministered.
Aren't you relieved, as I am, that this issue doesn’t occur in church today? I'm sure you see why this critical message is so relevant today.
These Corinthians believers, were judging everything about these ministers. They were judging how persuasive they were in the delivery of their sermon, the logic of their arguments, they were even judging the way they spoke. They were judging the abilities and the gifts of the men, and if they agreed that the abilities of the men were what the church needed at a particular time, they were cooperative. However, if they disagreed, they were separating themselves and pulling others into their little parties, or cliques.
They were gathering themselves around Paul, Cephas, and Apollos; and some, with a sense of spiritual air, just proclaimed that they had gathered themselves around Christ. So the apostle Paul’s job is to make them realize that the solution to their division within the church was for them to recognize that they were deceiving themselves. And so, Paul urges them to renounce the self-deception.
In verse 18, which says. "Let no man deceive himself. If any man among you thinks that he is wise in this age, he must become foolish, so that he may become wise."
Here is a little background of Paul’s charges that will help us understand why Paul boldly tells them, "Don’t deceive yourselves." Don't deceive yourselves!
The Corinthians had access to the Scriptures, and they enjoyed the Scriptures and the ways of God.
They enjoyed philosophy and theology and were in a great city where both were freely encouraged and openly discussed.
They had the privilege of being ministered to by some of the most outstanding preachers of that day, however, I believe not only of their day, but in all of history, Paul, Peter, and Apollos.
They had received an unusual outpouring of the gifts of God’s Spirit.
The problem with the Corinthian church, is a problem with many in our culture today, and that was that they wanted worldly recognition. They wanted to be known! They wanted to though of as well-educated, intellectual, gifted, and capable of understanding the world and God. And, as we see, the result was not good. It was not good.
So filled with pride, they had begun to follow their own ideas and rationalizations and were disregarding the will and Word of God. They were exalting their own abilities and wisdom. So, in verses 19 and 20, the apostle Paul gets "in their face" with their problem and tells them that worldly wisdom is nothing in comparison to the wisdom of God.
"For the wisdom of this world is foolishness before God. For it is written, “He is the one who catches the wise in their craftiness”; and again, “The Lord knows the reasonings of the wise, that they are useless."
Men recognize the problems in our world when it comes to evil and suffering caused by natural disasters, disease, hunger, and so on. A few men give their lives to trying to understand and conquer the problems in the world. They try to do this through science, education, technology, and religion. But they fail and always will. No matter how much worldly wisdom is involved in trying to solve the problems, it will always come up short.
The problem is that when a church begins to approach God and the problems of the world through worldly wisdom, the result is a failure. They destroy their witness and make it useless in the Kingdom of God. That is the path that the Corinthian church chose to take and it’s the path that is often chosen by too many churches.
There are 3 reasons why worldly wisdom fails to grasp the truth of the world and of God.
The first is, worldly wisdom is superficial. It only appears to be wise. Man only thinks that he understands God and His ways. Man’s knowledge only scratches the surface when it comes to God. No person can understand the world without understanding God, no matter who he is. Also, no one has ever seen God. No person has ever left this physical world and penetrated the spiritual world and seen God and returned to the physical world. That’s because this world is imperfect and the imperfect cannot penetrate the perfect world. One reason is that if imperfect man penetrated the perfect spiritual world, it would no longer be perfect. And one more thing, and we have already studied this in our study so far, the only way God can ever be known is for God to reveal Himself. (1 Corinthians 2:6-13) The only way the truth of a perfect world can be known is for God to reveal it.
That’s the point of Scripture. Any wisdom that seeks to know God apart from His revelation is superficial.
Secondly, worldly wisdom is not true wisdom. Paul says that a person must become what the world calls “a fool” if he wishes to know God and the real truth of God’s world. Everything about God as we know it is foolishness to the world.
And lastly, worldly wisdom is foolishness to God. It’s foolishness because there is only one way that a sinful and imperfect creature could ever be acceptable to God: the perfect God would have to love the sinful creature so much that He would just accept him.
That’s the reason that all approaches to God other than through His Son Jesus Christ are foolishness to Him.
Here is verses 21-23, Paul calls them to renounce boasting in men. "So then let no one boast in men. For all things belong to you, whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or things present or things to come; all things belong to you, and you belong to Christ; and Christ belongs to God."
Paul is saying that to boast in men means to trust men. Let's be honest, can we trust all men? Boasting in men means to look upon men as to have the answer, the source of life and blessing. Some men can be trusted, however, we know that even still, they are not the answer, nor the source of life and true blessing. Men are not be glorified. Men are not to be glorified. A believer is to only boast in God. Only God is to be exalted, praised and worshiped. Only God.
Before we close, allow me to try and explain verses 21-23 to you. First, all things belong to the believer. Preachers, no matter who they are, or in some cases, think that they are, belong to the believers. Despite what many may believe, all preachers exist to serve, minister and meet the needs of God’s people. That is why we exist.
If a church or a believer takes advantage of only a few preachers or of only one or two types of preachers, the church and the believers are limiting their chances to be enriched, and of being blessed. They are limiting, and potentially stagnating, their growth.
The world, the physical universe, belongs to believers. God is going to remake the universe, the heavens and the earth, and Scripture teaches that believers are going to inherit it all.
Life belongs to the believer. This means real life, abundant life. A life with purpose, meaning, and significance, a life that triumphs and gains the victory over the trials and suffering of this life.
Death belongs to the believer. However, death has no hold over the believer because death has been conquered by our Lord, Jesus Christ. Christ conquered death!
Present and future things belong to the believer. The believer is the heir of the world, the heir of God Himself. Believers belong to Christ, and Christ belongs to God. Believers possess all things only because of Christ and what He has done for them. Believers owe their lives to Christ, not to any man.
"Christ is God’s." I want to make it clear, this does not mean that Christ is not divine, that He is less than God. Christ is divine. Christ is the Son of God! It refers to His function and ministry as Savior. As the Savior of the world, Christ served God and He obedient to God. Christ is God’s in the sense that He obeyed God as our Savior. They both love us with a supreme, perfect , agape love that is unimaginable to the human mind, a love that is unsurpassed.
So because of all this, Paul says, "No more boasting about men." The strife and division in the church could be solved if they would take their focus off of themselves and mere man, and place all their focus on the One who is deserving, Almighty God.
Beloved, the same is true for all Christs' churches today.
We are to focus on God, through Jesus Christ, our Savior! Not men, not men.
The world around us he world expects from us as a church, and from you as a Christian, a believer is Christ, to live up to our words. To be who we say that we are.
It is no secret, that many today who claim Christianity demonstrate no discernible difference in their lives than those who are not Christian.
So as we close this critical message, I encourage you to ask yourselves this question;
Who am I?
Am I a Christian who is really trying to live for Jesus Christ?
Do my actions truly match my words?
Or am I a person who goes to church, claiming to be a Christian, claiming the name of Christ, continuing to be the same person that I have always been, before I received salvation through Christ?
If you are a true Christian, a true believer, then you are God’s temple! You are God's temple.
You are the dwelling place of the Almighty, and the Holy Spirit dwells within you.
And, if not, then maybe you are a deceiver.
Are you a believer or a deceiver?
Only you and God know the truth!
And now may the Lord bless you and keep you;
the Lord make His face shine upon you,
And be gracious to you;
The Lord lift up His countenance upon you,
And give you peace.
Now and forever, in Jesus' name
Amen
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