Kennystix's podcast
Let the One Who Boasts Boast in the Lord: Reflections on a People and Their Preacher
The following resource is from desiringgod.org. Suruntex for this evening is 1 Corinthians 1, verses 10 through 31. I appeal to you, brothers, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree in that there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same judgment, for it has been reported to me by Chloe's people that there is quarreling among you, my brothers. What I mean is that each one of you says, "I follow Paul, or I follow Apollos, or I follow Seaphos, or I follow Christ. Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you, or were you baptized in the name of Paul? I thank God that I baptize none of you, except Christmas and Gaius, so that no one may say that you were baptized in my name. I did baptize also the household of Staphonus, but beyond that I do not know whether I baptized anyone else. For Christ did not send me to baptize but to preach the gospel, and not with words of eloquent wisdom lest the cross of Christ be empty of its power. For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved is the power of God, for it is written, "I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart." Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since in the wisdom of God the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men. For consider your calling, brothers. Not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth, but God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise. God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong. God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not to bring to nothing, things that are so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. He is the source of your life in Christ Jesus, whom God made our wisdom and our righteousness and our sanctification and redemption. Therefore as it is written, let the one who boast, boast in the Lord. Let's pray. Father I ask you that the next five months of this church's life would be the greatest months in the last 135 years. The most Christ-exalting months, the most God-centered months, the most authentically worshipful months, the most soul-saving soul-winning months, the most justice-advancing months, the most life-rescuing months, the most healing months, the most reconciling, unifying months that we've ever known in the history of this church. To that end, help me now to open this passage of Scripture, summoning us that you're a God like that, these are the kind of months in which you would likely do something like that. So help me get this right, I pray in Jesus' name, amen. This will be a little more personal than usual. I'm thinking of this message as a kind of fatherly counsel to a family as he leaves to go to a far country and the country I have in mind is England, though it could be heaven. The family I have in mind is you, you, and the father I have in mind is me, and the reason for leaving in this five-month separation is the sabbatical that the elders have so amazingly generously given to us on the event of our 25th anniversary of this church. What they've agreed to do is to grant the one-month writing leave that I usually have in the spring and the one-month vacation that I usually have in the summer, and then put on top of it a three-month sabbatical, meaning that Lord willing, I will be away from March 1 through the end of July. The plan, just so you'll know and can pray, is that we be for that time in Tyndale House in Cambridge, England. It's a library and study center where they have flats and study carols and books. And my prayer, and I hope yours, is that I will faithfully use this sabbatical for two overarching purposes. So this is what I would like you to join me in asking God to do. One is that I would write some things for publication that would be used to spread a passion for the supremacy of God in all things, for the joy of all peoples through Jesus Christ. And the other, which I think is more important, is that I would so use these precious months that I would be fit to come back, filled with fresh, spirit-given passion, to preach and to share in the leadership of Bethlehem in the most fruitful decade we've ever known. I'm really keenly aware that to use the word "decade" can be very presumptuous when you're 60 years old and you have cancer to boot. Nevertheless, I want you to know that it would be my delight to serve you until I'm 70 years old. Now, I've said to the elders many times, now look guys, there's 34 of these guys, now look, as soon as I start saying unintelligible, stupid, embarrassing things in the pulpit, would you just mercifully and quickly call me emeritus? And I will get out of the way. So I do not mean to presume I'll be here 10 years. I just want you to know the way my mind is thinking as I leave you for five months. I have no plans but to die at Bethlehem. I really would like to be buried, probably, where should we do at Noel? We haven't talked this over later, okay. I kind of like wood lawn down by the lakes, it's the highest place in Minneapolis, so when you rise, you're quick into fellowship. This sabbatical has been planned for a long time. The elders have been working on it, thinking it through exciting plans are already fixed and in place for what will happen in this pulpit those five months. I'm sure that will be rolled out to you soon. It's a combination of present staff members plus a number of very good friends who will come in here from outside to share the pulpit. The pulpit will be in good hands. And in all the planning, there just occurred one little glitch and that's this surgery. I had planned to preach right on through February and preach this message the last Sunday before I left. Now I've got this surgery Tuesday morning, eight o'clock, so I don't know how fast you recover from these things. If it goes well, I'm coming back before March, okay, so I really would like to get one more time but I'm preaching this as though that's not going to happen. That's the way I'm thinking. As though this is my last sermon before I go away on sabbatical and so if you get two last sermons, I hope you won't be upset about it but that's the way I'm thinking about this message here tonight. I'm very jealous that these next five months be glorious months for Bethlehem and so what I want to do is walk through 1 Corinthians 1 verses 10 to 31. I'm going to walk right through it, take it a unit at a time and make six applications to our situation in these five months. I've called this message, only half of it got into your worship folder. I've called this message, let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord, colon, reflections on a people and their preacher. I use the word preacher intentionally, not pastor because you've got a lot of pastors in this church and I am the one who's appointed to do the lion's share of the preaching. So I'm elder for preaching or associate for preaching and everybody, all the pastors have their different tasks. So I'm not the pastor and the parent is here which is why this doesn't offend any people, I'm sure it won't in this service. We don't have a wall anymore with the pastors' pictures on it because I just said to them when we remodeled the old building, those are coming down because I'm not the pastor. There are 17 pastors in this church. Actually, if you get really biblical, there are about 41 because an elder in the New Testament is a pastor. So we don't have a wall with the pastor on it, the pastor from 1940 to 1955 and there's the pastor, that used to be the conception and still is in a lot of people's minds but I better close that parenthesis because that's not in here at all and my time is short. We're going to walk through 1 Corinthians 1, 10 to 11 and I'm going to apply this text to our situation with my absence in the next five months. I appeal to you brothers by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ that all of you agree and there be no divisions among you and that you be united in the same mind and the same judgment for it has been reported to me by Chloe's people that there is quarrelling among you. Would you bless me in England by not sending me any people from Chloe? No emails from Chloe, I mean because it's not happening. What a gift. I've known this gift for many years and I just plead with us as a church. Let's do that verse 10, let's do verse 10 together. Now we know from Romans 14, raise your hand if you've ever heard of sermon from Romans 14. Okay, we did about several months on Romans 14. We know from Romans 14 that the strong and the weak don't agree on days, meat and wine. They don't and Paul doesn't expect them to. That whole chapter is built to show how differing people glorify God together. One glorifies Him by eating, another glorifies Him by not eating and they argue with each other about whether they should be eating or not and they love each other like crazy. That's the way you do it, this disagreement here is not agreement on everything. Something really fundamental and my prayer is that the unity of this church more and more doctrinally be rooted in your increasing awareness of and understanding of and embrace of the Bethlehem Baptist Church elder affirmation of faith. If you'd never read that document, go to DesiringGod.org or go to bbcmpls.org and call it up and read it. This is what all of our elders must believe in order to be elders here. It is what we teach. It's what we're trying to take you toward. You don't have to believe this to be a member, all of it, this pieces of it. But we want to move toward the fullest orb of biblical understanding and so that's what I hope unity moves toward and then it's rooted in profound love and patience and forbearance toward each other. So that's my first plea. Let's do verse 10 while I'm gone and when I'm here and all the other times. Number two, 1 Corinthians 1, 12 to 17. What I mean is that each one of you says, "I follow Paul. I follow Apollos. I follow Cephas. I follow Christ." Isn't that interesting? Christ. Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you or were you baptized in the name of Paul? I think God had baptized. None of you except Christmas and Gaius. So that no one may say they were baptized in my name. I did baptize the household of Staphonus beyond that. I can't remember. Isn't that great? I'm so thankful apostles. I can't remember things because people ask me, "You remember my name? I don't even remember your face." Do you remember when we did this? No. I don't remember. For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel and not with words of eloquent wisdom lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power. Now I am deeply thankful. I cannot tell you how thankful I am to God that many of you bear witness to me that you get spiritual profit from my preaching. I marvel at that grace, but please from this text reaffirm with me what you already know namely gratitude for spiritual profit from a preacher should not produce a kind of partiality that will only listen to that preacher. You see, the difference is not wrong to say, "I'm thankful that I get help when Pastor John preaches." I'm okay with that. I try not to be made boastful about that. That's all grace, but to move from that to say, "Well, when he's gone, we're going to do something else because he's our preacher. We're of John, not Kenny or Sam or David or Tom, we're of John." So we check out other churches when he's gone, don't have that mindset. That's not a healthy, godly, humble, wise mindset. Here's the test. Whether you are seeing and savoring Christ right now or are humanly drawn to me, that's a test. My prayer and my hope is that you will show in these next five months that your allegiance is not primarily to me. That's what these five months will be about. That's the spiritual test that will come on this church. Is this church a people who are carnally drawn to my style or are drawn to Christ, savor Christ, love Christ, and will take it from anybody who gives it? It's our job to see that that happens, that Christ be exalted in this pulpit. What an encouragement you would be to me if in these next months you gave yourselves to faithful corporate worship, faithful service in small groups, faithful and sacrificial giving. We as a church, about 10% of us were there to vote on this, and the elders almost united unanimously. There were two dissenters. One thought the budget was too high, one thought the budget was too low, so the other 23 of us who voted on it must have been kind of somewhere near right I think. The church voted that we would increase the budget of 2006, 23% over last year's budget. Having increased last year's budget, 24% over the year before that, and some of us kind of take deep breaths and wonder how can that happen? And the answer is God, God, and I'm asking you to be His servant in your regular sacrificial joyful giving. We raise that budget knowing we're planting a church. We are starting a third campus in September, Lord willing, and the pastor, the pastor who preaches is going to be away five months, and we said go for it, and we went for it, and I love that kind of vision, I really do. Number three, 1 Corinthians 1, 18 to 21, for the Lord, I'm sorry, for the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written, I'll destroy the wisdom of the wise and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart. Where is the one who is wise? Where's the scribe? Where's the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since in the wisdom of God the world did not know God through wisdom. It pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. At the center of Paul's preaching is the bloody criminal, shame-covered, torturing, scandalous cross of Jesus Christ. That is the heart of His message. Christ was insulted, Christ was mocked, ridiculed, scorned, derided, parodied, caricatured, and then hung up like a piece of meat, and then skewered with a sword to see if He was done or not. Verse 18 this, do you remember the days when this is true of you? This is folly to those who are parishion. What can that piece of meat do if you are the Son of God act like it? Do Muslims know sons of God if there is such a thing, don't stay on crosses and die? This is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved, it is the power of God. Indeed, I would say from 2 Corinthians 4-4 it is the glory of God. The God of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ. The heart of the gospel is the bloody Christ and that is the apex of the demonstration of the glory of our God. And over against that, the Corinthians are enamored by intellectuals, scholars, people with degrees, debaters who could upstage the best orators, it says. Bethlehem, beware as preachers fill this pulpit in the next 5 months, beware that you look for the wrong thing. Don't be fascinated and entertained by form, it is a good debater, clever use of language, good stories, nice turn of phrase, I think I will come back. That's demonic. Don't be enamored by form over substance or rhetorical skill over gospel truth, wine skins over wine, preaching about the cross over the cross. You're making that distinction right now, aren't you? I hope you're saying inside, I love the cross, I love that bloody Christ. It was my sins that held him there until it was accomplished. I want to sing it all my days, this is my life. I hope that's what's going on in your heart, not, ooh, that was a neat phrase he just used to. How sad, how sad, so for the next 5 months, go for substance, look for substance, hold us accountable that there be substance here. Verse 4, 1 Corinthians 1, 22 to 25, the Jews demand signs in the Greek Sikh wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to the Jews and folly to the Gentiles, but to those who are called, mark that word, but to those who are called from Jews and Greeks, he's not foolishness anymore, he's not a stumbling block anymore, he's Christ, the power of God and the wisdom of God, for the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men. That's the way you should think when you look at this bloody mess. The foolishness is wise, the weakness not bringing himself down when he could is so strong than your love in the cross, than your love in the cross. What I'm asking now, what's the decisive difference between, on the one hand, those who see or seeing the crucified Christ as a stumbling block or folly, that's one group in the text. People who look at the cross and say, stupid, this folly, that can't be God, that can't be a Messiah, that can't be a Savior, and they stumble over it, that's one group, and then the other group say, power, wisdom from God, I worship you, what's the difference in the text, what's the difference in the text, answer this group are called, clear today. But to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, he's Christ, the power of God and the wisdom of God, do you know this call? My plea is that for the next five months, Bethlehem rivet your attention on the massive sovereign caller, and that you pray the prayer that I prayed at the beginning of this service, make it the best calling months of 135-year history. What is the call if Jesus standing outside the grave of Lazarus and saying, Lazarus, dead man, come forth and the dead man obeys, because the word of the caller is sovereign. It creates what it commands, come. That's how all of you got saved, who are saved, and you will give God a lot more glory if you know it, and embrace it, and praise him for it. Thank you that while I was watching Billy Graham or listening to a radio talker, kneeling with my mom beside the bed or reading my Bible alone or picking up a track on the beach that God said, John, live, and the cross became irresistibly beautiful. You could not, but freely, embrace it. That's how you got saved, praise God for that, and ask God that he would do it in these five months, let light shine out of darkness, God says in 2 Corinthians 4, 6 in the human heart, and non-existent light, spiritual light, obeys, or as Romans 4, 17 says, he calls into existence the things that do not exist, like Abraham's faith in yours, therefore God is the one who in these five months can, and I pray, and I hope you'll pray, will call from the dead hundreds of people. Now wouldn't it be like God to do that, wouldn't it be just like God to choose a time when the big shot preacher is away to bring the greatest awakening the church has ever known. That's exactly the way God is likely to do it. If I know anything from the Bible, he's bent that way, so that no one will boast in man. This guy's too prominent, so when he gets out of the way, I'm going to show up. That's the way I'm praying. This is just the way he is. If your mind says, this is critical of some of you whom I love deeply, including some elders, if your mind says, when John's away, things are just kind of going to go into a holding pattern for five months, you're not talking like God, you're talking like the world. And if I got really critical, I'd say like the devil, that's the way the world would talk about this situation. This text doesn't talk like that. Where's the debater? He's in England. God, come, don't let us think like men, let us think like God, now watch this verse 26. Look what God is prone to do. Think through the application of what I'm about to read to the next five months and my absence. For consider your calling, brothers, not many of you were wise, according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth, but God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise. God chose what is weak in the world. You could substitute here time as well as people, could you not? It's a weak time or a foolish time. God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong. God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not to bring to nothing things that are so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. In other words, God's sovereign freedom is very significant and he loves to use it to choose people and times and circumstances which nullify pride, boasting. He strategizes his way through the world, not looking for accomplished people. There are few of them in the church, it says. Not many of you were wise, worldly standards, powerful, highborn, there are many like that. They're too fat to get through the eye of the needle. It's the broken, the stripped. My son Carson wrote a poem, it's in my mind, forming my language right now of how to get a camel through the eye of a needle and about seven verses describing the dissection of this camel into thread like pieces and then identifying himself as the camel, slicing him into nothing. It's going to get you into heaven one way or the other, but you're not fitting through the way you are. He will cut you to pieces if he has to to get you through the eye of the needle. Well, the highborn, they don't want to do that and so they go off and do their thing and leave the lowly and God says, "Now I can get some glory." So, it would be just like God, in these next five months, I think, to make them the greatest months this church has ever known. Please pray that and be a part of it. Final section, verse 30 and 31. He is the source of your life in Christ Jesus, whom God made our wisdom and our righteousness and sanctification and redemption. And therefore, as it is written, let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord, beware Bethlehem of boasting in buildings, music, mission statements, pastors. Verse 29 gives the negative warning that, "No human being may boast in the presence of God, and now it climaxes with a resoundingly positive statement," let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord, because the Lord has become for us wisdom, righteousness, sanctification and redemption, wisdom, not just that all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are hidden in Christ, but his cross is now earlier in the text called the power of God and the wisdom of God. The text means he has become wisdom for us, he has become our wisdom in him because the cross is wisdom. This is the beginning of the Christian life. Your eyes go open and you say, because you're called and the lights went on, wisdom, bloody, caricature, insulted, dying, criminal, meat, is the wisdom of Almighty God that you saw when you were called, I think this, he became wisdom to you. And then secondly, our righteousness. Once you see him that way, you believe, seeing and believing, just like that, you see him as compelling, and now you're believing in him, and we are justified by that believing alone apart from works of the law, and so he is now our righteousness. In him, his righteousness is ours, and we're in him through this faith. And then thirdly, he's our sanctification, oh, Beth, let's get this in the right order while I'm going and when I'm here, first the sovereign call, then the opening of the eyes to see the cross as wisdom, then the heart of faith, then the declaration of righteousness, and only then, and on that glorious basis of divine acceptance, do we fight for holiness? Oh, if we get that wrong, everything goes wrong. We fight for holiness by the power of Jesus because in Jesus we are holy. That's the Christian mystery. So Christ becomes our sanctification in that he's the power of it, the embodiment of it, the goal of it, the purchase of it, and then finally, our redemption, and I'm reaching to chapter eight of Romans where it says we have the first fruits of the Spirit, we who have the first fruits of the Spirit, grown inwardly as we eagerly wait for our adoption of sons, the redemption of our bodies. I'm putting redemption at the end, and it's the resurrection of the body because that's the sequence I'm seeing here. We're called Lazarus, come forth, come forth, the bandages go off our eyes. We see Jesus crucified, He's our wisdom, our hearts rise in faith. In that faith we're declared righteous, in that standing, accepted, holy, pure, perfect in Christ before God, we fight our sin like heaven, and wait in groaning for the redemption of our cancer, laden, but what a great Savior. Let Him who boast, not boast in cephas, not boast in Paul, not boast in a Paulus, not even Christ as a party leader, and certainly not in me, but let Him who boast, boast in the Lord of the church, the Lord who has become for all the broken, the low, the poor, the weak has become for all those believers, wisdom and righteousness and sanctification and redemption. So I close Bethlehem, would you say with me in your heart through surgery, through sabbatical, through the next decade, if the Lord wills say with me the words that I took on my lips in my Candidating Sermon in February of 1980, I go like this, it is my eager expectation and hope that now, as always, Christ might be magnified in my body, whether by life or by death, for to live as Christ and to die as gain. We all say that in the next five months, God's going to do a great work here. Let's pray, Father in Heaven, apply 1 Corinthians 1, 10 to 31 to Bethlehem Baptist Church, to the end that by your Spirit, these next five months would be the greatest months this church has ever known in 135 years of history. I ask this in Jesus name, amen. Thank you for listening to this resource from DesiringGod.org. If you found it helpful, we encourage you to enjoy and share from thousands of resources on our site, including books, sermons, articles and more, available free of charge. DesiringGod.org exists to help you treasure Jesus more than anything else, because God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him.
John Piper | In all that you do, magnify Jesus. He’s the only one worth boasting about.