Worldly Pride vs. Loving Gratitude
Notes
Transcript
This morning, I have chosen to read from two Scripture lessons, the first will be from 1 Corinthians 4 (our main text) and the second from Mark 8. In each of these passages I am going to read from the New Living Translation, so you need to follow along on the screen. The NLT is an actual translation, unlike the original Living Bible, which was a paraphrase. When someone asks me for a recommendation for an easy to read bible, this is the bible I recommend. I am reading from the NLT because it clarifies a couple of phrases better than the ESV.
So look at Apollos and me as mere servants of Christ who have been put in charge of explaining God’s mysteries. Now, a person who is put in charge as a manager must be faithful. As for me, it matters very little how I might be evaluated by you or by any human authority. I don’t even trust my own judgment on this point. My conscience is clear, but that doesn’t prove I’m right. It is the Lord himself who will examine me and decide.
So don’t make judgments about anyone ahead of time—before the Lord returns. For he will bring our darkest secrets to light and will reveal our private motives. Then God will give to each one whatever praise is due.
Dear brothers and sisters, I have used Apollos and myself to illustrate what I’ve been saying. If you pay attention to what I have quoted from the Scriptures, you won’t be proud of one of your leaders at the expense of another. For what gives you the right to make such a judgment? What do you have that God hasn’t given you? And if everything you have is from God, why boast as though it were not a gift?
You think you already have everything you need. You think you are already rich. You have begun to reign in God’s kingdom without us! I wish you really were reigning already, for then we would be reigning with you. Instead, I sometimes think God has put us apostles on display, like prisoners of war at the end of a victor’s parade, condemned to die. We have become a spectacle to the entire world—to people and angels alike.
Our dedication to Christ makes us look like fools, but you claim to be so wise in Christ! We are weak, but you are so powerful! You are honored, but we are ridiculed. Even now we go hungry and thirsty, and we don’t have enough clothes to keep warm. We are often beaten and have no home. We work wearily with our own hands to earn our living. We bless those who curse us. We are patient with those who abuse us. We appeal gently when evil things are said about us. Yet we are treated like the world’s garbage, like everybody’s trash—right up to the present moment.
Paul’s reference to being “sentenced to death” and being made a “spectacle” of in verse 9, is a clear reference to Christ’s crucifixion and Christ’s call for us to follow His example as found in Mark 8:
Then, calling the crowd to join his disciples, he said, “If any of you wants to be my follower, you must give up your own way, take up your cross, and follow me. If you try to hang on to your life, you will lose it. But if you give up your life for my sake and for the sake of the Good News, you will save it.
May God bless this, the reading of His holy and infallible Word.
As Paul concludes his teaching on the dangers of worldly wisdom, he sets up a comparison between himself and the Corinthians. It is really a comparison between worldly pride and loving gratitude. Throughout the wisdom literature of Scripture, we are taught that there are two paths we can take in life. It is called different things, for example in Psalm 1 it is called the Way of the Wicked vs. the Way of the Righteous. In the book of Proverbs, it is the Way of Folly vs. the Way of Wisdom. In Matthew 7, Jesus compares these two ways to two gates:
“Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few.
We need to understand there is no middle ground, it is the wicked, the foolish and those on the broad way think they can serve both God and the world. Consequently, we need to pay very close attention to what Paul is saying in our passage. As Jesus, warns us, it is very easy to take the wrong way. Many are on the path that leads to death and few are on the path that leads to life.
Let us look first at...
The Path of Worldly Pride
The Path of Worldly Pride
Pride is the dominate characteristic of this way. We see this very clearly in our text from two phrases, they are both found in verse six. Let me bring it up so you can see it again:
I have applied all these things to myself and Apollos for your benefit, brothers, that you may learn by us not to go beyond what is written, that none of you may be puffed up in favor of one against another.
We have before us verse six in the ESV. These two phrases are, “beyond what is written” and “puffed up”. Now here is the same verse in the NLT:
Dear brothers and sisters, I have used Apollos and myself to illustrate what I’ve been saying. If you pay attention to what I have quoted from the Scriptures, you won’t be proud of one of your leaders at the expense of another.
Do you see how the NLT, clarifies the ESV? One of the advantages of a more formal translation, such as the ESV, is it tends to be more memorable. The phrases, “going beyond what is written” and “puffed up” really stick in your memory, but the NLT is very helpful to understand the meaning.
So “puffed up” is clearly referring to pride, but so is “going beyond what is written”. If you look at the five OT citations Paul has used up to these point (1 Cor 1:9; 1:31; 2:9; 3:19-20), you will discover that it is sinful pride that motivates people to seek wisdom apart from God. To put it bluntly, in our sinfulness, we think God is a fool! You probably never thought of it like that, but is it not what we are saying when we chose to disobey God’s Word!
You see their pride in their judgement of the relative worth of Paul and Apollos (1 Cor 4:6) and their thinking that they had already arrived (1 Cor 4:8). The reality is that only God has the ability to judge, because only God knows the “darkest secrets” and “our private motives” (1 Cor 4:5). Moreover, in their pride they thought they had attained to a lofty status, when in fact, everything had been given to them by God (1 Cor 4:7)! The only thing you and I can present to God is our own sin; we have accomplished no good apart from Christ. The realization that all we can bring to God is our own sin and that salvation is a gift from God is what leads up upon the right path:
The Path of Loving Gratitude
The Path of Loving Gratitude
Verse 9 is the key to understanding this better way. Let us look at this verse again in both the ESV and the NLT, so that we will not miss what Paul is trying to teach us. First the ESV:
For I think that God has exhibited us apostles as last of all, like men sentenced to death, because we have become a spectacle to the world, to angels, and to men.
Now, the NLT:
Instead, I sometimes think God has put us apostles on display, like prisoners of war at the end of a victor’s parade, condemned to die. We have become a spectacle to the entire world—to people and angels alike.
What is being described here is the Roman practice of parading prisoners of war or enemies of the state through the streets in order to humiliate them and then taking them outside of the city to be crucified. In just two weeks, we will be celebrating Holy Week. On Good Friday, this is exactly what the Romans did to Jesus! Paul is saying that he and the other apostles have “taken up their crosses and followed Jesus”!
Why did the apostles chose to take such a radical, self-sacrificing path? The answer is found in Paul second letter to the Corinthians:
For the love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this: that one has died for all, therefore all have died; and he died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised.
When Paul is saying that the love of Christ “controls” the apostles, he is saying that the beauty of the love of Christ has literally seized their hearts so that Christ’s love controls their every thought and action. What was it about Christ’s love that so captivated the apostles’ hearts? Our text tells us, Jesus “has died for all”! It is the love of Christ as demonstrated on the cross that seized control of the apostles’ lives.
John, another one of the apostles, puts it this way:
In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.
Then he adds:
We love because he first loved us.
Do you now see what Paul is trying to say? The cross has the power not only to atone for our sins, but to give us victory over sin! We are created to be like God and in 1 John 4:8 we are told, “God is love”. You and I were created to love as God loves, but the only way to love that way is to be “seized” or “controlled” by reality of what Christ did for us on the cross! This is way Paul insisted on preaching, “Christ and Him crucified”. The message of the cross is the beginning and the end of Christian life and doctrine. It is impossible to grow beyond it!
Therefore, my friends, gaze upon the beauty of Christ and Him crucified, for if you do, you will...
Take Up Your Cross and Follow Jesus!
Take Up Your Cross and Follow Jesus!
We heard these words of Jesus in our opening Scripture lesson. What always strikes me is how counter-intuitive they are. By the wisdom of this world, the way of the cross seems to promise only death, but in reality, it is the only way by which we will find life. On the other hand, the way of this world seems to promise life, but in reality, it always leads to death!
Do you see now why the wisdom of this world is so dangerous? There is no way we could know this apart from divine revelation.
Do you not also see how ingenious the wisdom of God is? Gratitude for what God has done for us on the cross accomplishes what no amount of discipline and effort could ever achieve.
So what will it be? Will you believe God’s wisdom or will you believer your own?
Let us pray.