Glory In The Lord

I Corinthians 1:29-31

²⁹That no flesh should glory in his presence.
 ³⁰But of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption:
 ³¹That, according as it is written, He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord.

            The focus of our lesson tonight will be in verses 29-31 of I Corinthians chapter 1 but to begin I would like to read verses 18-31 in order to better understand the context. Paul has a goal in this section of chapter 1, he is trying to show the Corinthians that the Gospel is foolishness. Corinth was a church that had a variety of problems. One problem that the Church had was that it was in the middle of a terribly sinful city. In fact, according to John Macarthur’s introduction to the book of I Corinthians, “to Corinthianize came to represent gross immorality and drunken debauchery”. The Church had begun to allow the city to influence them. Instead of the Church sanctifying the city as they should have been doing the city had been corrupting the Church. I know there are many Churches that derive their names from places or even directly from Churches in scripture. I have heard of Churches named Ephesus, or Berea and others. But something that I have never been able to understand is a Church that would name itself after Corinth? Why, with a Church this corrupt would a group of believers decide to name themselves after them? There were a variety of sins in the church, even some terrible sins that Paul can almost not believe. But one of the biggest problems in the Church was pride.
            It is hard to say what was the basic and root cause of the problem of the Corinthian Church, but a good guess would be their pride. A brief overlook of the book shows a glimpse at how terrible of a problem they must have had with pride. “no flesh should glory in His presence”(1:29), “let no man glory in men”(3:21), “that no one of you be puffed up for one against another”(4:6), “why dost thou glory, as if thou hadst not received it?”(4:7), “charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up”(v13:4). This is not nearly all of them and this is only a list for I Corinthians, not to mention all the verses that are in II Corinthians. So what Paul does is he first introduces himself and then commends the Church for good things that they are doing. But, then he begins to describe problems they are having in the Church. The first complaint that he has is the factions in the Church. Paul says in verse 10 “I beseech you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you”. And directly after speaking about the divisions he moves on to speak about pride and boasting. The pride and boasting were probably the root cause of all the factions that were disrupting the Church.
            In order to keep them from boasting Paul uses some absolutely extraordinary language to describe the salvation of the soul and the knowledge of God. Verse 21 tells us “after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God”. That is truly amazing to me. God has design us all in such a way that we cannot by our own wisdom come to a true saving knowledge of God. We often teach things that at first sound very contradictory. We as a church believe that God has made Himself known in the hearts of all men through their conscience and nature. Romans 1 makes it clear to us that men are shown God clearly so that they have no ability of saying that they are not responsible for not believing. Verse 1:20 “For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse”. It is obvious and clear that man is given the ability to see God and nature. But, there is a huge difference in knowing God and knowing about God. Those who know God have a true saving knowledge. They don’t simply know facts about Him but have fellowship with Him. This type of knowledge is not possible to be derived through our own wisdom.
            Why is it that we cannot come to this knowledge through our own reasoning and wisdom? Because according to man’s understanding, this is utter foolishness. The death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ for the salvation of our souls is to the Jews a stumbling block and to the gentiles foolishness. The Jews were not seeking a dying Savior, they were not wanting a Messiah that would come and cleanse them of their sins and make them right before God. They desired a Savior of their nation. They wanted a resurrection of the people of Israel so that they would have their land and power they thought they deserved. Even John the Baptist with all the amazingly wonderful statements that he made concerning Christ had to ask if He were really the Messiah or there would come another. The Greeks were those that sought after wisdom. They thought that their minds were the highest wisdom. If it could not be reasoned then it was not true. Reason was the basis of all reality. The only problem was, in their minds the cross of Christ made no sense. Saviors and God Himself does not die, let alone die for such miserable creatures as we are.
            If we are designed in such a way that it is impossible for man to come to a loving and saving knowledge of God through wisdom, than we must as the disciples did in Matthew 19. Christ had just told them that it is easier for a camel to go the through a needles eye than for someone who is wealthy to enter into Heaven. What was the disciples’ response? “They were exceedingly amazed!” This cannot not be, they thought. “Who then can be saved?” We are only left with that. If God cannot be found in our wisdom, in our understanding, in our efforts then “who then can be saved?” And Paul would respond with the same exact answer that Christ did in Matthew 19 “with men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible”. Salvation is absolutely impossible if were up to man to come to God. What does I Corinthians 1:30 tell us? “But ”. God took action and did not leave us where we were! How wonderful and blessed is the thought! We were hopeless, but God in His wisdom decided to make Christ Jesus our “wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption”!
            I would like to look at the treasures that can be found considering Christ in these four aspects of our spiritual life. We must remember that we do not simply have wisdom, righteousness, sanctification and redemption, but we have them in Christ from God! We have all our blessings not only from God, but in God. Let us now expound these great and wonderful blessing in consideration in the great Savior Jesus Christ.

                First, we have in our Lord Jesus Christ wisdom. This is the logical place to begin considering what Paul has just recently discussed. He has spent the past several verses making sure that we understand that saving knowledge is not our own. But guess what, we have saving knowledge! Therefore, the first blessing that would clearly be mentioned is wisdom. God has opened our eyes to see that Christ’s death is not weakness, or is not foolishness but is of God! Something that has occurred in our hearts is that we have come to a conclusion about ourselves and about God. Finally, we understand in all important fact, we are not God. The fatal mistake that the Greeks made was thinking that their thoughts were the final decision maker of reality. But we have come to a better conclusion, God’s words are the final determining factor of reality. We trust God above all else, and that includes ourselves. Please do not misunderstand the point I am trying to make. I am not saying that God is irrational, it cannot be so! What I am trying to say is that some things are beyond reason. Reason and faith are distinctive from one another. As Thomas Manton said “Reason and faith, when kept in their proper place, are of excellent advantage. Join faith with your study and all will be more clear, otherwise we shall stumble at truths.” And also “Reason is the great enemy of faith; and when it is sanctified it is the great servant of faith”. Salvation in Christ without faith is irrational and foolishness, but to those that are called it is the power of God and the wisdom of God! Those things that cannot be found in reason, once we are in Christ, we see as gloriously wise.

                What brings us this wisdom that others cannot understand is simply this. We know that “all things were created by Him and for Him”. Our understanding of the purpose of all things has been flipped upside down. This is the ultimate change in our reasoning from before when we were lost in a wisdom that could not find God. God has opened our eyes to see that everything was created for His glory. Why is it that people scientist have so much trouble believing in God? Because they do not understand that everything is from God and for God. We have wisdom in that we can see a tree and see that which a scientist can never derive through wisdom. As the hymn we often sing says “Heaven above is softer blue, Earth around is sweeter green, something lives in every hue that Christless eyes have never seen, birds with gladder songs overflow, flowers with deeper beauty shine, since I know as now I know, I am His and He is mine”. It says that Christless eyes have never seen such things. That is the ultimate truth. God shines forth to us in beauty and glory in everything because we come to it with a prior understanding that Christ is the basis for it all! This knowledge also allows us to better prioritize our life. If all things are created for Christ, then we are for Christ. We have more wisdom than the most learned of the world in knowing that this world is but a vapor compared to eternity. And that any happiness here is but a shadow of happiness to be found in Christ!

                Not only is Christ made unto us wisdom, but He is our righteousness. We were in a terrible state before God took action in our lives. Not only were we unable to find God in our wisdom but even if we were able to find God we would be utterly destroyed because we are sinful wretches. All of our righteousness is simply before Him as filthy rags. God could not simply open our eyes to see His greatness but he also must make us just before Him. There is only one for this to be done. “Therefore being justified by faith we have peace with God”. God has considered us righteous by simply imputing the righteousness of Christ to us. II Corinthians 5:21 “For He hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.” If the righteousness of Christ belongs to my account, then “Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect? It is God that justifieth.” We are as much justified in the sight of God today as we will ever be. Even in eternity, when we have finally been rid of the presence of sin we will be no more just before God then we are right now! What a wonderful blessing this is! We never have to live with the burden and guilt of our sin, for God is been brought to peace with us. I know that we sin, even terrible sins daily, but I never have to doubt whether I am still just before God. Why? “These things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous”. Jesus Christ THE RIGHTEOUS. Christ is forever by the Father and is forever righteous. I am reminded of a song that has been on my heart dearly of late. Before the Throne of God Above is at the moment my favorite hymn. Verse 2 says

When Satan tempts me to despair
And tells me of the guilt within,
Upward I look and see Him there
Who made an end of all my sin.
Because the sinless Savior died
My sinful soul is counted free.
For God the just is satisfied
To look on Him and pardon me.

                My right standing before God will never change because Christ will never change. “Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and today, and forever.” Amen!

                Following an exposition of righteousness let us now look at the term sanctification and the blessing that we have in Christ. Now grant it, as you all know, I am not a greek expert by any means but it appears that there is a link between the way these two words are used to show that we cannot have righteousness without sanctification. While they are separated in understanding, they are not separated in life. As Spurgeon puts it “righteousness and sanctification must always go together”. They be necessity cannot exist without the other. By sanctification Paul means a day by day separating oneself from the world and becoming more and more like Christ. We become more holy each and every day. This is not a once forever declaration by God counting us holy in His sight, but a daily cleansing us from sin. How is sanctification accomplished and what does it have to do with Christ?

                Let us look at a couple of verse to further our understanding of this subject. II Thess 2:13 “God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctification of the Spirit”. So we see that our sanctification comes from the Holy Spirit working on our hearts. John 17:17 “Sanctify them through Thy truth, Thy word is truth” Now we see that our sanctification is not only through the Spirit but through the very words of God. He purifies our lives through scripture. But Christ is made unto us sanctification according to the scripture we are currently looking at. So how does that work. Here is my understanding of it. To fully grasp how this works the most explicit scripture for it is II Corinthians chapter 3. Paul has been spending his time explaining how scripture is veiled to unbelievers and only after the veil has been lifted can they see Christ glorified for who he is. And then he says an absolutely amazing thing. In verse 18 “we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.” When we have our veils removed we are able to see Christ for who he is in scripture. God has revealed Himself to us in Christ, and not only in Christ, but in Christ in scripture! What effect does this have on us? It says that we are changed from glory to glory. What does glory have to do with sanctification you might ask. But, glory is simply the final result of sanctification. The last stage of sanctification is glorification. That is why in Romans 8:30 Paul tells us “Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified.” He does not exclude sanctification but puts it within glorification since it is simply the final stage of it.

                So, when Paul tells us that we are changed from glory to glory he is simply saying that we are becoming more glorious than we were before. That is sanctification. The question is why. He tells us that when we read scripture that we are able to see God glorified in Christ. And this acts like a mirror, when we see Christ we become like Christ. Have you ever been near someone that you thought was a holy person and that instantly made you not do or say certain things that you normally would? Of course we have. This is somewhat like that be more is happening. We are not simply holding back words and actions we might use otherwise, but when we see a new aspect of the glory of Christ we find it so beautiful that we instantly desire it of ourselves. The spirit reveals to us certain aspects of Christ through the word to daily bring us to be more glorious. Another hint to show this is true is found in I John 3:2, we are speaking of sanctification as the beginning of glorification. But if this is true then by necessity glorification should occur in the same way. “Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is.” When we enter Heaven we will not simply some a new glimpse of a certain aspect of Christ, but we will finally see him gloriously as he is. Then we will be glorified! Seeing Christ fully and wholly as He is will be what brings us our glorification! What an amazing Savior.

                Our final subject mentioned in this verse is our redemption. We know that to redeem something is to set something free with payment. We have been redeemed by Christ’s blood. We not only had to be made right before God but God needed payment for all of our sins. Christ is not only the payment, but he is the thing purchased for us. We have not only been set free from the power of sin but we have gained God. We now belong to God. We are His and He is ours. God has paid the price of our sins so that we might be His. What a glorious Savior is our Christ! But as wonderful and amazing as it is that we have been purchased by God I want to mention here is why redemption is place last on this list. God is become to us wisdom, sanctification, righteousness and then redemption. He places it here as if redemption is the final culmination of our blessings. Our redemption is only partial at the moment. Not that there is any payment that has yet to be paid. Christ has fully paid the price for anything that we might gain in redemption. But we await it to be completed in time.

                When will it be that we receive our final and full redemption? We often say that we receive our final stage of glory when we pass from this world and go into the presence of God. But that is not true either. Often, I fear, that we place too much thought and desire on our immediate arrival into Heaven. Don’t misconstrue what I am trying to say, we should desire to be with Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior every day. But let us look at just one portion of scripture to better understand this. In I Thessalonians 4 we are told of the worries that were concerning the early church. They had a fear that if Christ would come and they were raptured then what would happen to those who have passed on before? I think in our minds today we often think that Paul’s response should have been “who cares? They are with God are they not? What else could they want?” No, Paul answers them in a different way entirely. He says “don’t worry!” In verse 16 “the dead in Christ shall rise first”. Those who are dead and remain will have their bodies resurrected. We believe not only in the spirits presence in Heaven but also the resurrected redeemed body in heaven! Think of it, these bodies that are so weak and fragile, so ready to lose energy and keep us from praising God and doing good as we should. These bodies that we suffer in daily and feel such aches and pains, will not be like this forever. Now we groan along with creation awaiting the day of our redemption. “waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.” Romans 8:23. The resurrection of the dead we are told, “it is sown in corruption; it is raised in incorruption: It is sown in dishonour; it is raised in glory: it is sown in weakness; it is raised in power” I Corinthians 15:42-43. What a glorious thought it is to know that those who have gone on before will not have those old beaten bodies remain in the ground, but one day they along with us will have our bodies redeemed ultimately and fully and our body and soul together will have put on immortality and we shall praise God with everlasting strength forever!

                These verses can only end in one possible way, “let him glory in the Lord!” When we look at Christ we are left with no other option than this, we ought to praise God. God has intentionally made it so that no man would have any reason whatsoever for us to glory in ourselves. If we had any part in our salvation then we will be able to have some glory of our own in Heaven before God. We could say that, “well I will give God glory for my righteousness, but my wisdom and sanctification were all of my own power” But this cannot and will not be! When we stand before God there will be only one thing we could say “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ”. Praise God! That is what we will say. For all eternity we will sing the mighty saving power and wisdom of God!

                God is deserving of all praise that we could ever give Him. The fact is that there will never come a day when we have run out of praise due His name. God is so astonishing glorious that in all eternity there will never be even a moment when we have exhausted the praise that He deserves from us. We will never say that I think I have praised God enough today. The innumerable multitude of believers and angels will sing praise to our father. And with all their harps and all our redeemed souls sing forth in mighty praise for ten thousand times ten thousand times ten thousand years will have not even touched a droplet of water in the ocean of the worth of God. What a wonderful savior is Jesus my Lord! We will forever sing his praise! Let us not wait till Heaven to sing His worth, begin even now. Shout in your hearts for the amazing blessing God has wrought onto us.

                I remember a couple of years ago I took a plane ride to visit my brother in Colorado for thanksgiving. And I don’t know how many of you have been on a plane before but is an absolutely stunning experience. When you can sit on the plane and look out the window there is not much else that can make one feel so small and insignificant. You see the size of just a spec on the earth. I pulled out my laptop and opened it up to a couple of sermons that I had saved by George Whitefield. And I read His sermon on this verse. In order to appreciate the astonishing worth of our glorious Savior we must understand how insignificant we are. If would only, as verse 26 says “see your calling” or in the ESV “consider your calling”. If were honest with ourselves we would know that we have absolutely nothing to do with our salvation. And we do not deserve it. But, we as small, insignificant, not wise, not noble men that are can now own Christ as our wisdom, righteousness, sanctification and redemption. Let us never stop giving glory to our gracious Lord!

                I would like to simply end tonight with a quote from George Whitefield. “Take heed of thinking you stand by the power of your own free will. The everlasting love of God the Father, must be your only hope and consolation; let this support you under all trials. Remember that God's gifts and callings are without repentance; that Christ having once loved you, will love you to the end. Let this constrain you to obedience, and make you long and look for that blessed time, when he shall not only be your wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, but also complete and everlasting redemption. Glory be to God in the highest!”