I Corinthians 1:26-31
Bob Eckel · Jan 31, 2016
1 Corinthians, No. 05
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://www.hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/4926527112096

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

All right, Randy and Roger set the stage here for today and I think today is really a culmination of what we've been through for the last month. It's amazing when I look back, I use the same kind of imprint for all my lessons and I haven't taught for two months now. So my knee is undergoing rehab still. That might be a prayer knee too. It's going slower than I want. But anyway, that's the earthly existence for sure. All right, so let's read. I think probably a good place to start here might be verse 24. And I'll go ahead and read just to make sure we're all on the same page and you can hear what's being read.

But unto them which are called both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God, because the foolishness of God is wiser than men and the weakness of God is stronger than men. For you see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, and not many mighty, not many noble, were called. But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise, and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty. And base things of the world and things which are despised hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not to bring to naught things that are. that no flesh should glory in his presence, but of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom and righteousness and sanctification and redemption, that according as it is written, he that glorieth let him glory in the Lord."

Wow. Talk about being uplifted, huh? Particularly the contrast between the world system and those things the world honors versus where God has placed each and every one of us. First verse, we're starting with 26 today. For you see your calling, brethren, that not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble are called. Ye see, plural, all of you are seeing.

Do they see or are they being challenged to see? What's that, Tom? When he says challenge. I agree. Okay, so it's not that they're seeing. It says, why don't you wake up and start seeing, right? I think that's, in context, the best interpretation. What does it mean to be called? Set aside. Set aside, that's more a sanctification. No, but you're called. Same thing.

Called. Biblically, what's it mean to be called? Are the handouts here yet? You would accept his son as their savior and those are the ones that he has called. Okay. Who's he calling? Your body and your soul. Okay. Well, it says those who are called. How do you know if you're called? It says brethren, so it has to be believers. Well, we're going to get there. You're jumping ahead. Alright, everywhere in the New Testament calling or being called is used as an invitation to embrace salvation and God's terms. Everywhere this word is used and I've listed about 10 verses there for you. We're not going to look at all those.

Everyone in context means being called to salvation and sometimes it's those who are already saved being called to a walk that is to God's glory. Anyway, being called is entirely scripturally, New Testament based, related to who we are as brethren. And notice, this is addressed to the brethren, who are already called and already saved. So being called is always coming to the Lord and walking by His great grace, by faith. Called to a walk, called to salvation, whichever.

It relates to our position and condition in the Lord Jesus Christ. Notice those who are less likely to be called. Now this is kind of interesting. It's going to be fun to kind of discuss this a little bit. Well, it's the wise according to the flesh, the mighty and the noble.

So why is God's calling not there for all? Is God's calling not there for all? Do you think he's just calling people who are weak and humble and without earthly existence in terms of recognition? No, no, we can't leave the truth that for this is good and acceptable on the side of God our Savior who desires all men to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth. So why is Paul in his epistle to the Corinthians stating that ultimately Those who are, according to the flesh, the mighty and the noble, are less likely to be called.

Question? I think they're too egotistical. I think they think they've got it all together and they don't need anything. They consider this sort of thing weak. Okay. To depend on somebody like God. Yeah, their focus is totally on worldly things and fleshly things. And of course, not everyone who is wise or noble, but for the most part, they're too distracted by things of the world. Alright, so although God would have all come to be saved, they're all called, everyone's called, ultimately only some respond, right? And so those of the world system, the mighty, the noble, the earthly wise, have their own agenda. And they're being rewarded by earthly things.

They're too vain, they're too proud. I love 1 John. One of the three things that 1 John indicates God hates, lust of the eyes, lust of the flesh, and what's that third one? The pride of life. Oh, how ugly. And so the mighty, the wise, and the noble, the pride of life has overcome them, and they're perfectly satisfied with the recognition they get here.

Thoughts about that? Yes, Pat? Well, this idea of being called, maybe it's that they're not hearing. Right. I think Pat has said, they're called, but they're not hearing. Right. So effectively, what were we looking at at the church at Corinth? Who were those that were brought to the Lord? We're going to come to this a little later. But these were the weak and the unmighty and the unnoble, and those that presumably had less recognition in the earthly system.

Let's look again at 1 Corinthians 1.21. So somebody read that please.

1 Corinthians 1.21. Just back a few verses here.

For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not come to know God, God was well pleased through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believed. So Pat, a perfect answer to your question, isn't it? 1.21. For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God. That's the world's wisdom.

It pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believed." So, you know, foolishness, and I think Randy covered to some extent, Roger probably did last week, but the foolishness of man is really just unbelievably infinite in terms of its power. God's wisdom is really, foolishness of God is obviously more powerful if you think God being foolish than man's wisdom. Anyway, you get the picture here. The noble, the wise, and the mighty are less likely to be called because they don't hear.

Isn't everyone called to salvation? We can't think that we're set aside. I mean, the Book of Life has our names written in the Book of Life, but nobody down here knows who's written in the Book of Life. We can't assume anybody's not capable of being saved, right? God would have all to come to salvation. Go ahead. I'd like to read one verse out of Matthew.

It says, For many are called, but few are chosen. They were invited to the banquet, and this man... Yeah, they decided not to come, right? But he did come. This is the wedding feast. Oh, the wedding feast. And he didn't have the proper apparel. And then at the end of that session, it says, many are called, but few are chosen. So I wonder if all are called. Well, all are called. I mean, God would have all come to himself, correct?

Well, that Matthew passage is dealing with a different issue. Yeah. Yeah, because Matthew, when Jesus is talking to the Jews there, he's trying to hammer in to the fact that the Jews thought that just because they were descendants of Abraham, they were shoe-ins for heaven. And so Christ is calling them out on the fact that they actually have to have a relationship with God. They can't just say, I'm a Jew, they have to show up to the wedding. in that particular case. I think you have to be careful in the gospel accounts to make sure we understand the distinction between Israel and the church, which didn't exist in terms of the Matthew account.

So I think, Randy, thank you. That's better than I could have explained it. All right, let's go ahead now. But there were some exceptions noted in scripture. And I've listed some of these for you. Joseph of Arimathea was a rich counselor. And the text is there, Mark 1543, Sergius, Paulus, a Roman deputy, Acts 13.7, Dionysius, the Erechtheit in Acts 17.34, and some in Caesar's palace, Philippians 4.22. So there were some who had earthly recognition. Notice God was less likely to call them. Not many means there were some. And I think, you know, As Ulf Schausen should say, I quote him here, the whole history of the expansion of the church is a progressive victory of the ignorant over the learned, the lowly over the lofty, until the emperor himself laid down his crown before the cross of Christ.

In James 2.5, listen my beloved brethren, has God not chosen the poor of this world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom which he promised to those that love him? And we're going to get back to how that relates to what happened since the first couple of centuries of Christianity in terms of where we find ourselves today.

Verse 27, then, but God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty. And I simply kind of summarize this verse up front to say, notice that God has chosen to shame, and it's used twice here. Now, and in verses 28 and 31, there's this Greek word hina, that introduces purposeful clauses. And in 28 and 31, it's translated as that, not to. But apparently, these are fairly strong Greek terms that really are emphatic and emphasizing cause and effect downstream.

God meant his business here, for instance, that he has used the foolish and weak things of the world to shame the wise and the mighty. Let's define the foolish and weak things of the world. Foolish, imprudent, without wisdom, destitute of learning, rank, wealth, and power, and weak, infirm, feeble, without strength or might. So these really would be attributes or the lack thereof that the world system doesn't recognize. So these were the poor, the humble, the meek, if you will, who were brought to salvation. And how did the foolish and weak things of the world shame or confound the wise and mighty?

What's the class's thoughts on that? Well, Bob, like we covered last week, the world wants to, in its own logic, in its own, great, what it thinks is It wants to find a way to God that is intricate and complicated. It wants to invent its own system, and it has. all kinds of things about the Big Bang Theory, and it's looking for complicated ways to get to God.

It's looking for ways that will glorify them, because I'm a smart person, and I can find this way, but you're not so smart. I have to lead you along, where God says, no, I'm going to shame you, because you've taken that path, and you've tried to know me, and not come the way I have. I've given you in my word, I'm going to put you to shame for that. It's interesting that God uses the logic in reverse on them. They want to create very complicated ways to come to God.

Whereas God says, no, I have a very simple way. It's the death of my son. And that's an affront to man, because it's too simple. And the world says, that's foolishness. So God turns around and shows that man's wisdom and his complicated scheme to find God in the stars. asteroids, Earth coming with aliens, all kinds of just craziness. He puts him to shame, you know.

And so I think it kind of carries on into this passage as well, the segment. So I would say, too, that it has to do with that man has nothing to do with the way God is doing this. He wants nothing to do with that. That's what I mean. And the way you're saying, by them coming up with all these schemes and things, man's directly involved in coming up with how that happens.

And God is saying, no, you don't have anything to do with this. This is all me. Not all you. Not about you. That brings us to the next question. What about today? Is this still valid today? Okay, so not many mighty are called, not many noble, not many wise, but yet in this room, we're not street people. I mean, we all have had jobs.

Your promotion in the job place is related to your performance. And, you know, I think we have to be careful and spirit-led that pride not get in the way of what we're accomplishing down here. And that really relates to the rest of what we're going to be studying this morning, to God be the glory. And if you read Hungry Heart a couple days ago, it really dealt with this issue of, you know, a preacher preaches a great sermon and somebody comes up and tells him what a great sermon was and he's really proud about the sermon.

I mean, that's not where we're at. The Christ life is not one that brings attention to ourselves. And so even though we might be among the noble, I mean, most of us have houses and live pretty comfortably. We have insurance policies, etc. The wise, I mean, you know, people excel in the worldly system, but these are believers. But the principle still applies today, doesn't it?

Last night Margaret and I went to the symphony and we heard a wonderful series of pieces by Russian composers including pictures in an exhibition. If you like classical music it's one of the great compositions of all time. We took the train down, we took the train back and I heard a woman before she got on the train talking to a gentleman saying she would now need to move into enzymes and something kind of moved me to kind of before we got off the train at the Golden station to say enzymes, how interesting.

I said, what do you do? She said, I'm an archaeologist and I look at pottery to see in fact what's in pottery that relates to ultimately the ingredients that were involved in forming the clay and that's her business. She works by consultation in this arena. She ultimately talked about herself a lot.

I finally acknowledged why I asked her about enzymes because my scientific career is based on a single enzyme and understanding it in great detail. It works in multiple tissues in the body and has different purposes. and all that. But anyway, and then she gave me this paleontology calendar in parting when we got into the garage. But anyway, the wisdom of the world.

I mean, I was just thinking, you know, here she's an archaeologist, runs a fancy business and is consulted. And I have no clue whether she knows God or not. But when she's a paleontologist, I kind of think that maybe she doesn't. But then I think, you know, God, what privilege. I mean, here I am, you know, a worthless sinner saved by grace. It's just interesting to kind of have this perspective, but I think the principle is the same today as it was in the first century of the Apostolic Church. Any other thoughts on that?

This is a story about Queen Victoria. I think I have this right. Queen Victoria said one time she was thankful, actually on this verse, she was thankful for the many. because she considered herself one of the many, because she was the Queen of England. And she was one of the not many, right? That there is allowance for somebody to be of high stature. And so she basically said, she referred to this verse apparently, which is kind of cool. Other thoughts or heavenly wisdom about whether this applies today? I think everybody's in agreement. Yeah, Randy. I would say that, you know, Here's this culture and they.

Everybody's trying to build themselves up and Paul calls him out. What does he say? He calls him out and says, you guys aren't even the aren't even the people with stature. There's not a lot of people with stature in the church. And he just nails him right to this thing that you think is so important.

You don't you know, I guess the best way to put it in parallel terms, is you don't have any followers on Facebook or Twitter. Let's not go there. Actually, I was including the tweet from my son last night. I don't know how to use it. I forgot I was even on there. So I kind of sent him an email back, I'm not sure what to do with this. What do I do with this? Anyway, let's move on. All right. Verse 28 then. It continues the same theme here. And the base things of the world. Boy, think how broadly that definition is.

And the things which are despised, God has chosen. And the things which are not, to bring to nothing the things that are. And notice, he's also chosen not only to shame them, but he's chosen the base things of the world and things despised and things which are not really to ultimately confound this contrast between the not many who are called versus those that are. All right, this is Barnes, and one of the commentaries I typically use when I prepare a lesson. Things which are not, kind of interesting. That which is nothing, which is worthless, which has no existence, those things which were below contempt itself, and which in the estimation of the world were passed by as having no existence, is not having sufficient importance to be esteemed worthy, even of the slight notice which is implied in contempt.

So think of this. What this means, things which are not. Now think from the world's perspective. What are things which are not? Anything to do with things of the Spirit is just off their charts and they couldn't care less, hearing or not. Okay, anything that was of the Spirit. Other thoughts about things which are not. Which could extend to simple God-based things, right?

And clearly the gospel message was being rejected left and right because we're too wise, too noble, too proud to really acknowledge God and what he's doing in an attempt to reach all of mankind. Well, and you know, you think about it because the Lord wanted us to know that we were sinners. And there are people who absolutely don't believe they're sinners.

I mean, they think I haven't killed anyone. I haven't. committed theft. I'm a good person. So why do I need any of this? Because I'm not a sinner and they're trying to call me a sinner. How dare they? It's really true. Now, Randy, I thought of you when I put the next verse up, because Randy sent a nice little brief email thinking about Romans 1 through 4. And I found myself wanting to go there, but ultimately this is an exemplary, Randy, of those passages.

But Romans 4.17, as it is written, I have made you a father of many nations.

We're talking to Abraham here. In the presence of him whom he believed, God who gives life to the dead and calls those things which do not exist as though they did. So in other words, the world system, as it related to Abraham and his belief, really, this was not accepted. But yet, things that didn't exist, meaning faith, God-based faith. Ultimately, that brings into consideration Romans 1 through 4, which really is just evidence of man and his, her sinful nature ultimately brought by the power of faith to a living existence of the Lord Jesus Christ. At the time of this epistle, there's some that interpret things which are not as the Gentiles. I found that kind of interesting. I don't see that, but I just thought I'd mention that.

I mean the Jew was proud and, you know, keep in mind that the Jew was the early church, wasn't a Gentile initially. And Paul's epistle to the church at Corinth was really largely directed towards Gentiles. So maybe those that were not were these Gentiles who were put off to think that they were second-class citizens. I didn't buy that initially, but as I thought a little bit more about it, I think it's possible that the things which were not could have been the Gentile people of that age.

Tom? And people that were outside the Jewish persuasion might have misread that as saying, gee, if we're second, we ain't much of anything. Yeah, okay. Yeah, Randy. And for the base things there, the Greek word for that means without genus or without family name. And so the Jews were obviously attached to the family name. I'm a Babrian. I'm on the inside.

So it's not an irrational jump, necessarily. But that might give some credence to the potential that those things which were not, could have been the Gentiles. And because remember, Corinth was probably some Jews that came to the Lord, but probably a lot of Gentiles. And we're going to get into their history a little bit more detail as we go on in the first Corinthians. Now let's go back here a second. Notice the verse again.

And the base things of the world, and the things which are despised, God has chosen, He's chosen these things. And the things which are not, to what outcome? To bring to nothing the things that are. So what's the purpose? Well, to bring to nothing the things that are.

This is kind of like a reiteration of what he did earlier, which I covered last week. He suddenly showed that man's wisdom cannot ever achieve to know him. It's impossible. You cannot get to God by man's own wisdom. You have to come God's way. You cannot come some way you invent in your mind. And the intellect really gets in the way, doesn't it?

How many kids who are saved as kids or high school students go to college and they go to a secular university? And I think all of them, almost all of them are altered in their thought process to a modest extent anyway by the world system and what they teach. I mean, Kristen, our second daughter is a scientist and she went to Boulder to molecular cellular development of biology, great program up there and she now has a job in Houston. But anyway, her thought process had been altered some. by that college experience. And I think you have to enter that experience strong to begin with. Not that she's still saved and she's clearly not on the wrong path, but just her thought process and the way she articulated was impacted by the world system.

What's this all about anyway? Well, I summarized it by simply saying this world system and all its strength, might, and pride has no eternal value. Zero value for all of the things we accomplish in this earthly existence except the things that are spirit-led in the power of the Lord Jesus Christ.

And I think what I've also concluded here is this is a declaration of our adoption and citizenship And this position is not of the wise and mighty world in which we live. And keep in mind, everyone, what we're doing here is our business address. This is in our home. Paul has claimed in Philippians, you know, I'm a citizenship of heavenly places, not here. So the idea of thinking of earth and our earthly existence as our business address and our homes really in heaven is, I think, kind of ultimately an extension of the theology we're seeing portrayed here. Tom?

Yes, well, Abraham was a Gentile to begin with, so it's kind of like his business address wasn't home and it was proved out every step of his life. There may have been moments when he felt tempted to hang out in certain places, but God knew when to hasten and chase him. Right, and we see the path that Abraham took. It wasn't all easy, was it, going forward.

Let's now turn to verse 29. That no flesh should glory in his presence. Wow. Again, lust of the eyes, lust of the flesh. But that third one, the pride of life, I think it's the one that really intercedes in all of us in some way at some time and leave it behind. And that's not an intellectual process, it's an act of faith. And I think when we live the Christian life and the Christ life is lived out through us, again, we're not paying attention to the fact that God gets the glory and not us.

All right, in the Greek, no is followed by pas. And Randy, you probably know this, Roger better than I do, which is not translated into English. This term is not translated. It means each and every. And pas in context here provides even more emphasis to no. So this is a very emphatic, strong statement. And again, POS isn't translated. It's just a Greek term to provide additional emphasis. Nobody, no flesh. Actually, I think it's literally, POS is, there's no exceptions. It's the totality. It's every single thing. Randy? Yeah, it's all or every, yeah. Right.

And it's always interesting to kind of, I'm not a Greek scholar, but it's always interesting sometimes to find out something that's in the Greek that's not translated, but provides additional interpretation of the word of God. It's like a strength in no. I mean, it's not only no, but it's super no. Don't go there. Yeah, Tom. Or as my mom told me when I was being stubborn and fixated, if I've said no once, I've said it a thousand times. And how old were you then? Less than 12. Less than 12. I thought maybe it was at 25 or 30. All right.

Flesh. How do we interpret flesh when we see it in the scripture? Give me the definitions of flesh. There are at least three. There may be more. Flesh. Okay. The skin. And then what do we think about the flesh in terms of the spiritual flesh? Yeah, not good. The flesh and spiritually is not a good thing.

And then the flesh can also imply the whole body. And I think that's the interpretation here. So the whole man should glory. So no flesh, meaning the whole man should glory in his presence. So there's nothing about the earthly existence for us as believers or the unbelieving world that should ultimately bring glory to God.

Yes, Tom? You might need to flashback that, because after that one phrase, it just seems to stand out all by itself, and then the human nature takes over and says, yeah, yeah, I want glory, yeah, yeah. Put in three dots and then say, DOTS. All caps. Okay. Tom always embellishes things quite effectively.

No, to glory is, I'm not going to try to pronounce that. It's glory that could be brought to yourself or it's glory that could be brought to someone else. So the glory is not specific. It's just here, no flesh should glory in his presence. So the Lord's not about bringing glory to flesh. And again, that's in context, I think the unbelieving world and the world system he's, Paul is exemplifying here. In the vanity of this world, this manifested by or in the flesh has no merit in heavenly places.

1 Peter 1.24 is a nice reminder of an Old Testament scripture. All flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man is the flower of the grass. The grass withers, and the flower falls away. It's fun to kind of look at those selected verses that the Lord has brought forth into the New Testament, how appropriate this verse is. for the flesh and all its worth. It withers and the flower ultimately disintegrates.

Romans 3.27, where is boasting then?

It should be excluded. By what law? Of works? No, but by the law of faith. That's what we're all about. We're not robots down here. God has given us responsibility and that's to live by faith. And what's living by faith? I think Schofield, again, has best defined it. It's believing what God has revealed. And we have to interpret that dispensationally. We're in New Testament times. The law of faith is faith. It's not the law of works.

The alternative, nicely stated in 2 Corinthians 4. But we have renounced the hidden things of shame, not walking in craftiness nor handling the word of God deceitfully, but by manifestation of the truth, commending ourselves to every man's conscience in the sight of God."

What a beautiful verse that is the alternative to what we're talking about here. Isn't that a great verse? Especially when you consider this is not something he cooked up by himself. This is the Holy Spirit speaking each and every word. It's really true. And I thought that that verse really, really was a very appropriate verse for this lesson today.

All right, let's turn to the last couple of verses now, 1 Corinthians 1.30. Now the mood changes. And now we can really kind of take a step back and say, thank you, Lord, for your great grace. But of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification and redemption. What more could we ask for? Isn't that great? But of him, that means out of his source, ek, out of the Lord, out of the Lord, God Almighty, were placed in Christ Jesus in contrast to the flesh and anything that the flesh could possibly do.

And you is an emphatic personal pronoun and Paul stresses that you as believers are different from all others. This is a different race. We as believers are a different race. Notice the tense of the two verbs are. and became, or some translations indicate made unto us, are in the present indicative and the aorist passive indicative tenses.

I don't want to spend too much time here, but let's translate that. We are in Christ Jesus, fact and now, okay? And secondly, and Christ Jesus has become for us the wisdom of God, done once, and we were the recipients, and it's a fact. So, can there be any doubt? definitively stated, no questions.

Moreover, in addition to being made wise, not of this world, Colossians 2.3, we're made righteous, not of ourselves, 2 Corinthians 5.21. He hath made him to be sin for us who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.

2 Corinthians 5.21. Wow.

And we're made sanctified. Margaret set apart, John 17, 19. Christ talks about the body being set apart. And there are other texts that we could turn to. And we're redeemed. And that's by His precious blood, Ephesians 1, 7, and many other scriptures. So look at the position we've been given by one thing. We've been called. And Pat, if you will, we've been chosen because we responded to the calling. Now the book of life we're in. Not because we've been set aside and we're elite in some way, we've been put in the book a lot. No, we responded to God's great grace and responded to the call.

All right, 1 Corinthians 15.10.

But by the grace of God, I am what I am. And his grace towards me was not in vain. But I labored more abundantly than they all. Yet not I, but the grace of God, which was with me. Really, such a great example of what that new life is all about. Thoughts about this? By the grace of God, I am what I am. That's true for each and every one of us.

It's not an intellectual process. It's not a series of works trying to please God. But by His grace towards us, not being in vain, that ultimately we respond by laboring abundantly by faith that the grace of God has been given and really is activated within us to bring glory to him. All right, last verse, that as it is written, he who glories, let him glory in the Lord. So let's look at Jeremiah 9, 23 and 24. Let's turn to that text. I think you're probably going to get there faster than I do. Let's see. Can somebody go ahead and read that? Who has it?

That says the Lord, let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, neither let the mighty man glory in his might. Let not the rich man glory in his riches, but let him glory in this, that he understands and knows me. that I am the Lord which exercise lovingkindness, judgment, and righteousness in the earth.

For in these things I delight, saith the Lord. really about us, but it's all for us, and we all put it into perspective. The theme of the Lord and His grace and truth really stems from Genesis to the end of Revelation. And we can really look back to the Old Testament by God's opportunity of providing the principles of the way He interfaces with mankind throughout history to where we're at today. And so this verse, he who glories them, glory in the Lord, is in part taken from the Jeremiah passage, and is in part a direct quote from them, although it's paraphrased a little bit here.

Let's look at verb tense again. The verbs here are present, middle, deponent, participles, which, by the way, just to translate that, it mostly implies an active voice, an imperative. So present means now. Active means we have some role to play here. And imperative is factual. So we need to translate. We need to glory in the Lord and do it now. It's kind of what it says. Imperative is not factual. Imperative means do it. We're really challenged to do it. Indicative is factual. Imperative is do it.

Get on with it. So is this a work? Why isn't it a work? I don't think you can glory in the Lord unless you believe. You have to have faith. Alright. Yeah, Randy. It's agreeing in something that is the quality of the Lord. It's not something that you're doing of any merit. It's a recognition of what's already true. Right, and to apply the principle of grace, which is the foundation of our faith, ultimately grace is being thankful and responding to that in a way that is glorifying to God. It's not an act, it's not a work, it's not an intellect, it's really an act of faith played out day in and day out.

Galatians 6.14, But God forbid that I should boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world has been crucified to me, an eye to the world. Wow. You want to boast about something? God forbid that we should boast about anything but the cross.

What's neat is that we learned from last week that the cross is foolishness to man. The natural man outside of Christ is foolishness. So we're boasting of something that to the normal person seems totally foolish. Let's put gym shoes on here and kind of describe what boasting in the cross would look like as we carry on conversations with the world around us. How do we boast about the cross without seeming arrogant or elite?

It would seem to me that the boasting is about, you would say, it took the death of God's Son to provide my salvation. Look at the costliness of that. Look at how far down the fallen man is. It took the death of God's Son to accomplish this. That's one of many aspects you could draw.

And the cross I think is not simply the crucifixion and all that it stands for in terms of the forgiveness of sins and also the crucifixion of the first nature, the sinful nature. But it's the resurrection that provides the life that we live, right? So keep in mind, if there were no resurrection, we have no faith. Our faith is dead. So the cross is not only the sacrificial death of the Lord Jesus Christ on behalf of the sin of all men for all time, but in fact, the resurrection provides that new life, that spirit ingrained. And, you know, I'm crucified with Christ.

Nevertheless, I live a verse we all love around here. So this is entirely our purposeful walk down here. So if we think of how Malloy were here, ultimately he would spend months or years on bringing glory to the Lord. And he would do it far better than yours truly here. But bringing glory to the Lord is our business down here.

It's not bringing attention to ourselves. But God forbid that we should boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. Other thoughts? Tom, yes. We don't need to reincarnate how gracious Maloy was in the Lord. God's grace is unlimited. It's there for us to take. It's not like we have to borrow a past history to do it, even though a past history can become the highlight.

No, I only mentioned Hal's preaching on bring glory to the Lord. And he spent many, many hours, I'm sure, prayerfully providing a lot of information on that. And I think that we have access to that, Roger, don't we, in the church, if people are interested in that topic. Any questions, any further thoughts about today's lesson? Yeah, Pat.

It seems like with the crucifixion, It indicates God's righteousness that he could not tolerate any sin. It seems to indicate his own perfection, his own righteousness, that how greatly he is to say, I will not tolerate any sin. Yeah, and the neat thing is the dividends of that are being made righteous, sanctified, and ultimately redeemed. And that message comes out very clearly here. And keep in mind, the purpose of the end of 1 Corinthians 1 is the contrast between who we are and what the world system represents.

Randy? I think there's a really neat contrast in this as well, where he basically says, listen, you're all hoi poi, you're the nobodies. And then he says, but you were the nobodies, but that's not who you are in Christ, because in Christ you have his wisdom, you have his righteousness, you're holy and sanctified unto him, and you've been redeemed entirely from that, to the point where those things that used to make you feel little don't even matter anymore. Those things that you put your importance in have been removed from the equation. Well stated.

Any other thoughts, comments? Randy? Closest in prayer, would you please? Father, we ask that you would just continue to impress upon the truths of this first chapter and verse, Corinthians, as we go throughout the week and the months ahead. We just thank you that No matter what our earthly condition is, our position is this really tremendous place. And we pray, Lord, that as divisions might come up in the flesh, that we walk in the spirit and seek unity in you. And we thank you for this time together. We pray for safety as everybody goes out into the snow as well in an hour or so. We just thank you in Jesus' name. Amen.