I Corinthians 5.6 Your boasting is not good. Don’t you know that a little yeast leavens the whole batch of dough? 7 Get rid of the old yeast, so that you may be a new unleavened batch—as you really are. For Christ, our Passover Lamb, has been sacrificed. 8 Therefore let us keep the Festival, not with the old bread leavened with malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.
I John 2.16 For everything in the world--the cravings of sinful man, the lust of his eyes and the boasting of what he has and does--comes not from the Father but from the world. The world and its desires pass away, but the man who does the will of God lives forever.
Remember last week we quoted:
Psalm 34.2 My soul makes its boast in the LORD; let the humble hear and be glad.
Galatians 6.14 May I never boast except in the cross of our LORD Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.
Boast=
I Corinthians 5.6 Glorying in something
Galatians 6.14 same word
Psalm 34.2 halal to shine forth light, to shine with God’s favor
Opposite of boasting is the state of humility.
Proverbs 11.2 When pride comes, then comes disgrace, but with humility comes wisdom.
Foolish pride /Humble wisdom
We are told:
In Ephesians 4.2 Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. 3 Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace.
Humility=
Having a deep sense of one’s moral littleness
Modesty, lowliness of mind
Servants must be humble
The Corinthian Church was boasting over men. Paul and Apollos.
They were boasting over their wisdom.
They were boasting about how open minded they were about a sexual sinful situation!
1. No More Boasting!
About men, wisdom or sin!
Men
I follow this one. I just love this guy’s preaching. Focused on the servant not the Master and LORD.
I Corinthians 3.5 What, after all, is Apollos? And what is Paul? Only servants, through whom you came to believe—as the Lord has assigned to each his task.
Yesterday I made the mistake of telling Yelssy what a great job she is doing. She said, “Pastor Larry, it is not me. It is the LORD!”
She got me. I should have known better. Whatever is gain for me I count it loss for the sake of Christ. Forbid it LORD that I should gain save in the death of Christ my LORD.
Wisdom
Everyone want to know the secret of life.
How to be happy, content, rich, healthy. What will bring peace. They did back in Biblical Times. They do today.
The Greek Philosophers were in every city. Corinth had them.
Paul spoke about them:
I Corinthians 3.18 Do not deceive yourselves. If any of you think you are wise by the standards of this age,you should become “fools” so that you may become wise. 19 For the wisdom of this world is foolishness in God’s sight. As it is written: “He catches the wise in their craftiness”; 20 and again, “The Lord knows that the thoughts of the wise are futile.”
Sin:
The problem in this chapter is that a person was living in sin and the Church was proud.
I Corinthians 5.1 It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and of a kind that even pagans do not tolerate: A man is sleeping with his father’s wife. 2 And you are proud! Shouldn’t you rather have gone into mourning and have put out of your fellowship the man who has been doing this?
Proud= inflate, swell, puff up
They were bragging about how open they were... how accepting they were... of sin!!!
The problem was that the church wanted to impress the city of Corinth, a center of philosophy. So they let sin go on in the church and then were proud how advanced they were, how accepting they were, how far ahead they were, not only among the churches but also among the philosophers.
They were thinking and probably saying among themselves, “No one will accuse us of being closed or narrow minded.” We will be out ahead of the current thought trend.
Far too often the church, in an attempt to be contemporary, compromises. We cannot go against the Word of God. We cannot go “beyond what is written.” I Corinthians 4.6
The Scriptures are our guide. They are our borders. Live within them and you will experience the rich full life of Christ within you.
Live outside of them and you will inflict pain on yourself and those you love.
Paul rebuked them and wrote, and of a kind (sexual immorality)that even pagans do not tolerate!
No more boasting about what we have (what do have that we didn’t receive?) or what we have done... without Me, Jesus told us, we can do nothing.
This is a great challenge for us in America. We do not depend on the LORD like our brothers and sisters in other parts of the world where they have no reserves, they feel and experience the need to depend on the LORD for their daily bread. We need to cultivate that dependency upon Jesus.
* Discipline ourselves to think about how very blessed we are and give thanks to the LORD.
* Stick our necks out.
2. Boast in the Cross of Jesus Christ
Your boasting is not good. There is good boasting
Our Passover Lamb
Unleavened Bread= Get rid of sin among you
What does leaven or yeast do? It puffs the bread up.
Sin and pride do the same thing.
Paul is speaking about the Passover Feast and the Feast of Unleavened Bread, both pointing to Jesus.
The Feast of Unleavened Bread is a feast that is generally mistaken for Passover. Passover however is only one 24 hour period while Feast of Unleavened Bread lasts for seven days.
On the evening after Passover God told the Hebrew people exiting Egypt not to allow their bread to rise, but to grab everything and leave. The ancient peoples used to gather yeast on grape leaves to leaven their bread if they needed to speed up the process, but God said "Don't even let any leavening touch the dough. Just bake it and go."
In their haste they grabbed the necessities and fled toward the land God was preparing for them.
God then told them that in the future they were to commemorate this feast by getting all yeast out of the house for seven days.
Paul is talking about the cross, the cross of Christ.
Focus on Christ!
I Corinthians 2.1 When I came to you, I did not come with eloquence or human wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God. 2 For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified.
Galatians 6.14 May I never boast except in the cross of our LORD Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.
3. Boast In the LORD.
Think about His Love.
The Father has lavished His love upon us.
I John 3.1 See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!
Think about His Grace.
The grace of our Lord was poured out on me abundantly, along with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus.
I Timothy 1.14
Think about His Mercy.
His forgiveness
Think about His Return.
We need to do that more.
Mark 13.32 “But about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. 33 Be on guard! Be alert[e]! You do not know when that time will come. 34 It’s like a man going away: He leaves his house and puts his servants in charge, each with their assigned task, and tells the one at the door to keep watch.
35 “Therefore keep watch because you do not know when the owner of the house will come back—whether in the evening, or at midnight, or when the rooster crows, or at dawn. 36 If he comes suddenly, do not let him find you sleeping. 37 What I say to you, I say to everyone: ‘Watch!’”
Think About The End of Our Time
Luke 12.16 And he told them this parable: “The ground of a certain rich man yielded an abundant harvest. 17 He thought to himself, ‘What shall I do? I have no place to store my crops.’
18 “Then he said, ‘This is what I’ll do. I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store my surplus grain. 19 And I’ll say to myself, “You have plenty of grain laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry.”’
20 “But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?’
21 “This is how it will be with whoever stores up things for themselves but is not rich toward God.”
No comments:
Post a Comment